Tell us about Chinese Wikipedia

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Chinese Wikipedia

• Chinese (中文) – zh

Questionnaire

Contributors

• Wikimedia Statistics can be difficult to interprete. What is your impression, how many steady contributors do you have?
  • My impression is about 100 to 200.--Wing 21:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I suppose there are around 100 only. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I suppose more than 100, because some writers do not log in and contribute using IP addresses. --✉Hello World! 04:56, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Lack of contributors is still a serious issue. Complete and systematic articles written by a single contributor, as well as numerous stub articles and articles with obvious inaccuracies have been left unedited for years. It is sometimes sad to see pages and pages of bots adding interwiki links but no one in zh-wp would expand the article or correct some mistakes in it. Also plagiarism is relatively prevalent in zh-wp compared to other Wikipedias. --Choij 11:02, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Since the unblock of PRC government , 300 maybe now?--DS-fax 09:21, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• Are your contributors mostly native speakers?
  • Yes.--Wing 21:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, non-native speakers are very rare. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
• Where do your contributors live (regions/country)?
  • Due to the blockage of the Chinese Wikipedia in Mainland China, most of our contributors come from Taiwan, Hongkong and Macao. After the blockage was lifted August 2008 we had also got some contributors from mainland. The number is rising. We also have a quite big oversee chinese community distributed in Southeast Asia, Europe and North America..--Wing 21:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
    • Is Mainland China block now lifted? V. Volkov / В. Волков (kneiphof) 19:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
      • Yes for now, but it is believed that Mainland China will probably block again after the Paralympic Games end. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • From my impression, the contributors are mostly from Taiwan, and Hong Kong ranks the second. There are also quite a number of contributions from Oversea Chinese. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • From my observation from the mailing list and edit activities, contributors from within China is more than those from other regions (Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong/Macau). It is also be confirmed by a administrator in the mailing list. Hanteng 18:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I think that most active Taiwanese editors on zh-wp are not as fervently pro-independence as some polls have suggested, which, I think, can be attributed to the large presence of mainland editors (i.e. their "culture"). --Choij 11:02, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
• How common is it that your contributors meet in real life?
  • There are ocasional inofficial local meetings. We had a chinese community meeting in Hongkong 2006, and then the Wikimania 2007 in Taipei (I believe this is the biggest chinese community meeting). And there is planning of a meeting in Macao in 2009.--Wing 21:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Taipei and Hong Kong held local gatherings quarterly. Taipei also had weekly gatherings in the past, but I think they do not have that anymore now. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • But in Mainland China, meetings are rare.--DS-fax 09:21, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Other Wikipedias

• Do you have special contacts with another Wikipedias (maybe in related languages)?
  • No, don't think so. But a lot of our contributor do also work in other language versions. Most notably in English Wikipedia, some also in Japanese and Korean Wikipedia. I personally work in German Wikipedia.--Wing 21:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • No. For example, Hong Kong wikipedians working in Chinese Wikipedia and those working in English Wikipedia never communicate with each other. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Maybe some of the contributors work in Classical Chinese Wikipedia, Catonese Wikipedia, and so on.--DS-fax 09:24, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• Do you translate a lot from other Wikipedias? Which ones?
  • Yes. But the proportion of translated articles versus local articles are falling in the last years. Mostly from en-wp, some also from other language versions like jp-wp or de-wp.--Wing 21:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I personally have been translated from English, Simple English and Cantonese (which is simular to Chinese) before. As a whole, people mostly translate articles from English Wikipedia. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Heaps of articles with bad wording have been introduced from English Wikipedia without modification regardless of their quality, as a result of the lack of a substantial amount of editors, which automatically downgrades the credibility and reliability of zh-wp. --Choij 11:02, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes. Many GAs and FAs are from English Wikipedia.--DS-fax 09:24, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Organization and support

• Is there a Wikimedia chapter in your country? How does your language relate to it?
  • Yes, there is a Taiwan- and a Hongkong-Chapter.--Wing 21:26, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Although Taiwan and Hong Kong have set up their own chapter, they are still in initial stage so few things are done to promote Wikipedia in the regions. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • None in Mainland China, only a dead discussion.--DS-fax 09:25, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
• Are there work groups in other organizations about Wikipedia?
  • Not that I know.--Wing 21:26, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • The answer should be no, I suppose. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • No.--DS-fax 09:25, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

