— Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

FOR THE PEOPLE: Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales (center) with participants at the "Wiki-AMP" conference in Chennai on Sunday.

CHENNAI: You have seen what the people-powered online encyclopaedia could do. Now wait for the search engine.

Wikipedia co-founder and president of the Wikimedia Foundation Jimmy Donal Wales, `Jimbo' to the online community, has promised to bring out before this year-end "search.wikia" that would demystify search results and make page rankings transparent.

Wales' vision

In his presentation at Wikicamp — an `unconference' on the Wikipedia movement — here on Sunday, Mr. Wales laid out his vision for the search engine that would follow the principles of online collaboration made popular by Wikipedia: the search algorithms will be published; it will be open to the online community for testing; the search engine itself will be open to all for scrutiny.

Global innovation

"Search is a fundamental part of the infrastructure of the Internet and therefore human society as a whole," he added. "The main idea will be to change the competitive landscape of search and encourage global innovation."

Jimbo stressed one vital difference search.wikia would have over Wikipedia — it would be promoted by his for-profit company, Wikia Incorporated, and therefore be open to advertisements.

On the other hand, he has refused lucrative offers for placing advertisements on Wikipedia, promoted by the not-for-profit Wikimedia Foundation, stating he does not see the need for advertisements there.

The Internet entrepreneur, who lives in a "modest single-story house" in St. Petersburg in Florida, arrived in Chennai early on Sunday. After camping at an organiser's house for a few hours, he arrived at Tidel Park on the I.T. Highway, the venue for Wikicamp, around 9 a.m. Clad in a blue jeans and a casual t-shirt with `Wikipedia' logo, Jimbo was an instant hit. Almost the entire group of over 300 participants found time to chat up, take photographs or collect his autograph.

Several techies were surprised that the man responsible for one of Internet's biggest collaborative projects could be so unassuming. Mr. Wales kept repeating to several inquisitive youths that Wikipedia was what it was because of the "amazing voluntary work" of the online community.

He is expected to leave for New Delhi on Monday.

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