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The Uzbek Wikipedia ( uz, Oʻzbekcha Vikipediya) is the Uzbek-language edition of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia. It was founded in December 2003. Articles in the Uzbek-language edition are written in the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
. In August 2012, a Latin-to- Cyrillic converter was added to allow users to view Uzbek Wikipedia's pages in both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts. Although Uzbek is spoken by an estimated 37 million people and Uzbekistan has nearly 17 million Internet users, there are not many active editors in the Uzbek Wikipedia and a majority of the existing articles are poorly sourced. Since early 2012, however, both the number of active users and well-written articles have increased noticeably. The number of visits to the encyclopedia has also been rising lately. Especially in May 2022, activity has boomed to more than 500 active users and activity has more than doubled from 2019 to 2022, from 1,100 to nearly 1,920 users in 2021. In early 2013, the Uzbek-language Wikipedia ranked first among different editions of Wikipedia in terms of annual page-view growth. The current number of articles in the Uzbek Wikipedia is . The Uzbek Wikipedia was blocked in
Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
sometime in late 2011. While the reasons for the blockage were undisclosed, some hypothesized that the encyclopedia had been blocked because the
Uzbek government The Republic of Uzbekistan is a presidential constitutional republic, whereby the President of Uzbekistan is head of state. Executive power is exercised by the government and by the Prime Minister of Uzbekistan. Legislative power is vested in ...
was concerned about the appearance of articles critical of its actions. Others speculated that the Uzbek Wikipedia had been blocked simply as an "act of showmanship" because the government of Uzbekistan saw Uzbek-language content as subject to its jurisdiction. The blockage was not very robust: the pages of the Uzbek Wikipedia could be accessed on an
HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is enc ...
connection. Therefore, in 2013
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
started indexing pages of the Uzbek Wikipedia with HTTPS by default. Currently users in Uzbekistan can access the pages of Uzbek Wikipedia without any problems.


History

The Uzbek Wikipedia was launched in December 2003. The very first edit was made on the main page of the encyclopedia on 21 December 2003. During 2004, Uzbek Wikipedia remained largely inactive. However, in 2005, the encyclopedia gradually started to grow. Sometime around the end of September and beginning of October 2011, the Uzbek Wikipedia was blocked in
Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
. Despite the blockage, the encyclopedia started to grow fast in 2012. During that same year, a bot was used to create a large number of articles. In 2013, another bot was used to add all of the articles of the ''
National Encyclopedia of Uzbekistan The ''National Encyclopedia of Uzbekistan'' ( uz, Oʻzbekiston milliy ensiklopediyasi, OʻzME in Latin script, Ўзбекистон миллий энциклопедияси, ЎзМЭ in Cyrillic script) is a general-knowledge encyclopedia written i ...
'' to the Uzbek Wikipedia. A mirror of the Uzbek Wikipedia was set up at in 2008. It was created to reduce international traffic for Internet users in Uzbekistan. However, the mirror has been down since June 2012.


Wikiconferences

In 2007, the first Wikiconference ( uz, Vikimajlis) of Uzbek Wikipedia editors was organized at the
Tashkent University of Information Technologies The Tashkent University of Information Technologies named after Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (, ) often abbreviated as ТАТU or TUIT is one of the largest universities in Uzbekistan, located in its capital Tashkent. The Tashkent University o ...
. Participants included those who had not edited Wikipedia before.


WikiSummer

In 2008, a Wikisummer ( uz, VikiYoz; "yoz" means both "summer" and "to write" in Uzbek) contest was organized with financial support from Uzinfocom, an agency of the State Committee of Communication, Informatization, and Telecommunication Technology of Uzbekistan. The main goal of the contest was to contribute to the expansion and development of the Uzbek Wikipedia. However, few people showed interest in the Wikisummer and the contest was not successful.


