Wiki meet for Delhi tomorrow

Wikipedia is hosting an open session for Delhiites to add to its pages on the city’s new hangouts, habits and culture.

If you think Wikipedia doesn’t have the real good stuff on Delhi or just doesn’t get the city right, tomorrow is your chance to change that. The open source knowledge website is holding a meet-up in Hauz Khas on Sunday, and everyone is welcome to pump up the information on the Capital in there. And not just the boring stuff. The representatives say they’re looking for bright, young people to join them in adding up more on the city’s cultural hubs, new landmarks, hangouts and historical hotspots.

“People still have the wrong notion that Wikipedia has a set of permanent editors who put all the information there. Everything in there is written by users, and the more people we have from Delhi, the better a knowledge bank we’ll have on the city. Abroad, they have a page on each street and every good place,” says Abhishek Suryawanshi, Wiki ambassador. So, existing editors — ordinary users, that is, will guide the new editors who wish to debut at the meet. The informal session, which will be held at Wikipedia’s Delhi office — the only one in the world outside of the United States — will also see an open debate and discussion on what needs to be done to make Delhi look up on the website. “For example, we recently had a meet in Ahmedabad and discovered that there are not too many pictures of the city on the site. Within a week of the session, we had over a thousand photos up there!” says Suryawanshi.

For all the questions on the credibility of the information on the encyclopedia, Suryawanshi has one answer. “Wikipedia is just a collection of quality references. We go ahead and put a fact in there irrespective of the contributor, as long as there’s a citable, reliable reference to go back to. Students and other users often say they’ve checked this or that on Wiki, but Wikipedia should not be quoted that way. It’s a start point to any research, not the end point,” he says.

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Catch it here
What: Delhi Wikipedia Meetup
When: June 10
Timings: 3pm - 6pm
Entry: Free
Where: Top floor, G-15, behind Hauz Khas G-Block Mkt (NOT the main Hauz Khas market)
Nearest Metro Station: Hauz Khas on Yellow Line