We have already seen how to use Wikipedia more effectively. Wikipedia has already helping and striving in all the possible ways for providing information to the netizens in the most possible fields. But its not possible for it to alone handle and supply all types of information in a single path as wikipedia. To categorize the whole information and bring it to the people more explicitly WikiMedia has started various other projects besides Wikipedia. And all these projects are also made available in various languages of the world just like wikipedia. And all these sister projects are wikis which can be edited , modified by the people who can access internet under content policies and guidelines.
These sister projects range from providing the semantics of a language to the books including with various other categories.
Its known thing that most of us know only about wikipedia and only few knows that there is some wiki dictionary available online which provides information explicitly like a standard dictionary. Not only that there are still 10+ wikis available for providing knowledge. So I thought of writing an article explaining about each wiki’s sister project to the readers so that they can directly visit to that wiki and get the information.
Wikipedia Sister Projects :
1.Wiktionary
Wiktionary is a free online multilingual dictionary aiming to provide content much more extensive than a typical dictionary . It includes thesaurus , rhymes , translations , audio pronunciations , etymologies, language statistics etc. available in different languages of the world. And this project was started in 2002 , as of now its available in nearly 150 languages. People will find it very useful in developing their vocabulary and useful for learning a language with different language translations available at one place. Soon you’re going to find wiktionary in the first position of your vocabulary search.
2.Wikinews
Wikinews provides the news from all over the world relevant to the language chosen . It includes all types of news latest , audio news , business etc. It also provides recent interviews , popular news bulletins , and other news stuff from all over the world and relevant to the language. It simply looks like a Magazine with daily updates. It was started in 2004.
3.Wikiquote
Wikiquote is a free online compendium of sourced quotations from notable people, books ,speeches, films or any intellectually interesting materials. and creative works in every language and translated to different languages of the world. If you’re fan and follower of quotes then here are a myriad of quotes for you.
4.Wikibooks
Wikibooks is a collection of free e-books available in various fields including Engineering , Humanities , Computing , Social Sciences , Mathematics and many other topics available in nearly 100+ languages . As of now English language has the largest number of books followed by German , French . Wikibooks was started in 2003. And it is still developing to include different types of books.
5.Wikispecies
Wikispecies is a project which provides information regarding the species. It includes all types of living and fossil species providing a clear insight of each species. It was started in 2004 and is moving forward by adding various articles day by day.
6.WikiSource
Wikisource is a collection of free and open content texts from different languages of the world.It also serves as a base for translating these texts. It was started in 2003 and at present it has more than 3 million source texts with French language having the largest collection.
7.Wikiversity
Wikiversity is a project dedicated to learning materials and learning communities, as well as research in all levels , types and styles of education. Wikiversity is not limited to university level materials, but is open to materials and communities of all level of learners i.e., form pre-school to university including professional training and informal learning. It was started in 2006.
8.Wikivoyage
Wikivoyage is a World wide travel guide which provides information on various places of the world . At present it is available in 15+ languages . It was started in 2013.
9.Wikipedia Commons
Commons wikipedia serves as a repository for free photographs , diagrams, maps , videos , animations , music , sounds ,spoken texts and other types of media. Here any one can upload photographs of nature , education , traditions , customs and various other media. It was started in 2004.
10.Wikidata
Wikidata is a free linked database that can be read and edited by both humans and machines. It provides data in all the languages of the Wikimedia projects, and allows for the central access to data in a similar way as Wikimedia Commons does for multimedia files.
Also there are projects which stand and help for the development , organizing of all wikimedia projects . They are metawiki , mediawiki , wikimedia incubator , wikimedia Labs(Wikitech).
There is one wiki providing all technological How-to guides to the netizens , which is not under the Wikimedia foundation. That wiki is Wikihow, found by Jack Herrick and Josh Hannah in 2005 which provides very useful how-to guides to the people for solving various technological issues. Do remember it is also a wiki -that can be edited.
One more wiki not under Wikimedia is ,WikiMapia is a privately owned commercial site based on an open-content collaborative mapping project that intends to contain detailed information about every place on Earth. Any one can add a new item to the wikimapia and only registered users can edit the existing ones. It was found in 2006 by Russian entrepreneurs, Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev.
And all these sister projects are moving ahead may be slow day by day from their inception. In the coming days soon these sister projects are going to be very helpful to all the people.
And this is the list of sister projects of Wikipedia , hope you know now how to use Wikipedia very effectively.