Romanian Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Romanian Wikipedia
Web address 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 July 2003, this edition has about 175,000 articles (as of 20 May 2012) and is the 19th largest Wikipedia edition. In December 2004, users on the Romanian Wikipedia started to talk about founding a local chapter of Wikimedia, Asociaţia Wikimedia România.

History

The first articles in the Romanian Wikipedia were written in July 2003, with the first version of the main page being drafted on 12 July. 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 exceeded 3000 articles, ranking 16th among all Wikipedias. The 10,000th article was written on 13 December 2004, and the 50,000th on 5 January 2007.

In April 2004, the Romanian Wikipedia supported the launch of the Aromanian Wikipedia (see Aromanian language).

In its early days, 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 larger number of other Wikipedias, because the language had been assigned a separate ISO 639 code (mo/mol—which were deprecated in November 2008 by the ISO authorities[5]). 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 Moldavian 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.[6]

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.

Peculiarities

The logo of the Romanian Wikipedia was slightly different from the logos of other Wikipedias. The letter И in the logo was replaced with the Romanian letter Ă (A-breve), further adapting this Wikipedia to the local readership.[7]

Articles can contain small spelling variations, mostly regarding the use of the letters â and î, both used for the close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/ (cf. Romanian alphabet). According to the 1993 spelling rules promoted 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 - after 1964 an exception was made for derivations of the words România ("Romania"), român ("Romanian") and related words. 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, spelled with â). In practice, either usage is acceptable in both countries, and indeed there are publishing houses and printed magazines that use either or both of the two rules. Vojvodina uses the new Romanian spelling. Other spelling differences include sunt/sînt or niciun/nici un. The Romanian Wikipedia community adopted a language policy stating that both pre-1993 and post-1993 spelling norms are permitted, and editing an article just to switch it from one norm to the other is not acceptable; switching is allowed if the article is significantly expanded or rewritten.[8]

Concerning the addressing policy, Romanian Wikipedia uses the polite forms of the personal pronouns and verbs. A policy on this was discussed in early 2006, and consensus was reached for the use of dumneavoastră (polite "you") instead of tu (familiar "you") on its pages.[9]

References

  1. ↑ The article on this matter on the Romanian Wikipedia (Romanian)
  2. ↑ International Wiki mailing list
  3. ↑ (Romanian) Acasă.ro, 16 December 2004: Enciclopedie gratis pe Internet, în română
  4. ↑ (Romanian) Bănăţeanul, 24 July 2004: Informaţie la click
  5. ↑ http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/php/code_changes.php
  6. ↑ Vote and discussion on the closure of Moldovan Wikipedia on Meta-Wiki
  7. ↑ 2004 news report on Meta-Wiki (Romanian)
  8. ↑ Versions of Romanian spelling (official policy) on the Romanian Wikipedia (Romanian)
  9. ↑ Addressing policy (discussion and policy) on the Romanian Wikipedia (Romanian)

External links

Romanian edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of Wikipedias by article count
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