Japanese Wikipedia
Encyclopedia
is the Japanese-language edition of Wikipedia
, a free, open-content encyclopedia. It has over articles, making it the ninth largest language edition of Wikipedia after the English
, German
, French
, Dutch
, Italian
, Polish
, Spanish
and Russian editions
. Started in September 2002, the edition attained the 200,000 article mark in April 2006 and the 500,000 article mark in June 2008. It is the largest Wikipedia in a non-European language
, the next largest being the twelfth placed Chinese language edition
.
or romaji, as the software did not work with Japanese characters at the time. Curiously, the home page also showed an early attempt at creating a vertical text.
The first article was named "Nihongo no Funimekusu" (though incorrect, it was probably intended to mean onso taikei (音素体系, phonemics) and was written entirely in romaji. Until late December in that year, there were only two articles.
, geography
, and programming.
In the same month, translation of the Wikipedia interface into Japanese began. By the end of the year, pages describing the editing process and the GNU Free Documentation License
had been translated. In mid-December, there were around 10 registered users; the number of articles also stood at around 10.
Japanese edition, covered Wikipedia. After that, the number of participants started to increase considerably and many pages about the Wikipedia project were translated or created.
On February 12, 2003, the Japanese edition of Wikipedia reached the 1000-page milestone, two years after the English edition. Given that accomplishment, Slashdot
Japan posted a story about the Japanese Wikipedia. Several days after that, the number of participants doubled, attesting to the power of the Slashdot effect
. Because of this exposure, a variety of articles started to appear, among them physics
, biology
, information technology
, literature
, music
, game
s, manga
, and celebrities
.
On July 15, 2003 the Japanese Wikipedia reached 10,000 articles, four months and three days after the 1000-article milestone, beating the time it took the English Wikipedia to achieve the same feat. By early 2004 the Japanese Wikipedia contained 30,000 articles. The increase in both articles and contributors was steady after that, and by late September it had reached 75,000 articles.
The major force behind the expansion appeared to be a number of links at Yahoo! Japan
News. It is unknown exactly when Yahoo!
started to put links to the edition in their articles, but , dozens of news articles posted on Yahoo! Japan contained links to the edition to explain terms in the articles. Lately, the developers of Wikipedia have noticed that certain spikes in server usage correspond to the publishing of Yahoo! Japan news articles containing links to Wikipedia.
has pointed out on a conference that Japanese Wikipedia is significantly more dominated by articles about pop culture than other Wikipedia projects, and according to one of his slides, as a New York Times journalist saw it, "barely 20 percent" of the articles on Japanese Wikipedia were about anything else. In relation to this, Japanese Wikipedia is known to have a poor number of moderators as of early March 2010.
Nobuo Ikeda
, a known public policy academic and media critic in Japan, has suggested an ongoing 2channel
-ization phenomenon on the Japanese Wikipedia. Ikeda argues that by allowing anonymous IP users, the community spawns a type of culture seen in the likes of anonymous message boards such as 2channel
, where hate speech
, personal attacks and derogatory expressions are common, and also the source of entertainment. He also remarks on the "emotional-outlet"/"get rid of stress" aspect of Japanese internet culture where 90% of blogs are anonymous, compared to the U.S. where 80% of blogs are expressed under one's own name. Ikeda's arguments are not the only sources hinting cultural correlation, influence, overlapping users from 2channel.
In 2006 , a Japanese Wikipedian, stated that on the Japanese Wikipedia most users start out as page editors and uploaders of images, and that the majority of people continue to serve in those purposes. Some people apply to become administrators. Kizu said "Unfortunately, some apply for this role out of a desire for power! And then are surprised when they get rejected. (This is a kind of ‘regressive career path’—from an immature editor to a banned one!)"
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, a free, open-content encyclopedia. It has over articles, making it the ninth largest language edition of Wikipedia after the English
English Wikipedia
The English Wikipedia is the English-language edition of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Founded on 15 January 2001 and reaching three million articles by August 2009, it was the first edition of Wikipedia and remains the largest, with almost three times as many articles as the next...
