Viquipèdia:Twenty thousand articles in Catalan

De Viquipèdia

19 November, 2005: Wikipedia in Catalan reaches 20,000 entries.

As of today, 19 November 2005, the Catalan -or Valencian- language edition of Wikipedia (http://ca.wikipedia.org/), has already surpassed the mark of 20,000 entries, and continues to grow. Wikipedia is part of a world-wide effort whose objective is to develop an encyclopedia of quality, for general usage and for free distribution (see www.wikipedia.org), through a network of freely participating volunteers from all over the world. The Wikipedia contents are under the terms of the GFDL license; this means that everybody can use the articles freely. They can be copied, edited and distributed, provided two requirements are met: that any source might be mentioned, and that terms of use may follow the same license (GFDL) or a compatible one.

The Wikipedia project is actually international and multilingual: there are more than 110 editions in different languages which work independent of each other. Globally, they account for nearly 2.5 millions of articles.

The Viquipèdia (Wikipedia in Catalan) was born in March 2001, and was the second version to be created after the original English wikipedia. Since then, it has established its place amongst the twenty largest Wikipedia languages in terms of total number of articles. On November 16th 2004, it reached the 10,000 entries milestone and, in a year, the Viquipèdia has doubled its number of articles, reaching the current figure of 20,000. Not only that; the overall quality of the articles has also increased (the medium size of entries and the number of times they have been edited have also increased). The Main Page has been redesigned, its Tavern has a new look, several Viquiprojectes (WikiProjects) to improve certain areas of knowledge have been installed, a «this fortnight contribution» tag has been launched, etc. However, there is still much to do: Viquiportals will be released as a new way to understand the world of Viquipèdia; newer Viquiprojectes and entries will be created that will help in making Wikipedia in Catalan one of the greatest reference resource of knowledge in this language.

All this has been possible through the noticeable increase of contributors this year: in the last months the "Viquipèdia" has had an average of 314 wikipedians contributing actively, but many more are still needed! Many «important» entries remain yet to be done, and many of those that already exist are far from reaching the required standards of quality. However, Viquipèdia is already a useful encyclopedia that can be used in many ways at home, at schools or at work.

Everybody can contribute to Wikipedia: any person with an Internet connection can write new entries or edit those already existing. You can help the project by creating or editing entries in the subjects you are interested in: Have you checked out if there are any entries on your village or region, your profession or the topics of your interest? It is not necessary to be an expert in order to contribute to Wikipedia: any constructive contribution is welcome, even if it is only a spelling correction! You can create new entries or you can adapt them from other sources, provided you respect the author's copyright. If you wish to contribute to the Viquipèdia, you can go to the following page to learn how it works: http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viquipèdia:Ajuda (Help page).

Translated from Viquipèdia:Vint_mil_articles_en_català