Bengali Wikipedia

The Bengali Wikipedia or Bangla Wikipedia (Bengali: বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়া) is the Bengali language edition of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. Launched on January 27, 2004, it surpassed 10,000 articles in October 2006, becoming the second South-Asian language to do so.[1] On 25 December, 2020 the site achieved the milestone of 1 lakh articles and by 6 February 2021, total article crossed 103,354 articles with 1,217 active editors per month, and ranks 4th in terms of depth among Wikipedias.[2][3] In 2018, Bengali Wikipedia was viewed about 190 million times from all over the world.[4][5] On an average, the site was viewed over 500 thousand times a day.[5]

Bengali Wikipedia
Screenshot
The homepage of the Bengali Wikipedia.
Type of site
Internet encyclopedia project
Available inBengali
HeadquartersDhaka & Kolkata
OwnerWikimedia Foundation
URLbn.wikipedia.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional
Users317,260
Launched27 January 2004 (2004-01-27)
Current statusonline

As of June 2020, Bengali Wikipedia is the only online free encyclopedia written in Bengali language. It is also one of the largest Bengali content related sites on the internet. The mobile version of Bengali Wikipedia was launched in 2010.[6]

It also has a phonetic Latin alphabet to Bengali script tool so Latin alphabet keyboards can be used to type Bengali without downloading any software. Community-produced news publications include WikiBarta.

Early history

In February 2002, the developers started creating language-code based sub-domains for different language Wikipedias. Along with other Wikipedia sub-domains, Bengali language sub-domain was created at that time.[7] A placeholder page was created automatically in that sub-domain on June 1, 2002.[8] On December 9, 2003, A Bangladeshi Ph.D. student of Canada's McGill University named Shah Asaduzzaman emailed Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales with a request to create Bengali Wikipedia.[9][10] As a result, the developers created a test page on the Wikipedia named "Home Page" on December 26 of the same year.[10]

The Main Page of Bengali Wikipedia was created on January 27, 2004 from an IP address which marks the official beginning of Bengali Wikipedia. 'বাংলা ভাষা' ("Bānglā Bhāshā"; Bengali Language in English) is the first article of Bengali Wikipedia which was created on May 24, 2004.

History
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales with Bengali Wikipedians during Bengali Wikipedia's 10th anniversary celebration in Dhaka (2015).

Bengali Wikipedia started its journey on January 27, 2004.[11][12] Back then, the Bengali-speaking population had a little interest in Wikipedia. A few students and scholars used the English Wikipedia, but it was not accountable. Besides that, there were various difficulties contributing in Bengali. The whole scenario has been changed in 2006.[13] During that time, the Bengali blogging world was growing slowly, and many people became accustomed to Bengali computing where a free and open-source Bengali typing tool, Avro Keyboard played a key role. On March 25, 2006, a Wiki team was created by the ‘Bangladesh Open Source Network’ (BdOSN) to popularize Wikipedia throughout the country.[13] The aim was to represent Bengalis to the world through Wikipedia and build a complete encyclopedia in Bengali.

At that time, Bengali Wikipedia had only 500 articles. ‘BdOSN wiki team’ managed to spread the word through some newspapers and start a Bengali Wiki mailing list. Soon, many Bengali-speaking people from Bangladesh, India and abroad joined them in this dynamic project. As a result, by the end of the October, Bengali Wikipedia got to 10,000 articles.[13] Among the South Asian language Wikipedias, Bengali Wikipedia reached that milestone first, and many of these articles were illustrated with photos from the demonstrator of Bengali Language Movement Dr. Rafiqul Islam, who donated all his historical photographs taken during the language movement to Wikimedia Commons.[13]

Number of Wikipedia articles[14]

One of the pioneer of the Bengali Wikipedia, Dr. Ragib Hasan said that

The biggest challenge was writing something on internet in Bengali. The Bengali Unicode was not supported on most operating systems, only few websites on the internet supported Bengali Unicode, and users had difficulties configuring it. Moreover, the idea of writing something with Bengali Unicode was new. … in the beginning, the idea of a Wikipedia in Bengali was not actually workable.[13]

Between 2009 and 2010, Bengali speakers from West Bengal, India also started to contribute to Bengali Wikipedia.[13] In the meantime, the Wikimedia Foundation started their operations and on October 3, 2011 a local chapter named Wikimedia Bangladesh was approved in Bangladesh[11] by the Foundation to promote educational content in Bengali. On February 26, 2015, Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia—visited Bangladesh for a celebration program that was organized by Wikimedia Bangladesh[15][16][17] to mark the tenth year of Bengali Wikipedia.[16][17][18][19][20][21] In his keynote, Jimmy said that according to the article depth, Bengali Wikipedia is rated quite well.[16][22]

Bengali Wikipedia now has 103,354 articles on various topics with 1,217 active editors per month. As of January 2019, Bengali Wikipedia is the only online free encyclopedia written in Bengali language.[4][23] It is also one of the largest Bengali content related sites on the internet.[24] Statistically, since early 2019, Bengali Wikipedia has recorded significant growth. The number of articles has increased from 63,000 to nearly 101,000 in just two years and the number of active users has increased to above a thousand.[25] The number of edits has also recorded a significant growth.[26]

On December 25, 2020 Bengali Wikipedia reached the milestone of 100,000 articles.[27]

Users and editors
Bengali Wikipedia statistics
Number of user accountsNumber of articlesNumber of filesNumber of administrators
3172601033541250212

