Chinese Wikipedia’s Surge in Growth
Here in the PRC, it has been four days since the block of Chinese Wikipedia (ZH) was fully lifted. All reports indicate it is indeed accessible from everywhere in the country - an improvement on the initial partial lifting of the block on 10/10.
So I wondered - was there any way to check the effects of the block being lifted? A trip to the Wikipedia logs of new user registrations and new articles this morning shows a dramatic story. In short:
Where ZH was previously getting 300-400 new registrants a day, the weekend after unblocking has seen over one thousand new registrants a day. November 12 (interestingly, a Sunday) saw over 1,200 new registrants.
As a result - though ZH is only the 12th largest language Wikipedia, in terms of “new users registered each day” it has suddenly vaulted from the middle of the pack to be the 2nd largest growing Wikipedia by users, now far outpacing the German, French and Spanish Wikipedia juggernauts. (English Wikipedia is in a different universe at number one)
That same Sunday, there were 75% more new articles added to ZH than the previous week (Nov 12 v Nov 5).
This sharp growth is certainly exciting, but it will truly test this community to absorb this volume of newbies so quickly. Get those neutral point of view and wiki markup tutorials in place.Before the lifting of the block, a quarter of the active contributors were from Hong Kong, another quarter from Taiwan. The rest were a mix from Singapore, Malaysia, US, Canada, PRC and other places. That’s going to shift in a major way, starting this week.
Also, this weekend ZH surpassed 100,000 articles. At this rate of new user signup and article creation, the next 100,000 will come very quickly.
The ZH community has been waiting over a year for this moment, and how prescient it was that just last night Tom Friedman was in Beijing extolling the virtues of Wikipedia at the Bookworm Cafe, saying that the world has been flattened by this new “upload” culture.
Welcome PRC users, to a global online community the likes of which you have never seen before.
Related posts:
This entry was posted on Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 3:57 am and is filed under China, Wikipedia, GFW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
16 Responses to “Chinese Wikipedia’s Surge in Growth”
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Kevin S.
November 13th, 2006 04:501“Tom Friedman was in Beijing extolling the virtues of Wikipedia at the Bookworm Cafe.”
I think you literally grew two inches when he said that.
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andrew
November 13th, 2006 05:282Ha.
I was expecting it, but was still pleasantly surprised.
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shizhao
November 13th, 2006 06:393Good news!
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Somebody.Else
November 13th, 2006 21:294This is awesome!
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Peter Guo
November 13th, 2006 22:535It’s a good news, but I think it will be just a show.
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mahathir_fan
November 14th, 2006 01:106No use. Someone still has the time to completely revert articles back to their point of view. My statement that China is a democracy did indeed last a little longer than in the past before someguy by the name of Ran reverted. Frankly, I do not have much time to play this tug of war games with someone that is ignorant about Communism.
Hopefully, more Chinese users can join me and we can take over wikipedia.
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Otto Kerner
November 14th, 2006 13:507Hurrah, people taking stuff over!
Oh, wait, no, that’s a bad thing.
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jonathan
November 14th, 2006 18:458any insight on the recent unblockings? why? and why now?
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Andrew Lih » Blog Archive » Why did China finally unblock Wikipedia?
November 15th, 2006 00:569[…] With my recent reporting on the Wikipedia block being lifted, many people have asked me, “Why do you think Wikipedia was finally unblocked in China?” […]
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Brian Glanz
November 15th, 2006 11:4610It would be fascinating to see more evidence online of what people in Mainland China believe to be true about the officially mistold stories in Chinese history.
Most people I’ve personally known living in Mainland China, if we’ve had this conversation, are of one mind on issues like what happened in Tiananmen Square or what life was like during the Cultural Revolution. Whether through study abroad or reading online, or in some cases because they had a personal experience close to this history, they know the party’s version of events is false.
For younger adults, some of them old enough now to be professors, they have had to unlearn what they were taught all their lives in Chinese schools. It is usually heartbreaking and difficult to accept that the patriotic versions they had learned were lies. I wonder whether ZH Wikipedia, even if it were perfectly accurate in its accounting of the facts, whether it would be enough to shake the beliefs of common Chinese who don’t yet know their nation and their schools have lied to them. They love their country at least as much as anyone else loves their own. Bearers of facts struggle to overcome beliefs, whatever their veracity.
I’m not in contact with a representative swath of the people, obviously enough. My experience is anecdotal and biased in favor of academics and business-types in big cities, who have had much more exposure to the rest of the world than an average Chinese citizen. When I say that most of the people I’ve spoken with on the Mainland know better than what they were taught in school, I still don’t know how true that is for most Chinese. I have reason to suspect that the large majority of regular Chinese people do not know the facts of the uglier parts of their own history. (As a qualification of this, I suppose the same is true to a lesser degree in nations with greater freedom of speech, too.)
