Arabic Wikipedia

This page is a descriptive article on the Arabic Wikipedia, feel free to add any comment.

Many of the answers here are courtesy of Isam Bayazidi

Facts

Started: Although the home page of Arabic Wikipedia says it started in July 2003, it did not really start until February 2004. Elian sent an email to Arabeyes Mailing List ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabeyes). Following is the email: http://lists.arabeyes.org/archives/general/2004/February/msg00023.html

Areas of strength

• TK

Areas of weakness

• Flagged revisions

Who is the competition (print, online)?

• TK
• Arab-ency.com

Prominent milestones/events

• TK

What has its impact been?

• TK

Features

What language features are challening?

• Arabic is read right-to-left, and Arabic wikipedia didn't even have an Arabic interface originally. Isam Bayazidi volunteered to translate the interface, alongside others. Reference
• Finding translation for the names creatures like Clarkia Amonea and Pithovirus

What would surprise the outside reader about the community?

• TK

What are some unique practices/characteristics?

• TK

Who were the earliest participants, who started it?

• Isam Bayazidi

Other prominent Wikipedians?

• Meno25
• Ciphers

Statistics

First test made by Toira on 25/02/07

Using alt-shift-x (to display a random page) 20 times I got:

• 13 articles with decent content [65%], of wich 04 are about arab personalities.
• 3 stubs. [15%]
• 4 date articles, half of them have some content. [20%]

Second test made by SegeWiki on 6/01/11

Viewing a random article 20 times I got:

• 3 one-lined stubs (15%)
• 10 stubs (50%)
• 1 good date article (5%)
• 4 weak articles, not stubs (20%)
• 2 fair articles (10%)

Third test made by Rich Farmbrough on 2012-01-31

(Note this only reflects the distribution of articles, see some of my research for more details.) Viewing a random article 20 times I got:

• 3 one-lined stubs (15%)
• 13 stubs (65%)
• 1 good date article (5%)
• 2 weak articles, not stubs (10%)
• 1 fair articles (5%)