Tell us about Arabic Wikipedia

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Arabic Wikipedia

Arabic (العربية) – ar

Questionaire

Contributors

Wikimedia Statistics can be difficult to interprete. What is your impression, how many steady contributors do you have?

As of August 2008, 190 users (excluding bots) have made 500 edits or more since the creation of Arabic Wikipedia. Yet I estimate that only 30 users contribute on daily basis. --Meno25 19:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update: As of June 2012, all top 500 Wikipedians in number of edits on Arabic Wikipedia had +600 edits. With more than 500,000 registered users, we are the 10th highest Wikipedia in the number of users, and the 12th highest Wikipedia in the number of active ones with more than 3,000. But still too few compared to 400 million speakers of Arabic language --عباد ديرانية (talk) 10:17, 18 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Are your contributors mostly native speakers?

Yes --Meno25 19:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Where do your contributors live (regions/country)?

All Arab countries but sometimes also Arab emigrants to European countries. --Meno25 19:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How common is it that your contributors meet in real life?

Was not so common until Wikimania 2008 took place in Alexandria, Egypt. Following it a group of core volunteers started to meet regularly to prepare for a local event called يوم ويكيبيديا العربية (The Arabic Wikipedia Day) that will take place on 30 August 2008. It will take places in two venues Bibliotheca Alexandrina and Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport. It is then planned to create a Wikimedia chapter in Egypt. --Meno25 19:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Other Wikipedias

Do you have special contacts with another Wikipedias (maybe in related languages)?
- Not really, but we have alot of editors who contribute to both Arabic and Persian Wikipedias (mainly Ahvasi people) or Arabic and Egyptian Arabic Wikipedias --عباد ديرانية (talk) 10:01, 18 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Do you translate a lot from other Wikipedias? Which ones?

Yes. The English Wikipedia primarily in addition to German and French Wikipedias. --Meno25 19:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Organization and support

Is there a Wikimedia chapter in your country? How does your language relate to it?

No but there are plans to create a chapter in Egypt (Wikimedia Egypt). --Meno25 19:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are there work groups in other organizations about Wikipedia?

Your Wikipedia and the linguistic community

Is there a language institution for your language, like an Academy, or a club of people interested in your language? Do you have contact with them?

Yes there are, most prominantly "The Arabic Academy" (free traslation) in Egypt and also "The Syrian scientific Assossiation" i'm not aware of any direct contact but we use there sites to get the arabic term of a scientific/technical term. Another notable group is Arabeyes, which is a Meta project that is aimed at fully supporting the Arabic language in the Unix/Linux environment, the users there have developped a technical dictionary. Some arabeys users also participate in wikipedia. --Histolo2 09:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Who (else) supports you?

How looks your public outreach for your edition? Do you have fliers, give lectures, trainings etc.?

There are 22 arab countries spread in 2 continents from the boarders of Iran to the boarders of Spain, its a pretty vast geographical area so its hard to organize a united approach. Since wikimania 2008 i heard that egyptians wikipedian where active... in the 30 of august there was a meating held in the new Library of Alexandria (and another in Cairo) where there was a training for new users, the rest of the day was dedicated to write new articles in wikipedia -users from other places also participated online-. And there is the Arabic version of project Moulin. Maybe other users can give more details. --Histolo2 10:10, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you get feedback from readers?

Yes. Mostly in the Arabic OTRS queue. --Meno25 19:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What other encyclopedias exist in your language?

The largest and most popular free Arabic Encyclopedia other than Wikipedia is Marefa, which was created by a former Arab Wikipedian --عباد ديرانية (talk) 10:22, 18 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Content

Does your edition concentrates on certain topics, like your region and language, or Latin Wikipedia on Roman history and Christianity?

Yes, of course. The Arab world topics is the most popular, especially geographical locations, which have thousands of articles on Arabic Wikipedia. Also the topics of Islam are popular. But their quality is still relatively low, like everything on Arabic Wikipedia, but the main articles about them like Islam, Arabic, Arabs and large Islamic empires are all featured --عباد ديرانية (talk) 10:27, 18 June 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Did your edition enjoy text donations, for example from older encyclopedias?

Back in 2006, hundreds of articles were created by a bot about Sahaba based on an old public domain encyclopedia. --Meno25 19:40, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Language

Is there a generally accepted norm about your language (spelling, dictionary, pronunciation)?

Yes, Arabic is an old language, and its grammer was etc.. was studied back in the 8th century, so there are a clear norms about this stuff. --Histolo2 09:57, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I disagree. I am not an Arab but there are too many variations even in the way standard Arabic is pronounced (depending on the region), transliteration of foreign names largely differs, has many variants and in the way how strictly the rules of the standard Arabic should be followed. There is no agreement on borrowing foreign words, many purists exclude any borrowings, saying Arabic is immune to changes, the realities show it differently. Arabic scholars don't separate Classical Arabic from Modern Standard Arabic but modern usage differs more and more from classical or quranic usage. --Anatoli 02:11, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

well , what is used now in Wikipedia is the modern standard Arabic , which written and spoken in all arabic printed and visual media. for modern standard arabic, there is no disagreement regarding Grammar or syntax. the only variants could be in how write foriegn names in arabic letters. usually the most used writing is used and other form are created as redirects --Chaos 10:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How do you deal with different spellings, dialects etc. (like B.E. lift and A.E. elevator)?

The language we use in wikipedia is sometimes called by w:Standard Arabic (or literal arbic), its not the same as the spoken dialects and its similiar in the different arab countries, therefore there is no problem with different dialects. However sometimes there are discussions on how to transliterate foreign names (there are more than one suggested system) but i wouldn't say its a "big deal" problem. --Histolo2 09:57, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an agreement on usage special letters from Persian or Urdu to render sounds not present in classical Arabic - v, p, ch, etc.? --Anatoli 02:11, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is no agreement about usgae of Persian/Urdu letters; that is why we have a guidance to restrict naming the articles with only original arabic letters , other non-standard letters could be used just as redirect if somebody wanna use it. --Chaos 10:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Links

Main/Front page of your Wikipedia: http://ar.wikipedia.org