Chinese Wikipedia

The Chinese Wikipedia logo

The Chinese Wikipedia is the Chinese language edition of Wikipedia, run by the Wikimedia Foundation. Started in October 2002, the Chinese Wikipedia has, as of December 2006, over 103,000 articles. Currently, it is blocked by the Chinese government together with all the other wikipedia in other languages. It has 86 moderators, including 29 from mainland China, 16 from Taiwan, and 14 from Hong Kong.

History

The Chinese Wikipedia was established along with 12 other Wikipedias in May 2001. At the beginning, however, the Chinese Wikipedia did not support Chinese characters, and had no encyclopedic content.

It was in October 2002 that the user 'Ghyll' (now zh:User:Mountain) wrote the first Chinese-language page, the Main Page. Mountain is also the first registered user of the Chinese Wikipedia. A software update on October 27, 2002 allowed Chinese language input. The domain was set to be zh.wikipedia.org. On November 17, 2002, Mountain translated the Computer science article into zh:计算机科学, thus creating the first real encyclopedic article.

In its early days, most articles on the Chinese Wikipedia were translated from the English version. The first five sysops: zh:User:Samuel, zh:User:Menchi, zh:User:Lorenzarius, zh:User:Formulax, and zh:User:Shizhao, were promoted on June 14, 2003. Since then, Shizhao in particular has performed many maintenance tasks, and was also instrumental in removing the first blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China in June 2004.

Wikipedia was first introduced by mainland China media in the newspaper China Computer Education (中国电脑教育报) on October 20, 2003, in the article, "I, too, shall write an encyclopedia" (我也来写百科全书). On May 16, 2004, Wikipedia was first reported by Taiwanese media in the newspaper China Times. Since then, many newspapers have published articles about Wikipedia, and several sysops have been interviewed by journalists.

Origin of the Name

The Chinese name of Wikipedia is shown on the main page.

The Chinese name of Wikipedia was decided on October 21, 2003, following a vote. The name (Traditional Chinese: 維基百科; Simplified Chinese: 维基百科 "wéi jī bǎi kē") means "Wiki Encyclopedia". The Chinese transcription of "Wiki" is composed of two characters: 維/维, whose ancient sense refers to ropes or webs connecting objects, and alludes to the Internet; and 基, meaning the foundations of a building, or fundamental aspects of things in general. Therefore the name can be interpreted as the encyclopedia that connects the fundamental knowledge of humanity.

The most common Chinese translation for wiki technology, however, is not 維基 / 维基; but tends to be 維客 / 维客 or 圍紀 / 围纪, which are also transcriptions of the word "wiki". As a result, the term 維基 / 维基 has become associated exclusively with Wikimedia projects. [1]

The Chinese Wikipedia also has a subtitle: 海納百川，有容乃大 / 海纳百川，有容乃大. It means, "The sea encompasses a hundred rivers; it has capacity [i.e. is willing to accept all] and is thus great." The subtitle is the first half of a couplet composed by Qing Dynasty official Lin Zexu.

Moderators

At the end of 2006, 89 moderators are managing the site.

Wikipedia is blocked by the Chinese government, however, mainland China actually has the largest number of moderators for the Chinese Wikipedia, total of 29 members strong. They are able to go around the Golden Shield Project's block.

China's capital city - Beijing has 6, Shanghai has 6, Guangdong province has 6, Hunan province has 1, Jiangsu province has 3, Shanxi province has 1, Shandong province has 1, Zhejiang province has 1, Heilongjiang province has 1, Hubei has 1, other areas have 2. Total of 29.

Other Chinese concentrated areas, such as Taiwan has 16, Hong Kong has 13, Macau has 3. Singapore has none. there are 9 in the United States, 5 in Canada, 3 in Macau, 3 in the United Kingdom, 1 in Australia, 1 in France, 1 in Germany, 1 in Japan, 1 in South Korea, and 2 unspecified.

