(contributed by Kizu Naoko [user:Aphaia] from the Foundation Communications Committee)
On 25th June, around 12:36 UTC (21:36 in the Japan Standard Time), Japanese Wikipedia has reached its 500,000 article milestone and has become the first non-European and non-Latin script Wikipedia to pass
over this milestone. The exact 500,000th article is unknown but is very likely one of the following:
ăă©ăłăŻă»ă©ă¶ăă©ăŒă (Frank Rutherford),
ćœéăăŁăŹăłăžăăŒ (International Challenge Day),
ăŠăšăčăăăŒăžăăąăźæ°Žé (West Virginia Waterways) or
ćéżèééMT-2000ćœąæ°ćè» (South Aso Rail Line MT-2000 Diesel Engine).
While this wiki was set up in mid 2001 already, its activities began substantially years later, late 2002, and has steadily been growing. Now it is the 5th biggest Wikipedia and still one of fastest growing Wikimedia projects. In Japan, where the most Japanese speakers dwell, Japanese Wikipedia is known as one of major online references. In 2007 2.7 million people in Japan, roughly over 20% of the whole population of the nation, used Wikipedia from their home, and the number of users has steadily growing since 2005 when the first research was done, CNET Japan reports.
With a degree of friendly rivalry, the Japanese Wikipedia chases sibling project, Polish Wikipedia, which is 4th largest and reached half a million articles in May. Both projects continue to show steady growth.
The Polish Wikipedia is 9th of the most popular sites in Poland (April 2008). New stats (look on the graph):
http://www.webinside.pl/news/5001
Every day volunteers write ~300 new articles, with average size 1,5 kb
pl wiki (the Polish Wikipedia) has 340 featured articles and more than 200 good articles.
In the beginning of 2008 the Polish Wikipedia started schools and university projects. The first 4 ended with good results (interview with prof. Czachorowski – Polish entomologist, who started 2 projects).
01.07. 2008 will be started new initiative “Holidays with Wikipedia” Wikipedians will work for better quality and they will invite (by sitenotice) readers to collaboration.
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Congratulations to the Polish and Japanese Wikipedia editors! May the friendly rivalry continue, and here’s to doubling this milestone in the next few years.<
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