Portuguese Wikipedia

History

The Portuguese Wikipedia was the third edition of Wikipedia to be created, simultaneously with other languages. It started its activities on 11 May 2001, having reached the mark of one hundred thousand articles on 26 January 2006.

From late 2004, the edition grew rapidly. In May 2005, it overtook both the Spanish and Italian language Wikipedias. By comparison, in May 2004 it was only the 17th Wikipedia by the number of articles.

Portuguese articles can contain variations of writing, as European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese have differences in vocabulary and usage. Articles can contain written characteristics of one or the other variant depending on who wrote the article.

The Portuguese Wikipedia community decided not to split a separate Brazilian Portuguese version off from the Portuguese Wikipedia. In 2005, a proposal to fork Portuguese Wikipedia and create a Brazilian Portuguese (pt-br) version was voted down by the Wikimedia community. In 2007 another one to create a European Portuguese version was rejected too by the Wikimedia community. In 2009 another one to create in Brazilian Portuguese was rejected, but this time by the language committee, according to new policies to create new Wikipedia editions, with the following explanation: "Brazilian Portuguese is not a separate language.. this is a requirement."

Beginning in January 2007, the project experienced a decrease of the share of edits by unregistered users (from around 20 to around 15%) and an increase of the share of such edits being reverted, from about 15% to a peak of 25% in late 2008, which suggests an increase in disruptive editing. In the same month, a JavaScript was added that forced all unregistered users to preview their edit before saving it.

In December 2010, the Portuguese Wikipedia overtook the Dutch language Wikipedia in number of articles, but in the first quarter of 2011, it was surpassed by the Russian and Dutch language Wikipedias, ranking in the tenth position. In April 2016, the project had 1388 active editors who made at least five edits in that month.

Characteristics

The Portuguese language Wikipedia is different from the English one in a number of aspects.

• Until 2009, fair use was not allowed on Portuguese Wikipedia. Debates have been raised before concerning the fair use policy, all of them failing to have the uploading of such images allowed. Uploading pictures at the Portuguese Wikipedia was even fully disabled until then. In August 2009, though, a new debate was raised in order for users to approve or deny the creation of a policy of uploading fair use media (named "Uso Restrito de Conteúdo" there, which translates as Restricted Use of Contents). This debate resulted in 142 votes for "yes" against 120 votes for "no", which means the policy was approved and implemented. Nowadays, fair use files are labeled as "Conteúdo restrito", meaning restricted content.
• Like English, Portuguese has regional differences in vocabulary, grammar, and spelling. It is widely accepted that an article written in Brazilian Portuguese should be kept as it is, and the same applies to articles in European Portuguese. However, if one rewrites the article in another variant (provided content was changed, not merely the language), but leaves some words in the former variant, these words should be rewritten in accordance with the new version's variant of the article.
• In order to hinder spamming and trolling, completion of a CAPTCHA image was required for all unregistered users to make any edit. It was disabled on 1 January 2014.
• Since 2020, after a community vote that lasted from 4 September to 4 October, the Portuguese Wikipedia no longer allows edits from unregistered users (IP addresses). As of 2019, the Portuguese Wikipedia had 316,000 unique categories, 3.57% of them lacking an appropriate page in the category namespace. The average article in this language version has nine categories, while the ratio of unique categories per article is 0.314. The largest number of articles belong to Arts (16%) and Geography (14%) categories. Articles related to Crime and Events have the highest average quality. Those related to Health are read more often, and articles in the Business category have the highest average author interest.

In April 2022, the European Union's East StratCom Task Force published its findings that four pro-Russian disinformation outlets (SouthFront, NewsFront, InfoRos and Strategic Culture Foundation) were referenced in 45 articles of the Portuguese Wikipedia. This made it the Wikipedia edition that was the fourth most-affected by such disinformation, after the Russian, Arabic and Spanish Wikipedias. The Task Force wrote:

Notes

• Lih, Andrew. The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia. Hyperion, New York City. 2009. First Edition. (alkaline paper).

References

Bibliography

• {{cite book | access-date = 20 December 2023 | archive-date = 29 November 2023 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20231129223055/https://is.cos.ufrj.br/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/BernardoEsteves-Tese-2014.pdf | author-link = Bernardo Esteves | trans-title = The controversies of science on Wikipedia in Portuguese: the case of global warming | url-status = live
• {{cite journal | access-date = 20 December 2023 | archive-date = 13 August 2023 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230813082429/https://www.rchunitau.com.br/index.php/rch/article/view/747 | doi-access = free | trans-title = Wikipedia in Portuguese language: dynamics, structures, and dilemmas in collaboration for knowledge | url-status = live | hdl-access= free
• {{cite news | access-date = 20 December 2023 | archive-date = 20 July 2023 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230720144541/https://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/materia/cooperacao-conturbada/ | author-link = Bernardo Esteves | trans-title = Turbulent cooperation | url-status = live
• {{cite book | access-date = 20 December 2023 | archive-date = 18 November 2022 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20221118104833/https://app.uff.br/riuff/handle/1/3829 | trans-title = Media Wikipedia: daily life, compilation of knowledge, and power struggles behind the scenes of the Free Encyclopedia | url-status = live

References

1. (October 10, 2020). "Wikipédia em português passa a exigir login para editar verbetes". Tecnoblog.
2. (11 May 2001). "[Wikipedia-l] new language wikis".
3. "Top sites in Brazil".
4. (12 February 2023). "Most Visited Websites in Portugal".
5. (11 May 2001). "[Wikipedia-l] new language wikis".
6. "Wikipédia em português alcança 100 mil artigos".
7. [[Andrew Lih. Lih]], p. 136.
8. [[:meta:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Brazilian Portuguese]]
9. [[:meta:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia European Portuguese]]
10. [[:meta:Language proposal policy]]
11. [[:meta:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Brazilian Portuguese 2]]
12. In coincidence with a stalling of editing activity rates across all projects combined, see [[stats:EN/PlotEditsZZ.png]].
13. [[stats:EN/EditsRevertsPT.htm]] and in particular [[stats:EN/PlotRevertsTrendsPT.png]]; no data available after early 2010, as of June 2013.
14. {{Diff. pt:MediaWiki:Monobook.js. pt:MediaWiki:Common.js. "emergency captcha" for all edits]].
15. [[:pt:Wikipedia:Votações/Imagens e copyright. Wikipedia:Votações/Imagens e copyright]]
16. [[:pt:Wikipedia:Votações/Revisão do uso do Fair Use na pt.wikipedia. Wikipedia:Votações/Revisão do uso do Fair Use na pt.wikipedia]]
17. [[:pt:Wikipedia:Votações/Impedir carregamento de imagens. Wikipedia:Votações/Impedir carregamento de imagens]]
18. [[:pt:Wikipedia:Votações/Uso Restrito de Conteúdo (fair-use). Wikipedia:Votações/Uso Restrito de Conteúdo (fair-use)]]
19. [[:pt:Wikipedia:Uso Restrito de Conteúdo/Implementação. Wikipedia:Uso Restrito de Conteúdo/Implementação]]
20. [[:pt:Wikipedia:Versões da língua portuguesa. Wikipedia:Versões da língua portuguesa]]
21. [https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/104660/ Gerrit 104660]
22. (2022-04-19). "Pro-Kremlin Disinformation Outlets Referenced By Hundreds Of Wikipedia Articles".