Wikipedia’s role in India’s digital knowledge revolution

Love it or hate it, you just can’t ignore it. That pretty much sums up Wikipedia for everyone who gets online, doesn’t it? Scholars and academics roll their eyes and take it with a pinch of salt, but for the rest of the world Wikipedia has become absolutely essential for looking up any and every kind of information on the internet – receiving over 6.6 billion visits every month, making it the 5th most popular online destination in the world, according to Semrush. 

It’d be fair to say that Wikipedia’s visitors are innately curious, choosing to go beyond just the result of their search engine keywords in a slightly deeper pursuit to expand their knowledge. Nowhere is this more visible than in India. “Wikipedia is a global platform providing human-generated, encyclopaedic content in over 300 language editions. India has the fourth highest number of views to Wikipedia in the world, with over 1 billion page views per month,” confirmed Praveen Das, Lead Partnerships Manager, South Asia at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organisation behind Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. This staggering statistic underscores the platform’s importance in India, not just as a repository of knowledge but as a tool for empowerment and education.

Out of over 300 languages present on Wikipedia, more than 25 Indic languages are rooted in the Indian subcontinent. This includes nearly all of the 22 scheduled languages of India; the largest number of languages represented from one country on the online encyclopaedia. With its rich tapestry of languages and cultures, India represents a unique challenge and opportunity for Wikipedia. The country boasts the second highest number of internet users in the world, making it a fertile ground for the dissemination and creation of free knowledge. Yet, the challenge lies in reaching every corner of this vast nation, ensuring that the knowledge available is not just in English, but in the myriad of languages spoken across the subcontinent. 

Also read: Wikipedia’s Tamil Superhero added 22,500 articles himself!

Praveen highlights that India is not just a passive consumer of Wikipedia but a significant contributor as well. “In terms of content contributions, India has the third-largest number of contributors to English Wikipedia after the U.S. and the U.K.; and it leads in content creation within the South Asia region, representing over 70% of the region’s information on Wikimedia projects,” he shares. This vibrant participation is a testament to the country’s commitment to knowledge sharing and the potential for further growth in this space.

To further understand the nuances of Wikipedia’s mission and its India relevance, read the following interview with Praveen Das. Edited excerpts follow:

Q) What are some Wikipedia facts that most Indians don’t know about?

Wikipedia is the only top global website operated by a non-profit organisation, the Wikimedia Foundation. The site is not funded by advertising; it does not track your activity, sell your information, or use algorithms to promote content. No matter where you are in the world, which device you are using, or what’s in your browser history, everyone sees the exact same information on Wikipedia. 

No single entity or establishment (including the Wikimedia Foundation) controls the content published on Wikipedia; It is instead curated by a global community of volunteers who have created various policies and guidelines to determine what content is published on Wikipedia. Volunteers publicly add, edit and debate about content on Wikipedia to ensure it is fact-based, well-sourced and presented fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible, without editorial bias. Lastly, Wikipedia is not divided in terms of countries (i.e. there is not an “Indian Wikipedia”), but instead there are different language editions of Wikipedia.

Q) How is Wikimedia addressing the digital divide in India, specifically reaching users in non-metro areas?

The Foundation is committed to addressing knowledge gaps related to smaller language Wikipedias and increasing digital literacy among Wikipedia enthusiasts in Tier 2/3 cities. For example, we support the work of our partners such as the Centre for Internet and Society – Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) who work on the ground to provide training and programs for youth in rural areas to enhance their digital skills and contributions to Wikimedia projects.

Also read: On Wikipedia’s 15th birthday: 10 interesting facts about the online encyclopedia

Furthermore, for users that may have unreliable internet connections, Wikipedia apps are also a great source for gaining knowledge. Wikipedia articles can be saved to reading lists and made available offline on the Wikipedia app, which is a really popular feature on Android phones.  To further make Wikipedia accessible more widely across India, the Wikipedia app is also available on the Jio app store for mobile, PC and the JioBook.

Q) How is Indian academia and local government participating in Wikimedia’s knowledge mission in India?

The Wikimedia Foundation welcomes collaborations and initiatives with local partners and institutes that can help advance our mission of ensuring that everyone is able to access and share knowledge on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.  

One such long-term collaboration is with IIIT Hyderabad, who has been our key partner in hosting events and conferences for Wikimedia community volunteers and other mission-aligned  stakeholders. For example, the bi-annual Wikimedia Technology Summit is dedicated to bringing together technologists, researchers and community members to discuss and find solutions for integrating marginalised languages and communities into the Wikimedia projects. 

We have also established WikiClubs in various technology institutions across the country. Through this initiative, we hope to organise outreach activities particularly in colleges located in Tier 2/3 cities to raise awareness amongst students about benefits of developing open-source technology and contributing to local language Wikimedia projects.

Also, to support our translation services for Indian languages, we have integrated the IndicTrans2 model developed by AI4Bharat@IIT Madras, into our global Machine in Translation (MinT) translation services. Supported by the Digital India Bhashini Mission, this project covers all 22 scheduled languages of India. This will help increase contributions in Indian languages on Wikipedia, and help improve the quality of machine translations available in these local languages.

