Korean Wikipedia

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Favicon of Wikipedia Korean Wikipedia
Wikipedia-logo-v2-ko.png
"Wikipedia - the encyclopedia that belongs to us all."
The Main Page of the Korean Wikipedia on 16 September 2012.
Web address ko.wikipedia.org
Slogan 우리 모두의 백과사전
Commercial? No
Type of site Internet encyclopedia project
Registration Optional
Available language(s) Korean
Owner Wikimedia Foundation
Korean Wikipedia
Hangul 한국어 위키백과
Hanja 韓國語 위키百科
Revised Romanization Han(-)gugeo Wikibaekgwa
McCune–Reischauer Han'gugeo Wikibaekkwa

The Korean Wikipedia (Korean: 한국어 위키백과) is the Korean language edition of the Wikipedia. It was founded in October 2002 and reached ten thousand articles on 4 June 2005.[1] As of July 13, 2012, it has 214,669 articles and is the 21st largest Wikipedia.[2]

Contents

History[edit]

The Korean Wikipedia used an older version of MediaWiki. The software had problems representing Hangul, which limited usage. In August 2002, the software was upgraded and started to support non-English scripts like hangul.[3] However, Internet Explorer continued to have an encoding problem, which kept contributions to the encyclopedia low.[4] Nevertheless, from October 2002 to July 2003, the number of articles increased from 13 to 159, and in August 2003 it reached 348. Finally, in September 2003 the hangul problem was solved.

Hangul and Hanja[edit]

The Korean Wikipedia is written almost entirely in hangul. Hanja is only used in order to clarify certain phrases, and is usually parenthesized. There is a group, named Dajimo, that is actively working to introduce a mixed script system to the Korean Wikipedia. A request for a separate Wikipedia in mixed script, however, was rejected.[5]

Dialects[edit]

There are two major standards in the Korean language, the South Korea standard, and the North Korea standard. North Koreans are underrepresented on the Korean Wikipedia, due to North Korean censorship of the Internet in North Korea. Therefore, most users of the Korean Wikipedia are South Koreans and most articles are written in the South Korean style. The official name of the Wikipedia is 한국어 위키백과 Hangugeo Wiki-baekgwa. Hangugeo is the name for the Korean language in South Korea, and baekgwa is a clipped form of 백과사전 baekgwasajeon "encyclopedia".

Pressures from right-wing establishments[edit]

The South Korean right-wing youth group story K favors a proactive involvement of right-wing media establishments for the Korean Wikipedia.[6][7]

Despite the South Korean conservative New Rights establishments pressured the government to approve the term, liberal democracy, to represent South Korea in Korean history textbooks, the head of the National Institute of Korean History, Lee Tae-jin (이태진), proposed to use this political term by citing the Korean version of Wikipedia as a main source.[8]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ "Meta Milestones Page" (Web). Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 2005. Retrieved 2007-09-06. 
  2. ^ "List of Wikipedias" (Web). Wikimedia Foundation Inc. 2012. Retrieved 2012-07-13. 
  3. ^ http://web.archive.org/ - There is site which can see Korean Wikipedia in 2003. There is has Wikipedia Logo in 2002.
  4. ^ [1] - Article 대한민국 in 2003. Encoding can see broken.
  5. ^ Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Hanja. Accessed 2010-09-11.
  6. ^ story K Official Website
  7. ^ 北 편들고 南 깎아내리는 위키피디아 (Korean Wikipedia that favors North Korea; does not favor South Korea) 2011-07-16 Donga Ilbo
  8. ^ Song (송), Hyeon-suk (현숙). "[기자메모] 위키피디아 보고 ‘자유민주주의’ 택했다는 국사편찬위원장". The Hankyoreh (in Korean). Retrieved 2011-12-03. 

External links[edit]