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 language institutions for Chinese. But I don't think we have contact with them.--Wing 21:28, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • As Chinese is one of the mostly used language in the world, the answer is definitely yes. However, as Chinese is so common, of course we do not need to contact the institutions. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • It is a very political issue because each region has their own orthographies and lexicons. The difference is about 20% in orthgraphies according to my own research. Hence, it is why not to contact any language institution now because of the political issues on language planning of Modern Mandarin Chinese. On the other hand, it might be a better starting point to locate those linguistic scholars and practitioners who have participated in the Unicode standard.
• Who (else) supports you?
  • Nobody. At least I cannot think of an answer. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
• How looks your public outreach for your edition? Do you have fliers, give lectures, trainings etc.?
  • There were some lectures and trainings in Taipei.--Wing 21:28, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I remember there was an invitation from a department of HK government to invite Chinese Wikipedian to hold a talk to introduce Wikipedia, but it was already more than 2 years ago. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
• Do you get feedback from readers?
  • Yes.--Wing 21:28, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, but mainly with in Wikipedia. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
• What other encyclopedias exist in your language?
  • Baidupedia, Hoodongpedia, maybe also Encarta.--Wing 21:28, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • In addition, Taiwan and Macao also have their own regional encyclopedias about them. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Now in mainland, another Hudong Baike just surpassed Baidupedia.Msscmm 05:49, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Content

• Does your edition concentrates on certain topics, like your region and language, or Latin Wikipedia on Roman history and Christianity?
  • No. The topic is very diverse--Wing 21:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Basically articles associated with politics and current affairs can attract a considerable amount of editors while more specialised areas (maths, chemistry, biology, history) are supported only by a small group of contributors most of whom are keen to contribute to articles belonging to that specific area and are hoping to see more contributors joining in. --Choij 11:02, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
• Did your edition enjoy text donations, for example from older encyclopedias?
  • Not substantially. Maybe some from 1911 EB due to translations from en-wp.--Wing 21:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Very few in Chinese, as most Chinese works in PD are in Classical Chinese but not Modern Chinese. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Not yet. Need institutional support who are aware of open content license. Academia Sinica in Taipei might be among the most possible to donate texts because of the recent push for open content license (particularly Creative Commons). Hanteng 18:27, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Language

• Is there a generally accepted norm about your language (spelling, dictionary, pronunciation)?
  • Language diversion is a big problem for the chinese Wikipedia and we are still working on this issue. Because of the political and historical situation we have no uniformed language norm. Mainland China, Taiwan, Hongkong, Macau and the big oversee communities (like Singapur and Malysia) have all their own norms.--Wing 21:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • No, as Chinese in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong (& Macao) and Southeast Asia are slightly different. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Interestingly, the so-called problems in the modern Chinese Madarin has been turned into resources through community effort in auto-conversion mechanism. Most of the problems (on the orthographic and lexical conversion level) are now manageable and turned into unique resources in mapping the differences between regions. Such achievement could be regarded as the first, both in online and offline world. It might be a good idea to treat the Chinese written here as a mixture of acceptable Mandarin Netspeak, possibly the true lingua franca in the future among Chinese. Hanteng 18:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
• How do you deal with different spellings, dialects etc. (like B.E. lift and A.E. elevator)?
  • Mostly we try to overcome the differences with technical methods (automatical conversion) and with the faith of good will.--Wing 21:31, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Mainly by the automatical conversion system which displays the language form which the readers would like to read. -- Kevinhksouth 15:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
  • True, the automatical conversion system works because it relies on an open user-generated mapping tables. Hanteng 18:32, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
  • We use the standard one. When we have more than one standards, we will choose one of them according to the edits by the first person. --Leiem (talk) 15:49, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

See also

• Tell us about your Wikipedia
• Chinese Wikipedia
• Wikimedia projects blocks
• Automatic conversion between simplified and traditional Chinese
• Wikimedia User Group China