OzodWiki

In February 2014,
RFE/RL Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says tha ...
's Uzbek Service, known locally as Ozodlik radiosi, launched the OzodWiki project to contribute to the development of the Uzbek Wikipedia. A wide range of articles, including interviews with active editors, reviews of existing articles, and lessons on editing Wikipedia were published as part of the project. In addition, selected words and phrases that were used in Ozodlik radiosi's reports were hyperlinked to corresponding entries in the Uzbek Wikipedia to popularize the encyclopedia. The OzodWiki project was "mutually beneficial, enabling Ozodlik users to click through to expanded information resources, while popularizing Wikipedia by driving new topics and audience their way." A total of 33 unique articles were published as part of the project. The final OzodWiki article was published in January 2016. In a short period of time the OzodWiki project stated to have a positive impact on the Uzbek Wikipedia. While it is unlikely that all of the changes that took place after the launch of OzodWiki were a direct result of the project, a majority of these changes occurred while the project was running. While the main page of the Uzbek Wikipedia was viewed 20,368 times in January 2014, it was viewed 56,274 times in March of the same year. In March 2013, the main page had been visited 20,403 times. In April 2014, the main page was viewed a record 136,592 times. In April 2013, the main page had been visited only 12,134 times.


WikiStipendiya

In May 2022, the Agency for Youth Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan launched the WikiStipendiya edit-a-thon in collaboration with the Agency of Information and Mass Communications under the Administration of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Council of Young Artists, and the Wikimedians of the Uzbek language User Group. The editathon was inspired from a decree of
Shavkat Mirziyoyev Shavkat Miromonovich Mirziyoyev (Uzbek Latin: ''Shavkat Miromonovich (Miromon o‘g‘li) Mirziyoyev'', Uzbek Cyrillic: Шавкат Миромонович (Миромон ўғли) Мирзиёев ; born 24 July 1957) is an Uzbek politician ...
on improving the presence of Uzbek language in the digital world. The name of the project is a portmanteau of the words "
wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...
" and "stipendiya" (scholarship). It focuses on encouraging content creation on the Uzbek Wikipedia, particularly by students, but is not limited to any group. Another goal is to increase the number of editors on Uzbek-language wikis. According to Nodir Atayev, a long-term Uzbek Wikipedian from Kyrgyzstan, already before 2022, government agencies began to inspect Uzbek Wikipedia and make various sample articles, thus understanding that Uzbek Wikipedia is a part of the digital world. After the inspections, people from the Youth Affairs Agency contacted Uzbek admins and Wikipedians for the possibility of a collaboration, that materialised in the WikiStipendiya contest in 2022. It is also notable that even the Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev congratulated the Uzbek community for the contest, in a speech in June 30, 2022. Since the beginning of the contest, the number of new articles has soared in the range of 200 to 400 articles per day, and many vital articles have been made. On 3 July 2022, Uzbek Wikipedia reached 150,000 articles. On 2 August 2022, Uzbek reached 159,000 articles, after a drive for the creation of articles about archaeological sites in Uzbekistan gave nearly 3,000 articles that day. In the first week of August Uzbek Wikipedia conducted the WikiOromgoh (WikiCamp) program, hosted by the Agency for Youth Affairs and the local Wikimedians catering to young Wikipedians. The project added more than 8 thousand articles in one week and it is a part of WikiStipendiya, while those 8 thousand articles include are spread in many thematic units. In 26 November 2022 Uzbek Wikipedia reached 200,000 articles, after several thousands of articles, many of them about settlements in Turkey, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, as well as about many other topics, during the second WikiCamp, which takes place from 23 to 29 November 2022.