, German
German Wikipedia
The German Wikipedia is the German-language edition of Wikipedia, a free and mostly publicly editable online encyclopedia.Founded in March 2001, it is the second-oldest and, with over articles, the second-largest edition of Wikipedia, behind the English Wikipedia...
, French
French Wikipedia
The French Wikipedia is the French language edition of Wikipedia, spelt Wikipédia. This edition was started in March 2001, and has about articles as of , making it the third-largest Wikipedia overall, after the English-language and German-language editions...
, Dutch
Dutch Wikipedia
The Dutch Wikipedia is the Dutch-language edition of the free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. As of November 2011, the Dutch Wikipedia is the fourth-largest Wikipedia edition, with over articles.-History:...
, Italian
Italian Wikipedia
The Italian Wikipedia is the Italian-language edition of Wikipedia. This edition was created on May 11, 2001 and first edited on June 11, 2001. As of 2011 it has over articles and more than registered accounts...
, Polish
Polish Wikipedia
Polish Wikipedia is the Polish-language edition of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. The ninth-oldest edition of Wikipedia, it was started on September 26, 2001. With about articles, it is the seventh-largest Wikipedia edition, after the English, German, French, Italian, Dutch, and Spanish...
, Spanish
Spanish Wikipedia
The Spanish Wikipedia is a Spanish-language edition of Wikipedia, a free, online encyclopedia. It currently has articles. Started in May 2001, it reached 100,000 articles on March 8, 2006. Currently, it is the 6th largest Wikipedia as measured by the number of articles, having surpassed Polish...
and Russian editions
Russian Wikipedia
The Russian Wikipedia is the Russian language edition of Wikipedia. It has over articles. It was founded on 20 May 2001. By May 2008 it became the 10th largest Wikipedia by size and in February 2011 it ranked 8th. It surpassed 750,000 articles in August 2011...
. Started in September 2002, the edition attained the 200,000 article mark in April 2006 and the 500,000 article mark in June 2008. It is the largest Wikipedia in a non-European language
Languages of Europe
Most of the languages of Europe belong to Indo-European language family. These are divided into a number of branches, including Romance, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Greek, and others. The Uralic languages also have a significant presence in Europe, including the national languages Hungarian, Finnish,...
, the next largest being the twelfth placed Chinese language edition
Chinese Wikipedia
Chinese Wikipedia is the Chinese language edition of Wikipedia, run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Started in October 2002, Chinese Wikipedia had over 270,000 articles as of September 2009 and 383,391 articles as of November 7, 2011...
.
History
In March 2001, three non-English editions of Wikipedia were created, namely, the German, the Catalan, and the Japanese Wikipedias. The original site address of the Japanese Wikipedia was http://nihongo.wikipedia.com and all pages were written in the Latin alphabetLatin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
or romaji, as the software did not work with Japanese characters at the time. Curiously, the home page also showed an early attempt at creating a vertical text.
The first article was named "Nihongo no Funimekusu" (though incorrect, it was probably intended to mean onso taikei (音素体系, phonemics) and was written entirely in romaji. Until late December in that year, there were only two articles.
Localization
On September 1, 2002, the software hosting Wikipedia was upgraded to the so-called "Phase III" version, and the articles were moved from the old version to the new. It is currently possible to trace edits made to the articles since that time. As the history of old articles show, some articles were posted by several non-native Japanese speakers. Major topics covered then include Japanese culture, languageLanguage
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
, geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
, and programming.
In the same month, translation of the Wikipedia interface into Japanese began. By the end of the year, pages describing the editing process and the GNU Free Documentation License
GNU Free Documentation License
The GNU Free Documentation License is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights to copy, redistribute, and modify a work and requires all copies and...
had been translated. In mid-December, there were around 10 registered users; the number of articles also stood at around 10.
Expansion
On January 31, 2003, a Japanese online magazine, Wired NewsWired News
Wired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Wired News was owned by Lycos not long after the split, until Condé Nast purchased Wired News on July 11, 2006...
Japanese edition, covered Wikipedia. After that, the number of participants started to increase considerably and many pages about the Wikipedia project were translated or created.