After the Chinese government unblocked the wikipedia for the first time, one month later, the first Chinese Wikipedian meeting was held in Beijing on July 25, 2004. Even though Wikipedia is still blocked in mainland China, the moderators in several Chinese cities are still openly advertising for meetings on the site, and have met in person. So far, there is no surveillance or harassment report about the Chinese police or similar kind.

Since then, Chinese Wikipedians from different regions have held many gatherings in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In particular, a semi-regular meetup has been held in Taipei every one to three weeks since April 2006. In July 2006, Taiwanese Wikipedians also held a "travelling meetup", travelling by train through four Taiwanese cities over a period of two days. In August 2006, Hong Kong hosted the first annual Chinese Wikimedia Conference.

Community

The Chinese Wikipedia encompasses participants from a variety of backgrounds. According to statistics from March 2005, 46% of users connect from mainland China, 22% from North America, 12% from Taiwan, 9% from Hong Kong, 3% from Japan, 3% from Europe, 2% from Southeast Asia, and 3% from other regions. Just as the English Wikipedia tends to be more detailed in western-related topics, the Chinese Wikipedia has very detailed descriptions of China-related topics. Within that region, the Chinese Wikipedia tends to be more detailed in topics about Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the wealthy east coast provinces of mainland China, reflecting the economic disparity in that part of the world.

Also due to the geographical origin of its participants, the most discussed and debated topics on the Chinese Wikipedia are those related to Taiwanese independence, Falun Gong, the Tiananmen Protests of 1989, and so forth; the five most edited articles, as of July 2006, are Mao Zedong, China, the People's Republic of China, the Republic of China, and Chiang Kai-shek, in that order. In contrast, issues such as the Israel-Palestinian conflict are much less contentious.

In order to avoid systemic bias, one of the cornerstones of the Chinese Wikipedia (along with neutral point-of-view) is avoiding sinocentrism. Editors are advised to avoid writing from the point-of-view of China or any other country/region; to avoid using terms such as 我国/我國 ("our country"; referring to the People's Republic of China or the Republic of China, depending on viewpoint), 本港 ("this port"; referring to Hong Kong), or 本澳 ("this Macao", referring to Macao); and instead, to refer to locations in the Chinese-speaking sphere or periods in Chinese history by explicitly stating China (e.g. "Yunnan province, China", instead of just "Yunnan province".)

Automatic conversion between Traditional and Simplified Chinese

Original situation

At the beginning there were virtually two Chinese Wikipedias under the names of "zh-cn" and "zh-tw". Generally, users from regions that used Traditional Chinese (such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau) wrote and edited articles using Traditional Chinese characters while those from regions that used Simplified Chinese (such as mainland China, Singapore, and Malaysia) wrote using Simplified Chinese characters. Many articles had two uncoordinated versions; for example, there was both a Traditional (法國) and Simplified (法国) article on France. Further exacerbating the problem, due to the lack of communication and separate systems, many proper names are quite different in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. For instance, a computer printer is called 打印机 in mainland China, but 印表機 in Taiwan.

Solution

To avoid this near-forking of the project, starting around January 2005, the Chinese Wikipedia began providing a server-side mechanism to automatically convert different characters and proper names into the user's local ones, according to the user's preference settings, which may be set to one of four regional variants:

• zh-cn (mainland China)
• zh-hk (Hong Kong and Macao)
• zh-sg (Singapore)
• zh-tw (Taiwan)

Conversion is done through a set of character conversion tables that may be edited by administrators. Through special wiki markup syntax, editors may override the conversion tables for specific sections of text within articles.

Furthermore, page title conversion is used for automatic page redirection. Those articles previously named in different characters or different translations have been merged, and can be reached by means of both Traditional and Simplified Chinese titles.

Wikipedias in other varieties of Chinese

The Chinese Wikipedia is based on Vernacular Chinese, a register of written Chinese that is official in all Chinese-speaking regions, including mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore. This register is largely associated in grammar and vocabulary with Standard Mandarin, the official spoken language of mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore (but not exclusively of Hong Kong and Macau, which largely use Standard Cantonese).

