Nurunnaby Chowdhury Hasive, administrator of Bangla Wikipedia, an open encyclopedia based on the Internet, has been working with the platform since 2008. He is also actively involved several projects of Wikimedia Commons and Wikimedia Foundation. In addition, he has been writing on information technology and linked to various voluntary works.
Wikipedia is accessible without any data costs in Bangladesh like many other countries. One can do so by visiting m.wikipedia.org and zero.wikipedia.org.
This news portal recently interviewed Hasib when he revealed his job responsibility and other important things.
bbarta: What is the role of Wikipedia in helping expand Bangla as a language?
Hasive: There are essays and articles of 294 languages including Bangla in the open encyclopedia. Currently, Wikipedia has over 48,000 essays in Bangla. Being the most accepted encyclopedia, Wikipedia is the most searched link, which I believe can play a bolder to help gather verified and correct information in Bangla, and is already doing so. Since the contribution to the encyclopedia is done voluntarily, Bangla Wikipedia still lacks many kinds of information. Then again, it is playing a great role for Bangla language.
bbarta: How do you keep in touch with noted linguists and what are the responses?
Hasive: Anybody can contribute to or work for Wikipedia. For now, we are not being able to contact linguists in an expected way. But, anyone interested in this is welcome to help us enrich the encyclopedia.
bbarta: What limitations Wikipedia are facing right now?
Hasive: Wikipedia has a guideline on the publications. A write-up can turn into a nice one if prepared based on the guidelines. But, many an article, be written by an individual or institution, are rejected due to lack of necessary elements or contents. So, we work keeping on mind multiple issues.
bbarta: Does Wikipedia have any special plan about Bangla language?
Hasive: Bangla Wikipedia is one of projects of Wikimedia Foundation on 294 languages. Honestly, there is no such a special plan in this regard. But, the foundation is regularly working on helping all languages advance. As part of the regular activities, we have recently started working on different languages including Bangla.
bbarta: Is Wikipedia going to bring any new feature to its website?
Hasive: Generally, Wikipedia does various experiment before adding something new to its website. It only publishes articles after examining or proof-reading those well. As part of it, Wikipedia has launched an easy method of editing articles in Bangla like other languages. Hence, anybody will be able to add new write-up or edit an existing article easily.
bbarta: Now tell us about your job responsibility.
Hasive: Those working at Wikipedia are called Wikipedians. So, I'm one of them. My responsibility as an Wikipedian is a bit more since I am also working as an administrator. The administrators usually file or edit their own articles, but they have a technical role as an additional duty. This apart, Wikimedia Bangladesh, where I'm an executive member, is working to expand the range of Wikipedia in Bangladesh. In doing so, we are planning to engage people from different walks of life, especially women, to our encyclopedia this year. We have been adding information about our war heroes for last one and a half years. Hopefully, the information of 676 awarded freedom fighters will be incorporated in Bangla Wikipedia.
bbarta/SN