Furthermore, the Foundation has supported CIS-A2K and the Telugu Wikimedia community in collaborating with the Department of Language and Culture, Telangana, to digitise cultural heritage resources and make them available on the Wikimedia projects so that they can be accessed by even more people. 

Q) How does Wikipedia aim to meet the evolving needs of Indian users?

Media reports in India indicate a significant rise in the use of the internet in local languages. According to surveys conducted by the Wikimedia Foundation among Indian users, having information in local languages is among the top 5 motivations for using and trusting online information. Wikipedia’s availability in local language is among the top 10 attributes associated with the Wikipedia brand. 

We are committed towards strengthening our technological capabilities to support language translations and knowledge access in local languages. This can help make sure more people can participate in knowledge creation and sharing in India. The Foundation’s MinT translation service specifically focuses on simplifying the process of translating Wikipedia content and expanding access to accurate information in underrepresented languages.

Furthermore, Indians are browsing, and downloading apps more than ever. We see a great potential for growth in the use of the Wikipedia app on mobile devices in the country, especially for users who are looking to access trustworthy information on apps without any worries of ads, algorithms that influence content, or privacy threats. Year-on-year, we see the highest installs of the Wikipedia app from India. 

India remains a top country in terms of making edits on Wikipedia through the Android app. Additionally, we’ve learned that users in the Indian market appreciate articles with local context, and enjoy features such as Places that allows them to find articles based on their geographic location across languages. 

Q) How is Wikimedia working to encourage participation from women editors and contributors in India specifically?

For many years, the Wikimedia Foundation along with Wikimedia volunteer communities in India have been making efforts to address knowledge gaps on Wikipedia. 

On International Women’s Day, 8th March 2024, the Wikimedia Foundation launched the ‘Wikipedia Needs More Women’ campaign, calling on everyone to help close gender knowledge gaps on Wikipedia. As part of this global campaign, local Wikimedia communities held various trainings, edit-a-thons and workshops in different parts of India to encourage more participation from women and contributions on women-related topics on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.  

WikiWomen Camp 2023, held in Delhi-NCR, hosted around 100 volunteers from 30 countries to discuss how the Wikimedia community can increase gender equity on Wikimedia projects. As a result, the group announced a comprehensive declaration for promoting diversity and inclusion on Wikimedia projects and shared key recommendations and next steps with wider volunteer communities. 

Q) How’s Wikipedia combating misinformation and ensuring the accuracy and reliability of information?

Volunteers on Wikipedia vigilantly defend against information that does not meet the site’s policies. They regularly review a feed of real-time edits to quickly address problematic changes; bots spot and revert many common forms of negative behaviour on the site; and volunteer administrators (trusted Wikipedia volunteers with advanced permissions to protect Wikipedia) further investigate and address negative behaviour.

When a user account or IP address repeatedly violates Wikipedia policies, administrators can take disciplinary action and block them from further editing. Violations can include things such as repeated vandalism, undisclosed paid editing, or edit warring. 

The whole process of content moderation by Wikipedia volunteers is open and transparent. Everything from the way an article grows and evolves over time, to the citations used to verify the facts, to the content discussions amongst editors, are all publicly available on the article’s history and talk pages. 

While volunteers address the vast majority of content and conduct issues on Wikimedia projects, the Foundation has a Trust and Safety function that alerts and supports the volunteer community on some extreme cases when they are reported to them. In some instances, the team investigates larger issues of disinformation and other systematic forms of disruptive behaviour that might appear on the site. They may also take action in a small number of cases, such as when the behaviour of contributors on Wikimedia projects threatens the safety of other editors, keeps false information on the platform, or prevents volunteer communities from functioning properly. 

Furthermore, the Wikimedia Foundation has a team creating a new generation of AI models to increase the capacity of volunteers. Over the past 20 years, the approach to AI on Wikipedia has always been that humans edit, improve, and audit the work done by AI. Volunteers create and enforce guidelines for responsible use of these AI/ML tools across Wikipedia.

Our technology team regularly works with volunteers on features designed to make the work of editors more efficient, enabling them to focus time on edits that require complex human judgement. This work also includes the development of algorithms to measure the quality of Wikipedia articles and machine learning models that help catch incidents of vandalism on Wikimedia projects.

Q) How can interested people in India help contribute to Wikipedia?

There are many ways people in India can get involved in adding and improving knowledge on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. This video has a great overview of ways to get involved. I am also sharing a few simple steps on how people can start their journey as a contributor:

Getting started on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects

One of the easiest ways to get started with editing Wikipedia is by adding a citation or other smaller task to become familiar with how the site works. This resource has a lot of great information on how to get started with editing Wikipedia. Another easy way to get involved is by contributing photos to Wikimedia Commons, the free repository of photos, videos, and audio files. This resource has more information on how to upload your first photo on Commons.  

Joining a local wiki community group

There are several different community groups supporting Wikimedia Indic language projects who conduct various outreach and engagement activities. Checking out a local community group is a great way to learn more about Wikimedia projects, how to contribute and meet volunteers.

If you’re a programmer, you can contribute code 

Wikipedia and Wikimedia sites rely on a network of volunteers for content and moderation, but volunteers also help write and debug code that helps keep the projects running. Developers across all levels can learn how to get started at our developer hub. You can also connect with members of Indian wiki community groups focused on technical contributions, such as the Indic MediaWiki Developers User Group.