The time has come for the virtual world to come up, close and personal with the real world. With several online communities organising meetings in the city, Bengaluru-based members of online encyclopaedia Wikipedia too decided to meet in the city. On Saturday, they came face-to-face, shared information and cemented real-time bonds.

Like ‘tweetups’, which are meetings of members belonging to microblogging site Twitter, Wiki meet-ups aim to forge a real community apart from the regular virtual connections.

Since the first Wiki meet was held in 2006, the members take time out at regular intervals to update themselves about the latest events.

“Initially only techies were seen in these meet ups. Now we see a lot more students and retired bureaucrats as well coming to attend the event,” said Cherian.

Apart from building a sense of unity among members, the Wiki meets also help in sharing technical knowledge through demonstrations of new tools. The multilingual encyclopedia project depends mostly on the collaborative effort of volunteers known as Wikipedians.

Launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, Wikipedia is considered the largest and most popular general reference work available on the Internet.