I’ve been surprised many times over by Chinese students who are in the U.S. for the first time. At Cornell University over the years, I met dozens of students and scholars from the Mainland who honestly believed the party versions of their history. It was galling to see celebrated scholars insisting that the Cultural Revolution essentially didn’t happen, or that to whatever extent it did, academics et al. deserved to be sent down, etc. I’ve listened to otherwise brilliant grad students maintain that freedoms of speech and protest should and will eventually be banned globally. These ideas are deep-sunken and insidious; multiplied by more than a billion minds, I fear they do legitimately threaten our global intellectual future.
Now to what extent you support freedom of speech may in itself be a great debate with valid, varied opinions. In Germany, much of what would otherwise be free speech is illegal when it’s Nazi. The same hateful speech in the U.S. would be legal and protected by our Constitution. Are either or both of us “right” considering our different circumstances? Is it possible to forge a global standard for justice with respect to free speech, or do local circumstances warrant variation, and by how much?
About the facts of history however, there should be no debate. It is not my “opinion” that millions died due to Mao’s policies, which he maintained for his personal benefit even as he was informed of their impact. It isn’t a matter of opinion at all: that’s what happened.
I suggest therein is the penumbra of justice with respect to free speech. Speech should be as free as it needs to be that common people can know common facts. Let me restate even more briefly: Speech must not be so limited that truth is misplaced.
Then, apply that standard to China. Because I can tell you that otherwise brilliant grad students from Mainland China honestly believe what is not true about their nation’s history, I would say freedom of speech has been too limited in China, whatever anyone’s opinion about where exactly lines should be drawn.
That Wikipedia has in place great controls, moderators, and l’esprit of truth and facts prevailing, may not be enough. ZH Wikipedia could be overwhelmed with thousands or even millions of users who know primarily what the party taught them. If it is left open to the people, this global, public record of Chinese knowledge could stand as an historic test of truth and human manipulation. BG
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shizhao
November 15th, 2006 12:2511TrackBack URL:
talk.blogbus.com/logs/2006/11/3840529.html -
Wikipedia Weekly» Blog Archive » Wikipedia Weekly 5 - Arbcom, WP 0.5 and “Wiki”
November 15th, 2006 13:5612[…] Growth rising in Chinese Wikipedia […]
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shmekerosu
November 17th, 2006 06:5613Today China blocked again WIKIpedia ! as seen on tv… I read also on CNN.com website. You can fight censorship via proxy sites like: www.surfinter.net and www.hidemyway.com - it is easy and free, anonymous and also hides your IP address. You can also access wikipedia, myspace or other blocked sites from work or school. Also for myspace.com use www.msproxy.net ! Enjoy
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WikiAngela » Wikipedia fully unblocked in China and experiencing rapid growth
November 22nd, 2006 08:0014[…] Good news for Wikipedia and China - Andrew Lih reports that the partial unblock of Wikipedia in China is now a full unblock and Wikipedia is accessible from everywhere in China. He also has graphs showing a surge of new users. Over 1000 new users are signing up for the Chinese Wikipedia per day since the block was lifted! This makes it the second fastest growing Wikipedia in terms of user registrations. Article growth is also up, and they celebrated reaching 100,000 articles this week. It’s almost four years since the English Wikipedia hit the same milestone. […]
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Dan Michaels lurifakserier og andre skriverier » Blog Archive » Wikipedia in China
November 23rd, 2006 03:2915[…] 11:27 (24h) The blocking of Wikipedia in China seems to have been raised! Andrew Lih brings this good news for the chinese internet community. For long time, Chinese governments has been very hard on community-contributing or community-driven websites (”read-write-sites”). Beeing active in a local Amnesty group some years ago, I remember we worked with a case where a young man was detained for several years without a sentence. The reason was his website. The main content on the site was not problematic, but a guest mentioned the 1989-massacre in a comment-field. In other words, including open comment-fields on your website in China is dangerous, and then, what about leaving the whole website open for editing by anyone (like Wikipedia)? Keeping that in mind, it will be interesting to see what is written about Chinese history in Chinese Wikipedia (well, at least it would be if I understood Chinese). […]
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wikipedia
December 31st, 2006 19:2216Wikipedia is the key to most success online, when it comes to collabritive content adding. I have spent many hours writing articles for Jimmy Wales and am very happy with this project. I am based in Seminole FL close to the wikipedia offices in St Petersburg. I love contributing!
Happy New Year Bloggers!
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