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 (Arabeyes). You can read the email.

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%)