The Chinese / Sinitic languages are a diverse group encompassing many regional varieties, some of which are mutually unintelligible and often referred to as separate languages, such as Wu, Minnan (of course Taiwanese is a notable dialect), and Cantonese. After the founding of Wikipedia, many users of these Chinese tongues began to ask for the right to have Wikipedia editions in these tongues as well. However, they also met with significant opposition, whose main justification was that no form of written Chinese except the Mandarin-based Vernacular Chinese is ever used in scholarly or academic contexts. In regions that speak non-Mandarin tongues or regional Mandarin dialects, the written language differs sharply from the spoken language in vocabulary and grammar, and is often read in local pronunciation while preserving the vocabulary and grammar of standard Mandarin.

These objections notwithstanding, it was eventually determined that these Chinese tongues were sufficiently different from Standard Mandarin and had sufficiently many contributors interested in their creation. Four regional Chinese tongues now have their own Wikipedias:

• Wu Wikipedia, which uses the Shanghai dialect as its standard;
• Cantonese Wikipedia, which uses Standard Cantonese (i.e. the Guangzhou / Hong Kong dialect) as its standard;
• Minnan Wikipedia, which uses Taiwanese as its standard;
• Mindong Wikipedia, whic uses the Fuzhou dialect as its standard.

Finally, requests were also made, and granted, to create a Classical Chinese Wikipedia, based on Classical Chinese, an archaic register of Chinese with grammar and vocabulary drawn from classical works, and used in all official contexts until the early 20th century.

All of the above Wikipedias have sidesteped the Traditional / Simplified Chinese issue. The Wu Wikipedia uses Simplified Chinese exclusively, while the Cantonese and Classical Chinese Chinese Wikipedias use Traditional Chinese. The Minnan and Mindong Wikipedias use the Roman alphabet, thus avoiding the issue completely.

Blocking of Wikipedia

Main article: Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China

Internet has been partially censored in mainland China almost as early Internet got connected to China. Recently, China has spent about 8 billion US dollars on the Golden Shield Project to improve the censorship ability. The People's Republic of China and its internet service providers have adopted a practice of blocking contentious Internet sites in mainland China, and Wikimedia sites have been blocked at least three times in its history. The first block lasted between June 2 and June 21, 2004. It began when access to the Chinese Wikipedia from Beijing was blocked on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

On May 31 an article from the IDG News Service was published [2], discussing the Chinese Wikipedia's treatment of the protests. The Chinese Wikipedia also has articles related to Taiwanese independence, written by contributors from Taiwan and elsewhere. A few days after the initial block of Chinese Wikipedia, all Wikimedia sites were blocked in Mainland China. In response to the blocks, two moderators prepared an appeal to lift the block and asked their regional internet service provider to submit it. All Wikimedia sites were unblocked between June 17 and June 21, 2004. One month later, the first Chinese Wikipedian moderators' meeting was held in the capital city - Beijing on July 25, 2004.

The first block had an effect on the vitality of Chinese Wikipedia, which suffered sharp dips in various indicators such as the number of new users, the number of new articles, and the number of edits. In some cases, it took anywhere from 6 to 12 months in order to regain the stats from May 2004. On the other hand, on today's site, some of the articles are put into protection which may last more than a month or more without any actions.

The second and less serious outage lasted between September 23 and September 27, 2004. During this 4-day period, access to Wikipedia was erratic or unavailable to some users in mainland China — this block was not comprehensive and some users in mainland China were never affected. The exact reason for the block is a mystery. Chinese Wikipedians once again prepared a written appeal to regional ISPs, but the block was lifted before the appeal was actually sent. The reason is unknown.

