Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-10-09/Interwiki report

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

< Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost | 2006-10-09

Report from the Portuguese Wikipedia

By Indech and JLCA, October 9, 2006

Status and community news

As of Tuesday, 9 October 2006, the Portuguese language Wikipedia contains about 190,000 articles, making it the 8th largest Wikipedia by number of articles. It has 217 articles (approximately 1 in 837) that have been chosen as Os melhores artigos ("The best articles", equivalent to featured articles). There is no equivalent to "good articles" on the Portuguese Wikipedia, but the creation of a similar category is under discussion, although no name for it has been decided yet. Additionally creation of a peer review process is being discussed.

The choice of a featured article is slightly different from the process in the English Wikipedia. First, the article must be submitted to a vote which decides whether it should be included in the list of "the best articles". Only then can it be submitted to a second vote, that chooses which articles should appear on the Main Page.

The latest three additions to the list of melhores artigos are:

As of 9 October 2006, 61 users of the Portuguese language Wikipedia are administrators. Administrators make up 0.05% of the total number of 120,313 registered users, and about 39% of the very active (100+ edits per month) contributors.

Recent changes

In the last few months, the Portuguese language community has made substantial transformations in Wikipedia dynamics, trying to adapt the project to the needs of its rapidly growing size (it has grown by over 130% since October 2005, when it had 82,000 articles). Resolution of some issues, such as the adoption of fair use in the Portuguese Wikipedia, has left room for redevelopment of other aspects of the project. The featured articles promotion system was redesigned, as well as the Main Page, and many other features were created, such as Imagem em destaque (Featured images), Sabia que (Did you know), Efeméride (Selected anniversaries).

Image policy

Currently, the Portuguese Wikipedia is deciding whether the local upload of media files should be disabled, redirecting all uploads to the Wikimedia Commons, as was recently decided on the Spanish Wikipedia.

WikiConcurso

In the next few days, Portuguese Wikipedia will hold the fifth edition of its WikiConcurso ("WikiContest"), whose main goal is to enhance the content of articles in a specific field. These articles must be stubs, and contestants are invited to improve them during a two-week period, at the end of which the improved articles are submitted for review and voting by fellow participants in the contest. The first four editions were very successful in achieving a good number of excellent articles, making it one of the favorite activities of the Portuguese language community.

Wikiactividade

As a result of comments made by Wikipedians in the Village Pump, regarding the absence of articles on certain Portuguese and Brazilian personalities, but already existed in Wikipedias in other languages, a project was formed with the goal of creating articles, regardless of subject. This task was named Wikiactividade ("Wikiactivity" - compare Featured articles in other languages).

Its first edition, which was held from August 1 to August 31, required that these new articles should have at least 2,000 bytes, be properly categorized, and include interwiki links. Forty users rallied for the task, and their work resulted in the creation of 1,010 new articles.

Colaboração da semana

Inspired by good results of Wikiatividade, another idea called Colaboração da Semana (Collaboration of the week) was proposed by several members of the community. This project has just begun, with its initial focus directed towards problem articles, such as those in need of links and categories.

Differences between versions of the Portuguese language

One of the most controversial discussions in the Portuguese language Wikipedia centered on the differences between European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese. This discussion almost led to the creation of two separate Wikipedias, something considered a heresy by the majority of the Portuguese speaking community. Several discussions in the Village Pump and Meta pages threatened what most of Portuguese-speaking sysops and veteran users consider 'an effort towards unity, respect and understanding'. Many resolutions towards this goal have been approved, such as the use of neutral vocabulary in some cases, and the development of an integration culture.

Userboxes

Instead of using the German userbox solution, the community decided, after a vote, to use a similar, but different system: userboxes should be included under the domain Wikipedia:Userbox/. Userboxes in users subpages, however, are allowed.

Wiki meetings

Brazilian users in the Portuguese language Wikipedia community held their second meeting, on 5 August 2006 in the city of São Paulo. The community of users from Portugal also recently held their first meeting, in Lisbon on 7 October 2006.

Sister projects

Five Portuguese language sister projects began from December 2003 to August 2005. They have all grown considerably, and all but one is in the Top 10 for number of articles in the different language versions: