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_ Wikimedia India _ Wikipedia plans India office

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(Newsfeed @ Thu 13th January 2011, 12:08pm) *

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNF9Bm4ooiEnjte-bS-OomVOLptJLg&url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/Wikipedia-plans-India-office/Article1-650106.aspx
Hindustan Times
PTI Wikipedia is set to open its first overseas office outside of the United States in India, which will focus on expanding its database in Hindi and all ...

http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&ned=us&ncl=dBwBpbaf-toR_lM

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNF9Bm4ooiEnjte-bS-OomVOLptJLg&url=http://www.hindustantimes.com/Wikipedia-plans-India-office/Article1-650106.aspx


QUOTE(article)

Wikipedia is set to open its first overseas office outside of the United States in India, which will focus on expanding its database in Hindi and all other official languages of the country. India was chosen because of its large population and increasing number of people using the internet especially through mobile phones, according to Sue Gardner, chief of Wikimedia, which is the non-profit organisation behind Wikipedia.


And is not outsourcing because of India's incredibly cheap labor pool (surpassed only by China), but without the censorship problems that siting Wikipedia in China would entail.

No, this has nothing to do with outsourcing! It's really because WP badly feels the lack of articles in Hindi. Yes, that's it! Hindi. And hundreds of other nearly forgotten Indian languages that need Wikipedias only a bit more than the Klingons do.

My God, would it KILL WMF to tell the truth, just once? For the shear once-in-a-lifetime-thrill of seeing how truthtelling feels? Outsourcing for economic reasons is a reality of the modern world. I don't think WMF would be criticized, if they simply told the truth about this in India ("San Francisco and California prices are killing us...."). When WMF moved from Florida, we predicted here on WR that they'd feel the economic pinch of THAT soon enough, even as a 501-c-3, and their exponential driving for funding money (which has not followed an exponential outlay for IT infrastructure) has more or less validated that view.

So now, they're opening an office in India. That should have been predictable also. I think nobody on WR made the leap when they moved to California, but (in retrospect) it was coming. When Wikimania was held in Gdańsk, Poland, it's clear in retrospect that they were checking THAT out at the time, as a site. But India has to trump all of these.