Wikipedia seeks more contributors from India

CHENNAI: In a bid to bolster user interface, the sixth most popular website in India and the fifth most popular in the world, Wikipedia is ushering in WikiAcademy, a connect between Wiki and its users. The aim: Garner as much contributions for the site from users.

With close to 277 million users visiting it every month, Wikipedia needs more contributors or participants from India, and also the world. Sue Gardner and Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, were in the city to promote the WikiAcademy, started recently by Kiruba, founder of the Knowledge foundation.

WikiAcademy is a community driven initiative that can be started by anyone. It focuses on teaching people how to edit Wikipedia and all other issues related to the site. Volunteers teach and attend various sessions. This is the only such academy across Asia. Some of the issues raised were regulatory in nature and referred to course of action incase of false information or biased articles.

Wales also said that 'western bias' in the articles (most articles are put up by others) could be controlled only through the creation of a diversity of contributors. He equated the neutrality or balance in the entries in Wikipedia to journalists having to keep a neutral view while writing.

Though Wikipedia needs more participants, a majority of the contributions for it's regional pages like Tamil comes from non-resident Indians . This, Wales says, is due to the fact that they are techsavvy and have access to broadband internet.

"The core concept behind the WikiAcademy is sharing knowledge, India values education , free speech and Wiki is the definition of free speech, simply because information is available to all," Gardner said. The fact that India values education, knowledge and free speech makes an enormously opportunity for us, said Gardner. The understanding that Wikipedia is not merely for consumption and contributions should be made was the motive behind this WikiAcademy.