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Wikipedia hosts India conference amid expansion push Wikipedia hosts India conference amid expansion push
(1 day later)
By Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC News, MumbaiBy Rajini Vaidyanathan BBC News, Mumbai
Hundreds of people are gathering in Mumbai for India's first Wikipedia conference. "Even if I put a full stop on an article, it's visible to the whole world... it's a great feeling."
The three-day event is part of the online encyclopedia's plans to expand in the sub-continent. Twenty-one-year-old Abishek Suryawanshi is a Wikimedian.
Wikipedia wants to tap into India's growing internet population, by creating more pages in local languages, such as Hindi, Marathi and Gujerati. For those who haven't read the relevant explanatory page online, that means he's an avid reader, writer and editor of the online encyclopaedia site Wikipedia.
The website says the conference is the one of the largest gatherings it has ever held. He's also one of some 700 people across India who attended the nation's first-ever Wikipedia conference over the weekend in Mumbai.
The campus of Mumbai University has, for the weekend, been overtaken by more than 700 "Wikimedians". "Knowledge is the one platform where each and everyone can come together in this world; it's something which binds us together," says Suryawanshi, a student from Pune who started editing Wikipedia entries 18 months ago.
For those who have not read the relevant explanatory entry online, they are avid readers and editors of Wikipedia. Plagiarism concerns
Twenty-one year-old Abishek Suryawanshi from Pune is one such Wikimedian. The three-day event began with an address by the website's founder, Jimmy Wales, who told those gathered that this "could be largest wiki-conference that's ever been held".
He believes more Indians should get online and write entries - because there is so much to share. This crowd may be a captive audience, but Mr Wales has big plans to broaden the website's appeal to the rest of India, and tap into the country's growing internet population, which the Internet and Mobile Association of India currently puts at some 100 million.
"India has a vast knowledge from Rig Veda and Bhagavad Gita (sacred texts), to the current nanotechnology and bio-technology, so I think that a platform like Wikipedia will be perfect for Indians to showcase their knowledge." He wants to encourage more Indians to write Wikipedia entries in their local languages.
Expansion At present there are some 35,844 editors in the English Wikipedia, with only 50 in Hindi.
Wikipedia started out a decade ago, but is targeting India to take advantage of the country's growing number of internet users - currently around 100 million. "Hundreds of millions of people are more comfortable thinking and dreaming and talking and counting in their mother tongue," says Hisham Mundol, who heads up India programmes for the Wikimedia foundation, the charitable arm of the organisation.
"It's an extremely important place for Wikipedia," says Hisham Mundol from the Wikimedia Foundation. "The different kinds of sweets, saris, history, culture - at about every parameter there's so much magic you could write about."
"For starters there are a billion people out here and hundreds of millions of users are more comfortable thinking, dreaming, talking and counting in their mother tongues, so we need to really build the Indic language Wikipedia projects." Mr Mundol dreams of a day when every village in India has its own page, providing an original resource on the country.
The site has its supporters but detractors too. However, India's internet penetration is still very low as a proportion of the overall population, and it will be a big challenge to reach out beyond the cities and their self-confessed cyber geeks.
Outside the campus a small group of protesters demonstrated against the depiction of the map of India on Wikipedia, which they say is an inaccurate and illegal representation of the country's borders. One way Mr Mundol says he is trying to do this is through the distribution of "off-line" Wikipedia to schools.
The site's founder, Jimmy Wales, who flew in for the event, seemed unconcerned by the protests. Government schools in Kerala have partnered with his foundation to distribute DVDs containing Wikipedia entries, which children can read on school-issue laptops.
"I want Wikipedia to be neutral on such topics. It's not up to us to decide what's the correct map of India, but it is up to us to explain to people that there is this controversy." Mr Mundol accepts this will not have the real-time updates and ability to edit, but insists "it's a huge jump from where they are right now in terms of difficulties accessing libraries, or not having the ability to afford books".
The foundation says it is looking to work with governments in Assam and Tamil Nadu on similar initiatives.
In Pune there is a trial programme encouraging students aged 18 to 25 to write their essays as Wikipedia submissions, which are then marked by the college professor.
Nitika Tandon, who works on India education projects for the Wikimedia foundation, admits that one of the biggest problems they have found is plagiarism and that more needs to be done to make students aware of copyright issues.
In India, and the rest of the world, plagiarism has become a by-product of Wikipedia. Many people, like Abishek Suryawanshi, say it is unavoidable and that for some students it is all too easy to look something up on Wikipedia.
But plagiarism has proved to be not the only problem for Wikipedia India.
Outside the Mumbai conference, a group of 10 to 15 protesters demonstrated against the depiction of the map of India on Wikipedia, which they say is an inaccurate and illegal depiction of India's borders.
Mr Wales appeared unconcerned: "It's very important all people become educated on the issues. I want Wikipedia to be neutral on the issues; it's not up to us to decide what's the correct map of India of course, but it is up to us to explain there is this controversy."