From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Arabic Wikipedia (Arabic: ويكيبيديا العربية Wīkībīdyā al-ʿArabiyya or ويكيبيديا، الموسوعة الحرة Wīkībīdyā, al-Mawsūʿa al-Ḥurra) is the Arabic language version of Wikipedia. It started on 9 July 2003. As of August 2009, it has over 100,000 articles, 530,000 pages, 210,000 registered users and 6400 files. The Arabic Wikipedia is currently the 27th largest edition of Wikipedia by article count, and is the first Semitic language to exceed 100,000 articles.[1]
The design of the Arabic Wikipedia differs somewhat from other Wikipedias. Most notably, since Arabic is written right-to-left, the location of links is a mirror image of those Wikipedias in languages written left-to-right. Also, the background uses a traditional Arabic geometric tessellation pattern in place of the standard look.
[edit] Blocking
The Arabic Wikipedia has been blocked in Syria with no official reasons given by the Syrian government.[2][3] The block began on April 30, 2008 while all other language versions of Wikipedia remain unblocked and freely accessible. This block continued until February 13, 2009, where the block on the Arabic Wikipedia was suddenly lifted by the Syrian government, again without any official notification on why it was blocked in the first place. Wikimedia continues to be blocked, which causes all images on Wikipedia (in all languages) to be unavailable.
[edit] Criticism
- One journalist claimed that the 2008 Wikimania in Cairo concluded that Arabic Wikipedia was the weakest of all of the Wikipedias.[4]
[edit] Milestones
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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List of Wikipedias in different languages by number of articles |
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| 1,000,000+ |
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| 750,000+ |
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| 500,000+ |
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| 250,000+ |
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| 100,000+ |
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| 50,000+ |
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| 10,000+ |
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| 1,000+ |
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