If you generally garner information about anything under the sun (or beyond it) on the Internet, it is likely that your knowledge quest maps have driven you to Wikipedia more than once.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales was in India recently to launch the ‘Wikipedia Academy,’ and to boost awareness about Wikipedia among the rural masses in the country. The academy was started recently by Kiruba, the founder of the Knowledge Foundation.
Techtree had an opportunity to have a chat with Jimmy Wales. Following are excerpts from the interview.
Where did the whole idea of Wikipedia come from?
The idea originated from watching the growth of the free software movement or open source software and realizing that people, programmers, are coming together to read the really great software that are running through the internet. We realized that this kind of collaboration could be extended beyond just softwares to all kinds of (cultural) products.
What makes Wikipedia stand out as a source of information?
Well, already Wikipedia is by far the most popular source of information in the world; and the thing that makes it stand out is quality. This is something we are really focused on within our community. We want to think about how we can make Wikipedia as good as it possibly can be, so that people can rely on it as much as possible. This is a challenge, but it’s one that we are meeting with time.
Aren’t the blogs crowding the web space?
Not really. People use blogs for certain purposes. Blogs are a great place to post an analysis, commentary, or opinion. However, when people want to get mutual information as opposed to opinions, they turn to Wikipedia.
What is going to be the key take-away from the Wikipedia Academy?
The main thing we are looking to do at Wikipedia Academy is to teach new people how to edit Wikipedia. It will be a test of learning for me too. I am going to meet some people who are interested in Wikipedia but have never edited. I am going to learn why they haven’t done that and what problems they faced. Thus, we can go back and think about how to improve the website so that more people can participate.
How will Wikipedia counter the risks of collaborative writing?
The main thing is that we have a core community. We know that we are at risk since we have an open website. Anyone can do something bad at any moment in time. Thus, we try to give our core community the tools to monitor things so they can block people if they are misbehaving. They can quickly find errors and remove them and also lock pages when necessary. There is a whole suite of tools that gives the community the power to make Wikipedia better.
So, what next for Wikipedia?
The biggest thing that’s coming next in the coming year would be a major project that looks at making it easier for people to edit the website. The other thing when I think long term, i.e., in the next 5 years, would be really focusing on giving the word out to help Wikipedia to grow in all the languages of the world. We have really taken English and other European languages and now we want to be big in all the languages. So, there is a lot of work to be done. We have over 250 languages in total and about 157 languages with 1000 articles.
How is Wikipedia coping with the economic breakdown?
Well, it’s interesting. We are holding a fundraising drive, and before we started we were wondering if we will see the impact of the economic condition on our drive. However, so far, we haven’t seen any impact whatsoever. People seem to be understanding that we need money to survive and they have been donating very well. In terms of participation, we are expecting people to participate at higher levels. If there is an economic downturn, then people cannot afford to go out for a fancy dinner or something, but stay home and surf the net, which is a cheaper form of entertainment.
When was Wikipedia started, with how many people, and how has it developed from that time?
I started Wikipedia in January 2001. It was an outwork of a previous project called ‘Newpedia’. We started with about 200 people in our active community who used to contribute. It then mostly grew by word of mouth and now it’s the 4th most popular website in the world, which is amazing.
Can you give me a number on how many people use the website?
Every month, about 280 million people look up Wikipedia.
What are your plans for India?
The main thing we are looking at in India is how we can develop a (Wikipedia) community in India and how to hold events to build the community here. I am very interested in the growth of all the languages in India. This is something we are very excited about since the past 2 years. We have been seeing a 5-10% monthly growth in a lot of our languages, and it’s really beginning to explode now. Also, I am very excited about the future of IT in India. There is already a very large IT industry here, which is continuously growing. I believe that the bulk of the IT industry is going to move to India in the next 20 years. I do not think that many people see that coming, but a few smart ones do.
What is the turnover of Wikipedia?
We are more of a charity than a company. We are getting donations of about $6 million next year. It’s very tiny considering the impact that we are having. We are more of a social movement than a company.
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