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Technology Even though Wikipedia has become one of the largest sources of information, Kannada content is largely absent on the site. Wiki enthusiasts are organising an event to make the website reach Kannadigas too, writes Manish 

 
With more than 17 million articles, Wikipedia has emerged as one of the largest information providers and repositories  for people across the globe. It has also become one of the biggest source of information with 1,37,51,056 users being registered on its website.

With contributions in 278 languages, Wikipedia started by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001 is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and has emerged as the largest and most popular general reference websites on the internet. As part of its 10th anniversary, Wiki communities across the world are participating in enhancing and improving local content on the website. The site, which gets around 400 million hits a day is going all out to reach the one billion mark during this year.

The Wiki community in Mysore is doing it’s share to improve content about the city. Speaking to City Herald, Wiki enthusiast Vinay P citing a report from Reuters said that 300 locations across the world and 60 locations in India are planning to add content to the website. So why has Wikipedia become so important for internet users? Vinay said that is because the information is available in one place. The advantage of using this website is that there are no advertisements that bother when you use the website. It grows based on the active involvement of the community.

However, he bemoans that contributions in Kannada (about 9981 articles) have been quite less compared to neighbouring states of Kerala (16,268 articles),Tamilnadu (27,091 articles) and Maharashtra (32,193 articles).

Wiki enthusiasts in the city are holding the 10th anniversary celebrations at JSS Centre for Management Studies, SJCE Campus from 10 am to 2.30 pm on January 16. The topics will include as to how internet users can effectively use Wikipedia for their benefit and also as to how they can contribute and increase content about their city.

The purpose of conducting the celebrations here is to involve more people to contribute to the content. A special session on ‘Kannada and Wiki’ will also be held on the occasion.
Former Kuvempu University Vice Chancellor Prof K Chidananda Gowda, Prof Yogananda, Prof O L N Shastry, Prof M S Sridhar are expected to participate in the interactive programme.

Also participants can bring their laptops and connect through the wi-fi available facility at the SJCE campus and upload content. For newbies, the programme will include demonstrations from experts showing them the intricacies of uploading content on the website. Vinay said that the idea of organising celebrations came up when like-minded friends decided that they should also spread out the use of the information website. Also uploading more articles in Kannada would benefit the people in the region.

Those who wish participate in the programme call 98451 29930 or email vikas.kothari@gmail.com.