Wikipedia, the world's largest online information resource, turned 25 on Thursday, marking a quarter century of making trustworthy, human-powered knowledge accessible worldwide. Through a campaign, the Wikimedia Foundation - the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia - invites everyone to discover Wikipedia's journey over the last 25 years, celebrate the volunteers who make the site possible, and be part of the platform's future.
"Wikipedia is a digital wonder of the world, unlike anything else. It has overcome countless challenges and changes in its time, thanks to the people behind it and their unwavering commitment to sharing free, reliable knowledge with the world," said Maryana Iskander, Chief Executive Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation.
"With billions of monthly visits and an ever-growing number of organisations relying on Wikipedia's free, verified knowledge, this platform has become integral to the architecture of the entire internet," Iskander added.
An India Mention In Global Birthday Campaign
On Wikipedia's 25th birthday, the Wikimedia Foundation released for the first time a video "docuseries", sharing a behind-the-scenes look at the lives and stories of Wikipedia volunteer editors around the world.
The series stars eight of these volunteers and spotlights their unique purpose and passions for contributing to the online encyclopedia. They include a Californian who has spent two decades documenting hurricanes and storms, an Indian medical doctor who shared critical COVID-19 information during the global pandemic, an elderly librarian in Tokyo making knowledge available in Japanese, and more. Their stories underscore that, even and especially in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), knowledge is human, and knowledge needs humans.
READ: 'Even Musk's AI Encyclopedia Needs Us To Exist': Wikipedia's Dig At Grokipedia
The featured Indian medical doctor, Dr Netha Hussain, played a critical role in sharing accurate COVID-19 medical information during the global pandemic. The inclusion underscores India's growing influence in the global Wikimedia movement of volunteers and the impact of Indian knowledge professionals beyond national borders.
India contributes the fifth-highest number of views to Wikipedia in the world, with about 800 million page views per month. In terms of content contributions, India has the third-largest number of contributors to English Wikipedia after the US and the UK. Wikipedia is a vital resource for people who are looking for educational content in their local language. Wikipedia is available in more than 25 Indic languages. This includes nearly all of the 22 scheduled languages of India.
Events Lined Up For 25th Birthday
The Wikimedia Foundation has launched several initiatives as part of the anniversary campaign:
An interactive quiz inviting users to explore different visions for Wikipedia's future, co-created by editors, children, futurists, and artists.
A global invitation for users to use a new feature, "sign" Wikipedia's digital birthday card, aiming to make it the longest birthday card ever.
A global, virtual birthday event on 15 January at 4:00 pm UTC, featuring surprise guests, games, entertainment, and more. The event will be livestreamed on Wikipedia's YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram channels. Other in-person events are planned worldwide.
Baby Globe, a new birthday mascot inspired by a Wikipedia volunteer's sketches, can be found in a series of playful, visual surprises on several language versions of Wikipedia when readers turn on 'Birthday mode' next month.
A fresh, festive limited-edition collection of Wikipedia merchandise, starting with a Baby Globe plushie developed in collaboration with Makeship.
Wikipedia In The Age Of AI
At a time when AI is becoming the new normal, Wikipedia and its human-created and curated knowledge have never been more valuable. Today, Wikipedia is among the top ten most-visited global websites, and it is the only one to be run by a nonprofit. Its 65 million articles in over 300 languages are viewed nearly 15 billion times every month, and its knowledge powers generative AI chatbots, search engines, voice assistants and more. Wikipedia is one of the highest-quality datasets used in training large language models.
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