Romanian Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Romanian Wikipedia |
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| URL | http://ro.wikipedia.org/ |
| Commercial? | No |
| Type of site | Internet encyclopedia project |
| Registration | Optional |
| Available language(s) | Romanian |
| Owner | Wikimedia Foundation |
| Launched | 10 July 2003 |
Romanian Wikipedia (abr. ro.wiki or ro.wp[1]; in Romanian: Wikipedia în limba română) is the Romanian language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Started in June 2003, this edition has about 100,000 articles (as of January 2008) and is the 16th largest Wikipedia edition. In December 2004, users on the Romanian Wikipedia started to talk about founding a local chapter of Wikimedia, Asociaţia Wikimedia România.
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[edit] History
The first articles in the Romanian Wikipedia were written in July 2003, with the first version of the main page being drafted on July 12. The user interface, initially in English, started being translated into Romanian by Bogdan Stăncescu (registered with the username Gutza) as soon as he was given sysop rights.[2] The same user subsequently contacted several Romanian universities that were available on the internet, as well as the Romanian Academy, in order to attract new contributors. His efforts were soon remarked by the Romanian media, who invited him on several occasions to introduce the project to the public.[3][4] By the end of 2003, the Romanian Wikipedia had already exceeded 3000 articles, ranking 16th among all Wikipedias. The 10,000th article was written on December 13, 2004, and the 50,000th on January 5, 2007.
In April 2004, the Romanian Wikipedia supported the launch of the Aromanian Wikipedia (see Aromanian language).
During its existence, the Romanian Wikipedia encountered problems concerning its division and the creation of a separate Moldovan Wikipedia (see Moldovan language). A Moldovan language version of Wikipedia exists as it was created automatically together with a lager number of other Wikipedias, because the language had been assigned a separate ISO 639 code (mo/mol). At its beginnings it worked as a portal redirecting to the Romanian Wikipedia, but it eventually began allowing content (although only intended for Cyrillic Moldovan/Romanian as it was used before 1989 in the Moldovan SSR), starting big editing wars and endless discussion. Starting from 2006 it is frozen and editing is no longer permitted. This question is still raised from time to time, although users on Wikipedia voted on its closure.[5]
The Romanian Wikipedia reached the 100,000 article milestone on 11 January 2008. There are more than 45,000 registered users, of which 20 are administrators.
[edit] Peculiarities
The logo of the Romanian Wikipedia is quite different from the logos of other Wikipedias. The letter Й in the logo was replaced with the Romanian letter Ă (A-breve), further adapting this Wikipedia to the local market.[6]
Romanian articles can contain small variations of writing, mostly regarding the use of the letters "â" and "î" to mark the close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/ (cf. Romanian alphabet). According to the 1993 rules accepted by the Romanian Academy, /ɨ/ is transcribed as either î when used as the first or last letter of words, or â when it occurs in the middle of the word (with some exceptions). Still, between 1953 and 1993, the Romanian language only used î, except for derivations of the words "Romania" (România) and "romanian" (român). The Academy rules are mandatory in government organisations and in state schools in Romania. Moldova adopted the Latin alphabet for the Romanian language before the spelling reform in 1993, and it didn't switch to the new spelling up until 2001, using the letter î before exclusively (exceptions were made for România and the other related words; these are spelled with â). In practice, either usage is acceptable in both countries, and indeed there are publishing houses and printed magazines who use either of the two rules. Vojvodina uses the new Romanian spelling. Other spelling differences include sunt/sînt or niciun/nici un. The policy on language versions is established into the official policy of the Romanian Wikipedia.[7]
As for the addressing policy, Romanian Wikipedia uses (at least in theory) the polite form of the second person pronouns, verbs, or pronominal adjectives. A policy on this was discussed in early 2006, and consensus was reached for the use of dvs. (polite "you") instead of tu (personal "you") on its pages.[8]
[edit] References
- ^ The article on this matter on the Romanian Wikipedia (Romanian)
- ^ International Wiki mailing list
- ^ (Romanian) Acasă.ro, December 16, 2004: Enciclopedie gratis pe Internet, în română
- ^ (Romanian) Bănăţeanul, July 24, 2004: Informaţie la click
- ^ Vote and discussion on the closure of Moldovan Wikipedia on Meta-Wiki
- ^ 2004 news report on Meta-Wiki (Romanian)
- ^ Versions of the Romanian language (official policy) on the Romanian Wikipedia (Romanian)
- ^ Addressing policy (discussion and policy) on the Romanian Wikipedia (Romanian)
