Wikipedia planning search engine

CHENNAI: As part of efforts to widen its reach and showcase the power of 'wikis', online encyclopedia Wikipedia is planning a search engine that is intended to rival that of Google.

"Wikimedia Foundation is planning an open search engine that thrives on the knowledge of users. The search engine is in its early stage," said Kiruba Shankar, an editor of Wikipedia and a well-known blogger.

Shankar, who runs a web development firm, was an organiser of the recent 'Wikicamp-Unconference' where all participants could interact freely in an informal session.

"Wikicamp was India's first real event devoted to wikis," he said, referring to the websites and collaborative software that allow people to add, remove, edit or change content.

The response was better than expected. "We expected around 100 people to be part of it but over 350 turned up. It greatly helped that Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, flew in to attend the event," Shankar said.

The main reason for organising the event was to showcase the power of wikis. Shankar strongly feels that the wiki is a severely underestimated power tool and there are excellent uses that people are ignorant about. "The event helped in
highlighting those advantages."

Many techies knew about Wikipedia but quite a few did not know how to edit a wiki. The event had a workshop on how to edit wikis. "Many corporates have installed wikis as part of their intranet to disseminate information internally," he
said.