The third block began on October 19, 2005, and there is no indication as to whether this block is temporary or permanent, or what the reasons or causes for this block are. According to the status page currently maintained on the Chinese Wikipedia, the Florida and Korea servers are blocked, while the Paris and Amsterdam servers are not. Dozens of editors from across Mainland China have reported that they can only access Wikipedia using proxy servers, although there are isolated reports that some users can access Wikipedia without using proxy. Most of the Chinese people were not able to connect to this site at all.

During October and November of 2006, it first appeared that the this site was unblocked again. Many conflicting reports came from news outlets, bloggers, and Wikipedians, reported a possible partial or full unblocking of Wikipedia. Some reports indicated a complete unblock; others suggested that some sensitive topics remained blocked, and yet other suggested that the Chinese Wikipedia was blocked while other language versions were not. From November 17 onwards, the complete block was once again in place. It is still unknown when the next unblock will be.

An attempt to appeal to the government was made in October 2005, but was met with no response. Since then, no more plans for appeals have been made.

Self-censorship

November 30th, 2006, CBS published an online article named: Is Wikipedia China Really Wikipedia?

In December, 2006, according to International Herald Tribune Asia-Pacific, sensitive topics get gentle treatment on the Chinese wikipedia.

But on sensitive questions of China's modern history or on hot-button issues, the Chinese version diverges so dramatically from its English counterpart that it sometimes reads as if it were approved by the censors themselves.

For some, the Chinese version of Wikipedia was intended as just such a resource, but its tame approach to sensitive topics has sparked a fierce debate in the world of online mavens over its objectivity and thoroughness.

On the evidence of entries like this, for the moment, the fight over editorial direction of Wikipedia in Chinese is being won by enthusiasts who practice self-censorship.

On December 1, 2006, The New York Times published another report by Howard W. French, titled as "Wikipedia lays bare two versions of China's past."

Some say the object should be to spread reliable information as widely as possible, and that, in any case, self-censorship is pointless because the government still frequently blocks access to Wikipedia for most Chinese Internet users. 'There is a lot of confusion about whether they should obey the neutral point of view or offer some compromises to the government,' said Isaac Mao, a well-known Chinese blogger and user of the encyclopedia. 'To the local Wikipedians, the first objective is to make it well known among Chinese, to get people to understand the principles of Wikipedia step by step, and not to get the thing blocked by the government.

And "the articles are already pre-censored by party-leaning moderators and users." There is no evidence that the Chinese site had any discussion about those two articles even though the moderators are all aware of.

Examples

What happened in Tibet in 1950 was 56 years ago. On the chinese wikipedia, before 11-23, 2006, that part of history was written as "in 1950, the government of People's Republic of China signed "peaceful liberation treaty" with the Tibetan government, under the condition of respecting Tibetan's system and life style, the liberation army was allowed to enter tibet." When a user tried to added the detailed history for that period of time, his contribution was deleted as "vandalism" twice by two Chinese moderators on 11-23, and 12-6, 2006.

As of December 28th, 2006, the article of People's Republic of China on the Chinese site did not mention anything about the well-known Falun Gong which originated in mainland China. And the phrase "Human Rights" was only mentioned once under the name "Organization for Human Rights." There was no direct link to the "Human rights in the People's Republic of China" article, either. While the English site of People's Republic of China has an entire paragraph about Human Rights, and also a direct link to Human rights in the People's Republic of China.

Competitors

On April 20, 2006, the online Chinese search engine company Baidu created Baidu Baike, an online encyclopedia that registered users can edit, pending administrator reviews. The content of the encyclopedia is self-censored in accordance with the regulations of the Chinese government. Within weeks, the number of articles in Baidu Baike had surpassed that of the Chinese Wikipedia.

See also

• Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China
• Internet censorship in mainland China
• Golden Shield Project
• Politics of China
• Comprehensive technical information about automatic conversion on the Chinese Wikipedia between Simplified and Traditional Chinese

External links

• Chinese Wikipedia
• Baidu - the Chinese Wikipedia
• Chinese Wikimedia Conference 2006

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