Help expand the Kabiye Wikipedia
What is Wikipedia?
Wikipedia is a web site containing articles on every subject imaginable, created and edited by voluntary, anonymous contributors. Anyone can add a new article or edit an existing one. Since it was created in 2001, it has quickly become the biggest encyclopedia in the world. From the very beginning, Wikipedia has always encouraged multi-lingualism: anyone can create a new Wikipedia in any of the world's languages. These statistics give an idea of just how big it is:
- 36 million articles
- 290 languages
- 5 million articles in the English Wikipedia
- 1.7 million articles in the French Wikipedia
- 31,000 articles in the Yoruba Wikipedia
- 18 billion pages viewed per day
- 500 million visits per month
- The English version alone, if it were printed, would contain 2235 volumes.
The Kabiye Wikpedia
The Kabiye Wikipedia now has 1604 recognized articles and has had 2465 users since it began.
Help expand the Kabiye Wikipedia
Visit the site regularly, but don't just read articles, be pro-active. Create an account (see below), then correct the content, style, grammar, vocabulary, neologisms and spelling. Add sentences, paragraphs, sections and images to existing articles. Create new articles. Delete inaccuracies. Participe in on-line discussions with other users. Participation is completely open and voluntary.
The best way to generate content at this early stage is to translate articles from the English or French Wikipedias into Kabiye. Don't try to translate entire articles, because some of them are very long. It's best just to translate the summary paragraphs at the beginning. You can always come back and translate the rest at a later date.
Don't spend too much time thinking about how to translate difficult technical terms either. It's best to kick off with an imperfect draft. Someone else can come along and improve it later. The priority for the moment is to create as many short rough-and-ready articles as possible.
If you're not a Kabiye speaker, you can still contribute by adding photos, infoboxes and categories.
Creating an account
- Go to the Kabiye Wikipedia
- Enter a user name
- Enter a password
- Confirm the password
- Enter an e-mail address
Creating a new article
- Type the title of the article in the box above "Créer un article"
- Click on "Créer un article"
- Start writing in the box provided
Correcting an existing article
- Type the name of the article in the box marked ñɩnɩ in the top right hand corner of the page
- Click on it
- Click on the tab labeled ñɔɔzɩ
- Make your changes
- Add a brief summary of your corrections in the space at the bottom
- Click on "Save"
A final reminder...
The Kabiye Wikipedia is available on all computers with an internet connection worldwide. What a great way of enhancing the status of your language! But it will only grow if Kabiye speakers participate.