اردوویب بلاگ

First of all I would like to thank Zakria for allowing me to post on this blog. People residing in different countries or even different continents joining their efforts in a project so fast is truly amazing. Such is the power of blogging that has made this kind of collaborative work possible.

In my opinion this group blog perfectly complements the Urdu Wiki. This blog provides a platform for collaboration, information exchange and progress tracking. The deliverables are the contents of UrduWiki. From classical software engineering point of view, the original proposals draft from Zakria is the approximation of a requirements specification. I would suggest that we proceed systematically in this project instead of allowing the Wiki to grow on itself organically. One sure way to control the structure of UrduWiki is to explicitly plan it and create the nodes on the Wiki. As I have observed, we tend to provide both the English as well as Urdu versions of the information. Using the approach already mentioned, an explicit structuring based on the language criteria can also be provided. This would provide a basis that can be extended later as required. The node or pages on UrduWiki thus await information instead of leaving the users guessing. One structure that I can think of is as following:

• Main Page
  • Introduction and history of Urdu
  • Urdu blogging
  • Introduction
  • Tools
    • WordPress
      • Introduction
      • Download
      • Installation
      • Use
    • ...
    • MovableType
    • Introduction
    • Download
    • Installation
    • Use
    • ...
    • Blogger
    • Signing in
    • Starting a Blog
    • Selecting a template
    • Modifying the selected template
    • Posting in Urdu
  • ...
  • Urdu blogs
  • Urdu resources on the net
    • Websites with Unicode Urdu
    • Newspapers
    • Magazines
    • Urdu email services
    • Urdu forums
    • Urdu eBooks

• Websites with graphic Urdu

  I have found another Urdu Wiki under http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, which looks pretty much defunct. I think somebody took up the effort long ago and gave up due to lack of interest. We still can borrow some ideas from the layout of this Wiki.

  Another comment that I have is that we should not put unnecessary effort into finding equivalent Urdu words for those English words that are now commonplace in Urdu. There are several English words that are so entrenched in other languages that these become literally part of their vocabulary. That is why German and French people lament about speaking Denglisch and Franglais instead of Deutcsh and Francais. Further I would say that the use of graphic Urdu is unavoidable in some cases. We need at least one page guiding users through the process of setting up Urdu on their computers. An image link on the main page would lead to this help page. This image link would contain Urdu text in graphic form asking users to go the help page if they cannot see Urdu properly displayed. One such page is at http://www.pehchaan.net/main/fonts/install.htm.

  As far as the choice of Urdu font is concerned, I seem to be in minority. I prefer using Urdu Naskh Asiatype which is also used by the BBC’s Urdu website. I just think it provides better display quality of Urdu text and it also allows diacritics that probably are missing from Nafees Web Naskh, the font of choice of the other authors of this blog.

  Danial: I have created a link on the UrduWiki for the crash course on blogging on blogger.com. It would be nice if you could copy the contents of your blog under http://www.urduweb.org/wiki/BloggerCrashCourse. You can create separate pages for the English and Urdu versions if you like.

  Asif: I would have liked a little bit more control over the attributes of the text in the Wiki. I have seen one WikiEditor mentioned under http://www.openwiki.com/ow.asp?WikiEditor. Is it possible for you to integrate this into UrduWiki? I would like to support the explanation of Urdu blogging on blogger.com with screenshots. I need your help in incorporating images in to the Wiki content.

  Nabeel

  This entry was posted on Sunday, January 30th, 2005 at 6:05 pm and is filed under Blogger, English. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.