On February 12, 2003, the Japanese edition of Wikipedia reached the 1000-page milestone, two years after the English edition. Given that accomplishment, Slashdot
Slashdot
Slashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
Japan posted a story about the Japanese Wikipedia. Several days after that, the number of participants doubled, attesting to the power of the Slashdot effect
Slashdot effect
The Slashdot effect, also known as slashdotting, occurs when a popular website links to a smaller site, causing a massive increase in traffic. This overloads the smaller site, causing it to slow down or even temporarily close. The name stems from the huge influx of web traffic that results from...
. Because of this exposure, a variety of articles started to appear, among them physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
, literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, game
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
s, manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
, and celebrities
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
.
On July 15, 2003 the Japanese Wikipedia reached 10,000 articles, four months and three days after the 1000-article milestone, beating the time it took the English Wikipedia to achieve the same feat. By early 2004 the Japanese Wikipedia contained 30,000 articles. The increase in both articles and contributors was steady after that, and by late September it had reached 75,000 articles.
The major force behind the expansion appeared to be a number of links at Yahoo! Japan
Yahoo! Japan
is a Japanese internet company formed as a joint venture between the American internet company Yahoo! and the Japanese internet company SoftBank. It is headquartered at Midtown Tower in the Tokyo Midtown complex in Akasaka, Minato, Tokyo.-History:...
News. It is unknown exactly when Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
started to put links to the edition in their articles, but , dozens of news articles posted on Yahoo! Japan contained links to the edition to explain terms in the articles. Lately, the developers of Wikipedia have noticed that certain spikes in server usage correspond to the publishing of Yahoo! Japan news articles containing links to Wikipedia.
Awards
In September 2004, the Japanese Wikipedia was awarded the "2004 Web Creation Award Web-Person Special Prize" from the Japan Advertisers Association. This award, normally given to individuals for great contributions to the Web in Japanese, was accepted by a long-standing contributor on behalf of the project.Characteristics
The Japanese Wikipedia is different from this English Wikipedia in a number of ways.- An edit is kept only if it is legal under both Japanese and United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
laws, to account for the fact that the vast majority of contributors live in Japan. This has two major consequences:- The fair useFair useFair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
provisions of US law are not considered to be applicable. Articles and media files which do not have a GFDL-compatible license are prohibited, even if they would be legal under the "fair use" doctrine in the US. - Materials considered illegal cannot be kept in the archive, even reverted by oneself but caught in history archive. If an illegal edit is inserted between valid versions, a SysOpSysOpA sysop is an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system or an online service virtual community. It may also be used to refer to administrators of other Internet-based network services....
may remove specific revisions by deleting the article temporarily and restoring valid revisions.:ja:Wikipedia:削除の方針
- The fair use
- QuotationQuotationA quotation or quote is the repetition of one expression as part of another one, particularly when the quoted expression is well-known or explicitly attributed by citation to its original source, and it is indicated by quotation marks.A quotation can also refer to the repeated use of units of any...
is discouraged. There is controversy over the GFDL compatibility of quotations. Articles that contain quotations will be deleted unless they meet all the following requirements:- The source is clearly referred to.
- The quotation is necessary.
- The quoting and quoted works can respectively be regarded as the principal and subordinate both in quantity and quality.
- The quoting and quoted works are clearly distinguishable.
- Cut-and-paste moves within wikipedias, including merging, splitting, and translation from other language are not allowed unless the original article source and date is explicitly referred to in the edit summary, because such moves are considered to be GFDL violations :ja:Wikipedia:削除依頼/勝興駅. Articles created in such a manner will be deleted. A comparable policy is in place on the English Wikipedia, but it is only casually enforced.
- IP users' contributions are high compared to other major language versions of Wikipedia (see graph).
- The Japanese Wikipedia has the lowest number of administrators per active users (only %).
