Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.com launched the ‘Wikipedia Academy’ here today in a bid to increase its popularity and to reach out to large number of rural masses in the country.
“This is the first in Asia after the launch of the first Academy last month in Germany” Wikipedia.com Founder Jimmy Wales told reporters in Chennai.
“This is the first in Asia after the launch of the first Academy last month in Germany” Wikipedia.com Founder Jimmy Wales told reporters in Chennai.The Academy would be a community driven initiative among online users. “It would focus more on spreading education and supporting Wikipedia by contributing articles on it”.
Sue Gardner, The Executive Director of Wikimedia Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation which supports wikipedia.com, said “the Academy would be a voluntary organisation among online users to basically promote education through wikipedia.com”. She expressed the hope that the academy will have various chapters in India.
Wales told media later that the response they got after launching the academy in Germany was ”encouraging.” “It was launched in German language and we can see lot of contributors for that. The response was very good” Wales said.
However, he said though there were 277 million users for Wikipedia per month only very few users voluntarily involved themselves for editing or contributing of articles present on the website. “This Academy will also promote that.”
On Wikipedia being ranked fourth website by users worldwide after Google, Yahoo and MSN respectively, he said.
“We don’t want to be competitive with others (other website). The article present on our portal is purely on voluntary basis and we want that to continue.”
He also said that they will not allow any kind of commercials to be present on their website.