Wikipedia 15/Events/Bangalore/Press Release from Wikimedia India

Press release: Wikipedia 15

Wikipedia celebrates 15 years of free knowledge

Wikipedians around the world host a global party with events on six continents for Wikipedia’s 15th birthday

Bangalore, January 10, 2016 -- January 15, 2016 marks the 15th anniversary of Wikipedia, the world’s free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. This week, editors and readers around the world celebrate free knowledge and the joy it has sparked over the past 15 years. Wikimedians in Bangalore are hosting a celebration on 10th Jan, 2016 at IKP EDEN™, Tavarekere Main Road. More details can be found at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_15/Events/Bangalore .

Wikipedia launched on January 15, 2001 with a bold vision: a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. At the time, the idea that people around the world would collaborate to build an encyclopedia—for free—seemed unbelievable. Since then, Wikipedia has grown to more than 35 million articles in hundreds of languages, used by hundreds of millions of people all over the world. Wikipedia is still built by volunteers around the world: each month, 80,000 volunteer editors contribute to the site.

Now, 28 percent of the planet alive today have never known a world without Wikipedia. While much of the internet has evolved into a private space, Wikipedia serves everyone on earth, of all backgrounds and ages.

January 15 marks not just the birth of Wikipedia, but the beginning of a movement. Wikipedia is much more than a website. Wikipedia and its sister Wikimedia projects represent a global, ever-expanding resource and community for free knowledge. Here are just a few examples:

Wikipedia started in January 2001 in English, but soon expanded to other languages. Today, Wikimedia projects are available in hundreds of languages. Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Newari, Odia, Pali, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu are the 22 Indian languages in which Wikimedia projects are live.
Volunteers constantly edit and improve Wikipedia. Every hour, roughly 15,000 edits are made to Wikipedia. Every day, 7,000 new articles are created.
Wikipedia became one of the top 10 websites in the world in 2007, and the only non-profit website anywhere near the top.
It’s not just Wikipedia. There are 11 other Wikimedia free knowledge projects, including Wikimedia Commons as well as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikispecies, and more.
Wiki Loves Monuments, a global photo competition, launched in 2010 to document images of cultural heritage. In 2011, the contest was named the largest photo competition in the world. Companion projects, such as Wiki Loves Earth, Wiki Loves Africa, and Wiki Loves Food, documents from around the globe.
Volunteers around the world have built hundreds of partnerships with galleries, libraries, museums to make institutional collections more broadly available.

Today, we celebrate not only Wikipedia, but all of the projects, partnerships, events, and joy it has spurred over the past 15 years, with many still to come. If you’d like to get involved, check out our dedicated Wikipedia 15 page where events are being coordinated. You can use social media to tell us what Wikipedia means to you by tagging @Wikipedia or @wikimediaindia and using the hashtag #wikipedia15.

About Wikipedia

Wikipedia is the largest collection of collaboratively built free knowledge in human history. It is a collaborative creation that has been added to and edited by millions of people from around the globe since it was created in 2001: anyone can edit it, at any time. Wikipedia is offered in hundreds of languages and contains more than 35 million articles. Each month, it receives more than 15 billion pageviews. Wikipedia’s content is contributed and edited by a community of around 80,000 volunteer editors each month.

About Wikimedia India

The Wikimedia India Chapter (Registered Name: Wikimedia Chapter) is an independent and not-for-profit organization that supports, promotes and educate the general Indian public about the availability and use of free and open educational content, which includes the ability to access, develop and contribute to encyclopaedias, dictionaries, books, images, etc. It is an autonomous entity that does not have any editorial control over content on Wikipedia and its related projects. The Chapter does not have access to the servers hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation in the USA.

Press contact

Ravishankar Ayyakkannu,

Program Director,

Wikimedia India

ravidreamswikimedia.in , 9986993336