Confusion

Over the years, there have been confusion in Bangladeshi media regarding some information of Bengali Wikipedia. In April 2018, Bangladeshi print and electronic media reported that Wikipedia named Runa Laila, a renowned singer from Bangladesh, among its Top 30 Bengali people of all time.[28][29][30][31] This confusion arises due to the use of a collage image in the Bengalis article's infobox at Bengali and English version of Wikipedia.[32] In August of the same year, an unregistered user added fake date of death in Muhammed Zafar Iqbal's article, which also attracted media attention.[33][34][35][36]

Bengali Wikipedia's 14th Anniversary group photo, Dhaka (2018)
Bengali Wikipedia's 13th Anniversary group photo, Dhaka (2017)
Bengali Wikipedia's 10th Anniversary group photo, Kolkata (2015)

See also

References
  1. Noronha, Frederick (30 September 2006). "Bengali Wikipedia crosses 10,000 articles". Indo-Asian News Service. Monsters and Critics. Archived from the original on 26 December 2013. Retrieved 25 December 2013.
  2. This prediction is based on {{NUMBEROF|ARTICLES|bn|N}} Wikipedia template that automatically updates article numbers. So this is not a permanent or fixed count. The number of articles shown here, change in real-time as soon as a new article is created or removed. Therefore, this is not a reliable source and the numbers shown here are subject to change without prior notice.
  3. "A decade of Bangla Wikipedia An open call". The Daily Star. 17 March 2014. Archived from the original on 23 March 2014. Retrieved 15 April 2014.
  4. বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়ার ১৫ বছর. Jugantor (in Bengali). Retrieved 28 January 2019.
  5. ১৯ কোটিবার দেখা হয়েছে বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়া. Tech Shohor (in Bengali). Retrieved 26 January 2019.
  6. এবার মোবাইল ফোনে বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়া. Prothom Alo (in Bengali). Retrieved 26 January 2019.
  7. "Wikipedia: HomePage". 22 February 2002. Archived from the original on 22 February 2002. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  8. "Wikipedia: HomePage". 23 July 2002. Archived from the original on 23 July 2002. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  9. "Mailing List Archive: [asad@cs.mcgill.ca: About starting a new wikipedia in language : Bengali]". lists.gt.net. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  10. বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়ায় প্রথম. Kalerkantho (in Bengali). Archived from the original on 28 January 2019. Retrieved 27 January 2019.
  11. একনজরে বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়া. Kaler Kantho (in Bengali). Archived from the original on 11 September 2018. Retrieved 11 September 2018.
  12. ১৪ বছরে বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়া. Kaler Kantho (in Bengali).
  13. যুগ পেরিয়ে বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়া. Kaler Kantho (in Bengali). Archived from the original on 11 September 2018. Retrieved 11 September 2018.
  14. "Wikipedia Statistics (Bengali)". stats.wikimedia.org.
  15. "Wikipedia co-founder arrive Dhaka". Prothom Alo. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  16. যে বার্তা দিয়ে গেলেন জিমি ওয়েলস.
  17. ঢাকায় উইকিপিডিয়ার সহ-প্রতিষ্ঠাতা জিমি ওয়েলস. somoynews.tv (in Bengali).
  18. গভীরতার বিচারে বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়ায় তৃতীয় ভাষা. Dhaka Times.
  19. উইকিপিডিয়ায় তৃতীয় ভাষা বাংলা. NTV (in Bengali). Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  20. বাংলাদেশে আসছেন জিমি ওয়েলস. Prothom Alo (in Bengali). Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  21. "GP subscribers get free Wikipedia access". NTV. Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  22. যে বার্তা দিয়ে গেলেন জিমি ওয়েলস. Prothom Alo (in Bengali). Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  23. জেনে রাখুন. Kaler Kantho (in Bengali). Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  24. কালের কণ্ঠ. Kaler Kantho (in Bengali). Retrieved 18 August 2019.
  25. "Wikimedia Statistics - Bengali Wikipedia - Pages to date". Wikistats. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  26. "Wikimedia Statistics - Bengali Wikipedia - Edits". Wikistats. Retrieved 30 December 2020.
  27. "List of Wikipedias". Meta.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
  28. উইকিপিডিয়ায় শীর্ষ ত্রিশ বাঙালিতে রুনা লায়লা | আনন্দ বিনোদন. The Daily Ittefaq (in Bengali). Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  29. উইকিপিডিয়ায় শীর্ষ ত্রিশ বাঙালির তালিকায় রুনা লায়লা. Manab Zamin (in Bengali). Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  30. উইকিপিডিয়ার শীর্ষ ত্রিশ বাঙালির তালিকায় রুনা লায়লা. Samakal (in Bengali). Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  31. শীর্ষ ৩০ বাঙালির মধ্যে রুনা লায়লা. Ekushey TV (in Bengali). Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  32. রুনা লায়লাকে নিয়ে গণমাধ্যমে বিভ্রান্তি. Jago News 24 (in Bengali). Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  33. ড. জাফর ইকবালকে মৃত দেখাচ্ছে বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়া. The Bangladesh Today (in Bengali). Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  34. জাফর ইকবালকে মৃত দেখাচ্ছে বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়া. Jamuna Television (in Bengali). Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  35. জাফর ইকবালের মৃত্যুর খবর সংশোধন করেছে উইকিপিডিয়া [Wikipedia has corrected the news of Zafar Iqbal's death]. Amader Shomoy (in Bengali). Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  36. জাফর ইকবালের মৃত্যুর খবর সংশোধন করলো বাংলা উইকিপিডিয়া [The news of Zafar Iqbal's death was corrected by Bengali Wikipedia]. Jamuna Television (in Bengali). Retrieved 24 August 2019.
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