- Edit wars are strongly frowned upon. Articles may be protected as a result of an edit war with as little as three or four edits. Protected pages will not be unprotected unless someone explicitly requests it. Perhaps because of this, the Japanese Wikipedia had the second-highest number of articles protected for over two weeks, after the German Wikipedia. In May 2008, 0.0906% of articles were fully protected (only editable by admins), which was by far the highest percentage among the ten largest Wikipedias. Articles on sensitive topics, such as Japan's World War IIWorld War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
war crimesJapanese war crimesJapanese war crimes occurred during the period of Japanese imperialism, primarily during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. Some of the incidents have also been described as an Asian Holocaust and Japanese war atrocities...
and current territorial disputesLiancourt RocksThe Liancourt Rocks, also known as Dokdo or Tokto in Korean or in Japanese, are a group of small islets in the Sea of Japan . Sovereignty over the islets is disputed between Japan and South Korea...
, are almost always under lengthy protection. - Articles will be deleted if they contain the names of private citizens, unless they are public figures. An article about Shosei KodaShosei KodaShosei Koda was a Japanese citizen who was kidnapped and later beheaded in Iraq on November 3, 2004 while touring the country. His parents were members of the United Church of Christ...
, a Japanese citizen kidnapped in Iraq, does not refer to him by name, but former Prime Minister Yasuo FukudaYasuo Fukudawas the 91st Prime Minister of Japan, serving from 2007 to 2008. He was previously the longest-serving Chief Cabinet Secretary in Japanese history, serving for three and a half years under Prime Ministers Yoshirō Mori and Junichiro Koizumi....
's name may be mentioned due to his public position. Convicted criminals and their victims are considered private citizens, even if the case was extensively covered in Japanese media, and their names may not be published until their death. - The edition stresses the fact that it is not a news bulletin, and discourages edits on current events. :ja:Wikipedia:性急な編集をしない
- In keeping with the strong aversion to edit wars, the administrators react negatively to cases where many minor edits are made to a single article in a short period of time.
- Japan-centered, due to the majority of users living in Japan. When referring to places outside of Japan they are often called "overseas", and references to Japanese perspective on articles are common. They are trying to discourage this tendency. :ja:Wikipedia:日本中心にならないように
Culture
Jimmy WalesJimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company....
has pointed out on a conference that Japanese Wikipedia is significantly more dominated by articles about pop culture than other Wikipedia projects, and according to one of his slides, as a New York Times journalist saw it, "barely 20 percent" of the articles on Japanese Wikipedia were about anything else. In relation to this, Japanese Wikipedia is known to have a poor number of moderators as of early March 2010.
Nobuo Ikeda
Nobuo Ikeda
is a Japanese economist originally from Kyoto Prefecture. He is a professor at Jobu University and a visiting professor at SBI Graduate School in in Yokohama, Kanagawa.- External links :*****...
, a known public policy academic and media critic in Japan, has suggested an ongoing 2channel
2channel
is a Japanese textboard. In 2007 there were 2.5 million posts made every day. Launched in 1999, it has gained significant influence in Japanese society, comparable to that of traditional mass media such as television, radio, and magazines. As of 2008, the site generates revenue upwards of ¥100...
-ization phenomenon on the Japanese Wikipedia. Ikeda argues that by allowing anonymous IP users, the community spawns a type of culture seen in the likes of anonymous message boards such as 2channel
2channel
is a Japanese textboard. In 2007 there were 2.5 million posts made every day. Launched in 1999, it has gained significant influence in Japanese society, comparable to that of traditional mass media such as television, radio, and magazines. As of 2008, the site generates revenue upwards of ¥100...
, where hate speech
Hate speech
Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic....
, personal attacks and derogatory expressions are common, and also the source of entertainment. He also remarks on the "emotional-outlet"/"get rid of stress" aspect of Japanese internet culture where 90% of blogs are anonymous, compared to the U.S. where 80% of blogs are expressed under one's own name. Ikeda's arguments are not the only sources hinting cultural correlation, influence, overlapping users from 2channel.
In 2006 , a Japanese Wikipedian, stated that on the Japanese Wikipedia most users start out as page editors and uploaders of images, and that the majority of people continue to serve in those purposes. Some people apply to become administrators. Kizu said "Unfortunately, some apply for this role out of a desire for power! And then are surprised when they get rejected. (This is a kind of ‘regressive career path’—from an immature editor to a banned one!)"
External links
Japanese Wikipedia Japanese Wikipedia mobile version- A guide to the Japanese Wikipedia