Policies


Script

While articles in the Uzbek Wikipedia are written using the
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern I ...
, historically the
Uzbek language Uzbek (''Oʻzbekcha, Oʻzbek tili or Ўзбекча, Ўзбек тили''), formerly known as ''Turki'' or ''Western Turki'', is a Turkic language spoken by Uzbeks. It is the official, and national language of Uzbekistan. Uzbek is spoken as ...
has used many different alphabets. Before 1928, Uzbek was written in an Arabic-based alphabet by the literate population. Between 1928 and 1940, it was written in a
Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and th ...
which was different from the Latin alphabet that is used today. Starting from 1940, Uzbek began to be written in the
Cyrillic alphabet , bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця , fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs , fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic , fam3 = Phoenician , fam4 = Gr ...
, which remained the predominant form of writing until 1993. A new Latin alphabet was introduced to Uzbek after
Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked co ...
gained independence from the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. Currently, the Latin script is used in school and university textbooks, some newspapers, and in some official papers. Since 2004 some official websites have switched over to using the Latin script when writing in Uzbek. However, the use of Cyrillic is still widespread, especially among older Uzbeks and among Uzbeks who live in other countries. Currently, the Uzbek Wikipedia has a function ("vikifikator", literally "wikifier") which allows editors to easily convert Cyrillic text into Latin while editing. In August 2012, a Latin-to-Cyrillic converter was added to allow users to view Uzbek Wikipedia's pages in both the Latin and Cyrillic scripts.


Other policies

Whereas in the
English Wikipedia The English Wikipedia is, along with the Simple English Wikipedia, one of two English-language editions of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was founded on January 15, 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition, and, as of , has the most arti ...
autoconfirmed status is required to move pages, edit semi-protected pages, and upload files, in the Uzbek edition these actions are not restricted. At the moment there are administrators in the Uzbek Wikipedia.


Content

The Uzbek Wikipedia lacks articles on contemporary political life in Uzbekistan. However, in 2012 the Uzbek Wikipedia started to grow fast despite being blocked in Uzbekistan and since that time the number of well-written articles on important subjects has increased significantly. In 2013, the coverage of the Uzbek Wikipedia expanded noticeably after all of the articles of the ''
National Encyclopedia of Uzbekistan The ''National Encyclopedia of Uzbekistan'' ( uz, Oʻzbekiston milliy ensiklopediyasi, OʻzME in Latin script, Ўзбекистон миллий энциклопедияси, ЎзМЭ in Cyrillic script) is a general-knowledge encyclopedia written i ...
'' were added to it using a bot. Currently, the majority of articles on the Uzbek Wikipedia are about populated places, astronomical objects, people, music, and football. Like in many other Wikipedias, Uzbek Wikipedia editors jointly determine featured and
good In most contexts, the concept of good denotes the conduct that should be preferred when posed with a choice between possible actions. Good is generally considered to be the opposite of evil and is of interest in the study of ethics, morality, ph ...
articles. Currently, there are eleven featured and 22 good articles on the Uzbek Wikipedia. The most comprehensive articles are entries about stars, philosophy, the
Republic of Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its ea ...
,
Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
, Aleppo, Karabulak, Texas, ''
Encyclopædia Britannica The (Latin for "British Encyclopædia") is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia. It is published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.; the company has existed since the 18th century, although it has changed ownership various t ...
'', Ali-Shir Nava'i,
Cristiano Ronaldo Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro (; born 5 February 1985) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a forward and captains the Portugal national team. He is currently a free agent. Widely regarded as one of the greatest p ...
, and the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
. In Uzbekistan, despite that Cyrillic alphabet was replaced with a Latin one in 1992, Cyrillic continues to be used very widely in the country. Due to this, Cyrillic enjoys some use in Uzbek Wikipedia; there are pages written in Cyrillic alphabet instead of Latin, or exercise a mixed use of both. For example, the
page Page most commonly refers to: * Page (paper), one side of a leaf of paper, as in a book Page, PAGE, pages, or paging may also refer to: Roles * Page (assistance occupation), a professional occupation * Page (servant), traditionally a young m ...
about the Chinese leader
Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
is written mostly in Cyrillic, except for a few captions.


