Bangalore:
Three Indian cities, Bengaluru, Mumbai and New Delhi, will compete to make it as what is being called by Wikimedians as the Wikicapital of the country.
Barry Newstead, Chief Global Development Officer, Wikimedia Foundation, is currently making the rounds in the country trying to choose the best city.
"The top priority of the Wikimedia Foundation is to support the growth of communities of Wikimedians in India across the multitude of languages in the country." Newstead said.
He added, "We are planning to work with the community to spread the word about Wikimedia's work with the goal of enabling millions more Indians to contribute to and benefit from Wikimedia's free knowledge projects."
Tinu Cherian (30), a Wikipedia administrator, said, "Bengaluru has a fairly high chance of being chosen because we have wiki-meet up's once a month, with around 20 members."
(Your say: Which should be the Wiki-capital of India?)
He added, "There is a large IT population here and a very vibrant wiki-network. So our chances are better."
Moksh Juneja (30), a former Wikipedia administrator from Mumbai, said, "I would love to say Mumbai but the number of articles that come in from this city are less.
I wouldn't say Mumbai at all." He added, "I think Bengaluru is probably the best city because there is much more activity there."
Priyanka Prachad (33), a social media consultant in New Delhi, said, "This city has a strong online community. Bengaluru has tiny forums and Mumbai has none so I would say New Delhi."
She added, "I started the Delhi Bloggers Bloc in 2004 which has grown and it's communities like this that other cities don't have."
What is Wikimedia?
It is a non-profit charitable organisation. It operates several online collaborative wiki projects including Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, Wikimedia Incubator and Meta-Wiki. Its flagship project, Wikipedia, ranks among the top ten most-visited websites worldwide.