Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-01-08/2006 in review
Special: 2006 in Review
Last week marked the end of 2006, and the end of the biggest year Wikipedia has seen, in terms of growth, press coverage, and quality. During last year, the English Wikipedia grew from less than 900,000[1] to over 1,500,000[2] articles. It began with an impressive $380,000 fundraiser in January, and ended with an even more impressive fundraiser which has raised over $900,000. This week, the Wikipedia Signpost begins to take a look back at the year that was 2006 in Wikipedia.
Growth
Wikimedia projects grew dramatically in 2006. Besides the English Wikipedia's growth, other projects also made significant gains. Of the top 12 languages, the Russian Wikipedia showed the most growth, with 146% more articles in 2006 than existed in 2005. English ranked just 10th of the 12 in terms of growth (75%), perhaps because it was already very large, ahead of only Swedish (61%) and German (56%). 38 additional Wikipedias were created in 2006, bringing the total number to 250. Of all Wikipedias, 22% (55 of 250) had at least 10,000 articles, and more than half of the Wikipedias (126 of 250) had at least 1,000 articles at the end of 2006 (compared to 17% and 40%, respectively, in 2005). Across all Wikipedias, the total number of articles increased from 3.09 million in 2005 to 6.05 million in 2006, a growth of nearly 96%.
Wikipedia's growth can also be measured in the number of visitors and other page statistics. Wikipedia's rank on
Other projects also experienced growth. Wikibooks grew from 34 language editions to 119 last year. Since late January 2006,[3] the number of English Wikibooks modules grew by nearly 10,000 (a 72% increase). Overall, the number of Wikibooks modules grew from about 26,700 to nearly 57,000 last year, a 113% increase. Wiktionary was among the projects with the most growth, as the English Wiktionary went from 109,000 to 316,000 entries, an increase of 188%. Overall, Wiktionary grew from just over 500,000 entries to over 1.7 million entries, a 236% increase. Wikiquote showed relatively slow, but still impressive, growth, moving from almost 31,000 articles in 2005 to about 53,000 in 2006 (a 73% increase).
Of all the projects, Wikinews seems to be the slowest in growth. It is difficult to judge Wikinews by the number of articles, because news articles, by definition, do not stay in flux for long; multiple stories can cover the same event. In the English Wikinews, 3,722 articles were written in the first 13 months of existence (December 2004-December 2005, about 9.4 articles per day). In 2006, the site was up to 7,498 articles (3,776 new articles, or about 10.3 articles per day). This shows a growth of about 9.5% over the last year. The German Wikinews actually showed a decrease in activity of about 1.5%, though some languages, like Italian and Swedish, did show improvement. Overall, the top 10 languages by total number of articles averaged about 6.6% growth in articles per day.
Legal issues
Legal issues began to become a significant problem on Wikimedia projects in 2006. The French Wikiquote was deleted completely in March 2006, after it became clear that the site was significantly composed of copyright violations. A Wikimedia Foundation statement on the site stated that "After analyzing the data contained in the fr.wikiquote site, the Wikimedia Foundation has determined that the material stored in the fr.wikiquote database does not provide the basic assurance of legal soundness necessary to the permanence of the project. Therefore, the site will be entirely taken down to be erased and relaunched."[4] While the plan originally was to relaunch the project immediately, after concern that the project's lack of community would allow the same problems to recur, the site was not relaunched until December.[5]
On the English Wikipedia and elsewhere, legal concerns led to the creation of the
The policy received even more attention on 10 March, when
- "What sort of problems were there with the article?"
- "I can't comment on the specifics, but generally, his allegations were that certain of the material in the article could, potentially, be considered libelous or defamatory."
- "Is there anything else you'd like to say in regards to the situation?"
- "Just one other thing. I think people in the community may lose sight of the fact that we are engaged in a very serious venture. It's cool, we love it, we have friends online, we edit what we like. It is freedom in the best sense. But there is a very real issue; it is the responsibility of the Foundation not to be put at risk based on the sloppy, poorly thought out choices of others. We have 1 million users and articles in English Wikipedia. That's a lot. We don't have millions of dollars. We are a small foundation, in the grand scheme of things. We want the Foundation and Wikipedia to be around 2, 5, 10 years from now. And to do that, we need to make sure we act responsibly to keep the mission moving forward. ... My job is to advise the Board and protect the Foundation if they are sued. So far, it hasn't happened."[8]
Today, the article contains a whopping 112 citations, with no marked uncited statements.
One of the most notable issues involving the office actions policy happened in April, when confusion over whether an action taken by Danny Wool was an office-related one involved in the temporary blocking and desysopping of long-time contributor and current Foundation Trustee
Foundation turnover
The Wikimedia Foundation experienced significant turnover in 2006. First and foremost was the hiring of Brad Patrick as general counsel and interim executive director in June.[10] The Board is still planning to replace Patrick in the role of executive director, though he will retain his position as general counsel.
In 2006, four new board members were introduced, with two members retiring. In prior years, the board's makeup had stayed relatively constant; from July 2004 (the beginning of the board's existence) through mid-2006, the board did not change. However, Angela Beesley announced her intention to retire from the board in July.[11] Elections were held in September, with Erik Möller declared the winner, with 42% support.[12] Just one month later, Jimbo Wales resigned his position as Wikimedia Foundation Chair (while still retaining his position on the board), and was replaced by Florence Devouard. In December, the Board acknowledged the retirement of Tim Shell, and simultaneously filled Shell's seat and added two additional seats. Among those chosen were Kat Walsh and Oscar van Dillen, who finished second and third, respectively, in the September elections, and Jan-Bart de Vreede, a Kennisnet employee who has worked with the Foundation previously.[13]
Next week
Next week, the Signpost's 2006 in review continues, with numerous elections, an audit, userboxes, Arbitration Committee decisions, a lawsuit, real and implied lawsuits, oversight, resignations, and desysoppings.
Links/references
- ^ Ral315. "News and notes", 9 January, 2006
- ^ Flcelloguy. "News and notes", 27 November, 2006
- ^ Statistics were not recorded prior to 27 January, 2006.
- ^ Flcelloguy. "News and notes", 3 April, 2006
- ^ Flcelloguy. "News and notes", 4 December, 2006
- ^ Michael Snow. "Interventions by Foundation have bumpy road", 27 February, 2006
- ^ Ral315. "Office actions policy receives renewed debate", 13 March, 2006
- ^ Ral315. "Jack Thompson unprotected after office removal", 20 March, 2006.
- ^ Michael Snow. "Confusion over office actions as veteran contributor briefly blocked", 24 April, 2006
- ^ Flcelloguy, "Foundation hires Brad Patrick as general counsel and interim executive director", 19 June, 2006
- ^ Michael Snow. "Angela Beesley resigns as Wikimedia Foundation trustee", 3 July, 2006
- ^ Flcelloguy. "Erik Möller declared winner in Board of Trustees election", 25 September, 2006.
- ^ Flcelloguy. "Board of Trustees expanded as three new members are appointed", 11 December, 2006
Discuss this story
There are only 249 Wikipedia editions, not 250. [1] – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 09:21, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Number of requests
I assume it is per day? -- lucasbfr talk 11:32, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Stupid question
Since it's a Wikiquote, consisting by design entirely of stuff that other people have said, how did they become significantly composed of copyright violations (or significantly more than enWikiQ)? Were people quoting too much, or dumping entire scripts, or something? --Sam Blanning(talk) 13:21, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
alexa rank
"Wikipedia's rank on Alexa's traffic analyzer rose from about 24 in 2005 to as high as 12th in 2006."