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Last week I had the opportunity to share some thoughts on the Wikimedia
Foundation's upcoming work in India with a reporter from TimeOut, who
had interviewed Bishakha Datta on the WMF Board.<br>
<br>
While the activities of the WMF in India have yet to be fully defined,
I thought the responses to the reporter would be interesting to share
with you all. They are appended below. Happy to discuss any aspect of
the responses that might not be clear.<br>
<br>
In addition, I am in the process of planning my visit to INdia from
20-24 Sept. I will be in Mumbai on 20-21, Delhi on 22 and Bangalore on
23-24. My objective for the visit is to spend time with community
members and the chapter representatives to discuss ways WMF can work
with and along side the chapter and community to advance our shared
mission in India. I will also be meeting with friends and advisors of
Wikimedia and I may be conducting interviews for possible staff roles
with Wikimedia in India. More on this soon. <br>
<br>
I hope to have the opportunity to spend time with as many of you as are
available during this visit. <br>
<br>
<br>
Warm regards,<br>
Barry<br>
<br>
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<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><b>Responses to questions
from Time Out India, Aditya Kundalkar</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><b>Prepared by Barry
Newstead, Chief Global Development Officer, Wikimedia Foundation</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><b>August 19, 2010</b></font></p>
<ul>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"></p>
</ul>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><b>Why was India chosen
for Wikimedia Foundation’s office?</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span
style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">We
selected
India as a priority country for investment during our
five-year strategic planning process that we completed in
collaboration with the Wikimedia community. India is a great fit for
a number of reasons, including the large and growing population of
Internet users, the existence of a committed and growing community of
Wikimedia editors and volunteers in India, and the potential to
better-understand important issues that would advance the Wikimedia
movement globally. These areas for learning include the challenge of
growing language projects that are currently small, the question of
how to enable a richer mobile experience, and how to provide access
to Wikipedia for people without Internet access. We see India as a
great place to both advance our mission and learn.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><b>It is the first office
outside of the US, isn’t it?</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span
style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">Yes,
it
will be our first office outside of the US and we are excited that
India will be at the forefront of our global development activities.
We are also looking forward to the official formation of Wikimedia
India, an independent, local chapter, which was recently approved by
our Board of Trustees and is awaiting regulatory approval. The local
Wikimedia India chapter will be a close partner of ours.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><b>Do you feel that there
are too few Indian editors as compared to Indian users of Wikipedia? </b></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2">It is very clear that
there are too few Indian editors today, even though we do not have
the data on the exact number. Wikipedia is one of the leading
websites in India and while there is great knowledge available to our
Indian readers, our projects are nowhere near their full potential. For
example, there are 230 million speakers of Bengali worldwide, yet
there are only 21,500 articles in the Bengali Wikipedia. Hindi is
spoken by 550 million, yet there are only 59,300. The same is true
for most of the languages of India with the exception of English. For
comparison, the English Wikipedia has over 3 million articles. I
would also imagine that there are many important topics of interest
to Indians that are not yet well covered in the English Wikip<span
style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">edia,
despite
its size. We're interested in increasing participation from
Indian editors --not matter what language they speak--English
included. Our main focus in increasing the diversity of voices to
the encyclopedias. </span></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><b>Why is that so?</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2">We believe that the
reason
why we don't have enough editors is multi-faceted, but resolvable
through the concerted action of our community with the support of the
Wikimedia India chapter and the Wikimedia Foundation team. The
number one opportunity is to make people aware that they can edit
Wikipedia and help them learn how. We also have some technical
challenges with Indic languages, like many websites, that we want to
solve with the community to make it easier to work with. </font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><br>
<b>Internet
connectivity and the will to contribute seem to be the two most
important things for Wikipedia’s success and growth. What are the
challenges you face here in India to ensure that these two factors
stay strong?</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2">We are optimistic that
the
Indian community will continue to grow and thrive, though we think
the recipe for success will probably differ somewhat from the US or
Western Europe, where Wikimedia is very mature. Our core approach of
volunteer-driven editing is working in India and our focus will be on
expanding that through outreach efforts to build awareness and
partnerships with educational institutions, ICT programs and others. </font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2">Internet connectivity is
very important, of course and in India (and much of the world), we
are going to have to figure out how to make editing po<span
style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">ssible
via
mobile devices. Th</span>is will be a development priority for
our technology development community and staff. Mobile editing will
open us up to many new editors and a wide range of innovations.</font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><br>
<b>Do you see greater
potential for donations coming in through the India office?</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2">We hope that Indians will
make donations to support Wikimedia's work. We already have donors
from India and we hope tha<span
style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">t
more
Indians will learn about our work and be inspired to donate as
we grow our projects. Wikimedia is largely funded by thousands of
small donations from a broad, global community, over 250,000 people
last year. This helps keep our projects safe, sustainable and
growing.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><br>
<b>Is there a
perception among Indians (especially potential users of Wikipedia,
not editors) that something that they’re getting for free is not as
valuable or trustworthy as something they pay for?</b></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span
style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">We
think
of Wikipedia as a living, evolving public service-- a free
resource providing readers the information they need to
better-understand the world around them. And although I can't speak
for the people of India in terms of trustworthiness and value, but it
seems that their actions speak for themselves – we are a top ten
website in India according to comScore - and over 375 million people
all over the world access Wikipedia monthly. </span></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span
style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">What's
really
exciting for us is that we know the integrity of our
encyclopedias only increase when more, diverse people participate and
contribute. That's a principal driver in seeking to invite more
people to edit the projects. And the great thing is that if there
are mistakes, anyone can fix them and as more people edit, this
process helps create a valuable and highly trustworthy encyclopedia.
Our movement aspires to make highly valuable and trustworthy
Wikipedias available to everyone - in India and around the world.</span></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><br>
</p>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Barry Newstead
Chief Global Development Officer
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel: +1-415-839-6885 x. 634
Skype: barry.wikimedia
Twitter: @bazanews
</pre>
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