[OT] Wikipedia 10th anniversary celebrations @ Chennai on Jan 15th , 2011
Srikanth Lakshmanan
Greetings from Team Wikipedia in India.
We write to you on the behalf of Wikimedia / Wikipedian community in India. Wikipedia, the very popular online encyclopaedia being written by volunteers all over the world, is celebrating its tenth anniversary on January 15, 2011.
We request your support and participation for the Wikipedia's Tenth anniversary event in Bangalore.
Wikipedia
Wikipedia, the free encylopaedia that anyone can edit, is among the top 5 websites in the world with over 410 million unique visitors across over 270 languages. India with its diversity of languages and being the second largest country in terms of population is now a key focus area for Wikimedia - the foundation that runs the wikipedia project. In just 10 years, wikipedia has become a phenomenon and a ready reckoner for knowledge in the world, not just in English, but in over 270 different languages spoken by human kind. There are already 20 Indic language Wikipedias and another 20 are in incubation.
You can know more about the Indian contribution to Wikipedia on first Wikimedia India community newsletter :
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Wikimedia_India_Community_Newsletter_2010_September.pdf
10th anniversary
January 15, 2011 will mark a decade of Wikipedia. Founded by Jimmy Wales in 2001, Wikipedia has become the fifth most popular website in the world with 410 million monthly readers (comScore, November 2010). Just three years after its founding, Wikipedia reached 500,000 articles in 50 languages. Now, at 17 million articles in 270 languages and growing, Wikipedia is the only top-ten website in the world that is truly user-generated, supported and maintained. Over the last ten years , hundreds of thousands of people have contributed more than one billion edits to this vital resource. Wikipedia celebrates its tenth anniversary globally on the 15th of January 2011. Wikimedia will celebrate this milestone with volunteers, donors, and other supporters on six continents. From the launch of a new outreach project in Kenya to a film screening in Tel Aviv, there are currently 300+ events planned worldwide. Our celebration events are open to participation by anyone who wants to join in reflecting on our collective accomplishments and goals for the future.
India celebrations and Chennai event
Wikipedians and well wishers in India are celebrating the tenth anniversary in a big way, with celebrations being planned 20+ cities across India. Chennai is one of the active hubs which has produced prolific Wikipedians in India and we plan to celebrate the 10th anniversary.
As part of the celebrations, we are organising a meetup in Chennai on Saturday the 15th of Jan, 2011. We expect it to be attended by about 100+ Wikipedia enthusiasts and guest speakers. We intend to connect Wikipedians with the general public. There would be sessions to introduce Wikimedia projects to the public with a view to spur both consumption and creation of knowledge on various Wikimedia projects. There would also be updates from various Wikimedia projects. We expect active Wikipedians, academia and any one interested in Wikipedia to participate in the event. In addition, we believe there will be much interest from the Free and Open Source communities and other professionals. The event is free to attend
Venue :
Madras Institute of Technology,
Chrompet,
Chennai,
Tamil Nadu, 600044.
Google Maps:
The 3 PM - 5:30 PM event is primarily targeted for regular Wikipedians & Wiki enthusiasts and anyone interested in the general public.
http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai
Some pointers :
* http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai
* http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:TEN
2010 It has been quite a year for Wikipedia and Wikimedia in India.
It was a year that saw at least 31 Wikipedia community meetups in 9 cities. Indian cities Ahmedabad, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata & Mumbai has their first meetups (first documented meetups!). It was a year that saw good participation from Indian wikipedians at Wikimania (Gdansk) and the chapters meeting at Berlin. It was a year that saw the first ever India community news letter and an offline CD. It was a year that saw the first Indian join the Board of Trustees and an Indian wikipedian getting elected as Steward. It was a year that saw the Wikimedia Foundation announce their focus of India as a geography to grow Wikipedia. It was a year that saw the Foundation approve an India chapter formally, MOA getting finalized and the launch of the Wikimedia.in website This year also saw many visits from the foundation - Jimmy Wales, Erik Möller, Danese Cooper, Alolita Sharma, and Barry Newstead visited many cities in India.
It was also a year of many project milestones: (source News on Meta).
- Gujarati Wikipedia reached 15,000 articles (June 7)
- Marathi Wikipedia has reached 30,000 articles (Jul 2)
- Urdu Wikipedia crossed 15,000 articles (Oct 31)
- Malayalam wikipedia cross 15,000 articles (Nov 9)
- Malayalam Wiktionary has reached 60,000 entries (Aug 4).
- Tamil Wikipedia crossed 25,000 articles
- Tamil Wiktionary entered the top-ten with 1,90,000+ entries.
We sincerely request your support for this milestone event. We would be happy to provide any further clarifications you might need and the following people may be contacted.
Manian - +91- 9445395145
Srikanth L + 91- 9945098560
Thank you.
Kind regards,
Wikimedia volunteer.
