Karavali Wikimedians/Events/Tulu Wikipedia Template Training

It was felt that a training on using, importing, localising and creating templates is needed for Tulu Wikipedians. The training sessions were organised as 4 two-day sessions. All the training were held at Sri Ramakrishna P.U. College, Mangaluru. The program was sponsored by CIS-A2K. The dates and links to the event pages are given below.

Sessions and dates

Session-1, 8-9 Sep 2018
Session-2, 13-14 Oct 2018
Session-3, 27-28 Oct 2018
Session-4, 19-20 Jan 2019

Details of the deliberations are documented in the Etherpad.

Participants

These Tulu Wikipedia editors participated in the sessions-

Trainer - Dr. U.B. Pavanaja

Report

Session-1

In this session, introduction to HTML and basics of CSS were taught. Training on these topics were felt needed by the participants. That is because most templates use embedded HTML and CSS codes or pieces of codes. These were followed by basic introduction to templates. What is a template, what are the different types of templates, where are they used, how to use the templates, templates with and without parameters -introduction to these topics were given in this session.

Session-2

Participants started creating sample templates and used them in their sandboxes in this session. Usage of Noinclude, includeonly, and onlyinclude were demonstrated and tried by the participants. Using of magic words were shown next. Templates with parameters, using them with values, what is a default value for the parameter, what happens when the default value is not provided, showing a message for missing parameter were taught. How to localise an imported template was the next topic. Many commonly used templates were imported and localised. Some examples are - {{Done}}, {{Agree}}, {{Accepted}}, {{Implemented}}, {{Approved}}, {{Checked}}, {{Verified}}, {{Confirmed}}, {{Resolved}}. More are listed in the Etherpad.

Session-3

Navigation templates were the first topic of this session. Navbar and Sidebar were explained. Participants created many navigation bars, list is available in the Etherpad. Usage of expressions, conditions and conditional templates were taught next. Participants created some sample conditional templates and used them in their sandboxes. These templates were created for situations arising in Tulu articles.

Session-4

This was the last and most important session. Some more navigation templates were created initially. some revisions were also done since there was a little gap from the previous session. Infobox templates were the main topic of this session. What is an infobox, what are the types of infoboxes, where they are used, how they are used were taught first. Participants created some sample infoboxes and used them in their sandboxes to properly understand the functioning of Infoboxes. Next they localised these templates and understood the process of localising Infoboxes into Tulu. Many useful and needed Infoboxes were imported and localising them into Tulu began. That work is still going on. The list is available in the Etherpad.

Lessons learnt

Enthusiastic and keenly interested participants are a must. The participants were of this type. Arranging sessions with minimum gap between sessions is important for the participants to understand and speed up learning. Some sessions could be organised in quick succession but some could not be. When there was a large gap between sessions, a revision of what was taught in previous sessions was done. If any other community wants to have sessions on template training, they can follow the syllabus or the sequence of topics used in these sessions. They have been organised well and the continuity is good. For the first session, there was a small problem of connecting the laptop to the projector. The problem as resolved after proper connecting cable was found. There was an issue of availability of stable Internet also. This problem was resolved after the training was shifted to another lab. On the last day of the training, it was planned to import many Infoboxes and localise them into Tulu. That day, the Wikimedia server failed and many Infoboxes could not be imported. Participants localised those Infoboxes which were imported already. Infoboxes could be imported next day only but then the training was over. Nevertheless, participants are localising the Infoboxes imported later. It is better to keep all the templates imported before the training session.