Statistics

The number of articles in the Uzbek Wikipedia reached 10,000 on 5 June 2012. The 10,000th article was on
compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself wit ...
. A month later, on 5 July 2012, the article count of the encyclopedia reached 20,000. The 20,000th article was on the topic of
meteorology Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did no ...
. The Uzbek Wikipedia reached 50,000 articles on 8 November 2012. The 50,000th article was on
quadratic equation In algebra, a quadratic equation () is any equation that can be rearranged in standard form as ax^2 + bx + c = 0\,, where represents an unknown value, and , , and represent known numbers, where . (If and then the equation is linear, not q ...
s. The encyclopedia reached 100,000 articles on 20 March 2013. The 100,000th article was on
labor force The workforce or labour force is a concept referring to the pool of human beings either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic reg ...
. These increases in the number of articles were mostly achieved with the help of
bots The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remnants of the former Bri ...
. As of , the Uzbek Wikipedia has articles. There are users, of whom have made at least one edit in the last 30 days. At the moment only users have administrator rights. The total number of pages on the Uzbek Wikipedia (including talk pages, categories, etc.) is . The total number of edits is . The editing depth of the Uzbek Wikipedia, which is a rough indicator of the encyclopedia's collaborative quality, is . Based on the List of articles every Wikipedia should have, the Uzbek Wikipedia ranks 64th. Since 2018 the number of active users has more than doubled, from 785 in 2018 to nearly 2,000 in 2021, and the number of pageviews has increased to even 9 million pageviews in 2022 and in November 2022 the number of pageviews of the Uzbek Wikipedia in Uzbekistan surpassed those of Russian for the first time, with Uzbek garnering 11.4 million pageviews in Uzbekistan during this month. There also approximately 60 thousand pageviews per month in Uzbek Wikipedia from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan each, due to the great amount of Uzbeks living there. Some thousands of pageviews are also recorded in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, where there are noteworthy Uzbek minorities.


Censorship

The entire Wikipedia has been briefly blocked twice in Uzbekistan, in 2007 and 2008. The Uzbek Wikipedia was blocked in Uzbekistan around the end of September and beginning of October 2011, but caught the attention of the international press only in late February 2012 following
RFE/RL Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says tha ...
's report about the blockage on 16 February 2012. Initially Internet users in Uzbekistan trying to access Uzbek-language pages got redirected to msn.com of
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
. Later the pages of the encyclopedia simply failed to load. Users in Uzbekistan could easily open Wikipedia articles in other languages, only Uzbek-language articles were blocked. The reason for the blockage of the Uzbek Wikipedia has not been disclosed. Some expressed the view that the encyclopedia had been blocked because the
Uzbek government The Republic of Uzbekistan is a presidential constitutional republic, whereby the President of Uzbekistan is head of state. Executive power is exercised by the government and by the Prime Minister of Uzbekistan. Legislative power is vested in ...
was concerned about the appearance of articles critical of its actions. Sarah Kendzior, an American anthropologist, speculated that the Uzbek Wikipedia had been blocked simply as an "act of showmanship" because the government of Uzbekistan sees Uzbek-language content as subject to its jurisdiction. The blockage was not very robust: the articles in the Uzbek-language Wikipedia could be accessed on an
HTTPS Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is enc ...
connection. Therefore, in 2013
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
started indexing pages of the Uzbek Wikipedia with HTTPS by default, and visitors of the Uzbek Wikipedia started to be automatically redirected to HTTPS. Between 2013 and 2019, users in Uzbekistan could generally access pages of the Uzbek Wikipedia without major problems. In May 2019, the government of Uzbekistan unblocked several news and rights websites, including
Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...
,
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
's Uzbek Service, Amnesty International, and
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
. Users in Uzbekistan have not faced any issues while accessing the Uzbek Wikipedia since then.


References


External links


Uzbek Wikipedia

Uzbek Wikipedia mobile version
{{Wikipedias in Turkic languages Wikipedias by language Uzbek-language mass media Internet properties established in 2003 Uzbek-language encyclopedias