Photos of the city taken by you during a special tour on January 3 will be uploaded on Wikipedia; they will pop up with your name in the creditline when someone searches for Ahmedabad on the web encyclopaedia
Want to show the world how aapnu Amdavad looks like? Pick up a camera, capture glimpses of the city and share them with the world’s largest collaborative encyclopaedia on the web, Wikipedia. The global non-profit organisation, Wikimedia Foundation, is organising ‘Wiki Takes The City’ walks for Ahmedabad on January 3, and snaps taken during the initiative could end up uploaded on the site along with a creditline for you.
Those passionate about the city and photography can join the “walks” that will begin from Gandhi Ashram in Sabarmati at 8.30 am and cover various areas of the city.
Said Noopur Raval, a member of the Wikimedia India chapter, “Not many are aware of the way this group works. Through this walk, we invite anybody and everybody to join us and take photographs of Ahmedabad. These pictures can be of something that can be seen as the landmarks of the city. Right from monuments, food items, buildings, roads and bridges to college campuses.”
All are free to join the tour in which they will use vehicles and contribute their images to the local chapter. Selected few will be uploaded on Wikipedia, she said.
The aim of this exercise is to encourage participants to compete to take photographs of as many local sites and city specific objects of cultural heritage as possible for Wikipedia articles, says the information on ‘Wikipedia Takes Ahmedabad’ page.
Through this exercise, Wikipedia will add on to its open and free knowledge sharing and promote awareness of Wikipedia in the city. “Anybody with a passion for photography and a camera can join us. They may also carry data transfer cables so that they can hand us the pictures towards the end of the tour, if they so wish,” Raval said.
The pictures will be uploaded as licensed material with credits attributed to the photographers. Said Raval, “These pictures will come under the Creative Commons licence (CC DY-SA) which allows Wikipedia users for use in educational and commercial purpose as long as they are being attributed to. They may adapt it and modify it, as long as they acknowledge it.”
So, the next time someone sitting in Bosnia or the Botswana surfs the internet for Ahmedabad, there are chances of your photograph popping up along with an article with your name flashing on it.
The recently held first annual India function of Wikimedia Foundation in Mumbai saw a huge participation. Across the world these Wikimanias see a participation of around 500 people while at the India conference close to 700 participants remained present. This gave a huge impetus to the group, Raval said.
Srikeit Tadepalli, a 24-year-old Amdavadi student pursuing MBA (advertising) at SIMC-Pune, said, “I have been a part of the Wikipedia since 2006. When I began writing and collecting information I was in school. I had a bit of time on my hand which I turned into a productive and global knowledge sharing exercise.”
Tadepalli is one of the few administrators with Wikipedia who usually have more tools than common users and can reject or block controversial or indecent articles. The Ahmedabad Wikipedia group has a strength of only six or seven members. “Contributors from Ahmedabad may be few in number but they are dedicated to the cause of knowledge sharing. That’s why four out of these few members have been made administrators,” he said.
Another administrator Anirudh Singh Bhati, a 25-year-old lawyer added, “I was a student at Gujarat National Law University when I first posted my edit, on January 26, 2006. It happened when I was searching for my university but there was not much information which is why I created a page on GNLU.”
Soon Bhati realised that this is more than being just an encyclopaedia as he found an entire community behind the content. The fact that his knowledge was being seen by millions of net users prompted him to spend hours of research and work. “My contribution is being read not only by those reading journals but by billions. It also gets prominently displayed. Every second close to 10,000 members are watching every word that comes on Wikipedia with around 1500 administrators which ensures that nothing wrong goes up on the pages.”
HOW DOES ONE POST INFORMATION ON WIKIPEDIA?
Anyone can edit an existing article or create a new one and volunteers do not need to have any formal training. The people who create and edit articles in Wikipedia are spread all over the world and come from a wide range of age and backgrounds. A contributor to this encyclopaedia, unregistered or registered, is called a “Wikipedian” or more formally known as “editor”.
The best of articles are highlighted in the list of featured articles. These articles were granted “featured” status because they were judged to be of high quality by other editors. (If later editing compromises the quality of a featured article, a user can nominate it for removal from the list.)
WHO ARE WIKI ADMINISTRATORS?
Administrators, commonly known as admins or sysops (system operators), are Wikipedia editors trusted with access to restricted technical features (tools). For example, administrators can protect, delete and restore pages, move pages over redirects, hide and delete page revisions, edit protected pages, and block other editors.
Administrators assume these responsibilities as volunteers. They must never use the tools to gain an advantage in a dispute in which they are involved. Administrators should not be confused with Wikimedia system administrators (“sysadmins”).
For further information: