Uzbek Wikipedia

Favicon of Wikipedia Uzbek Wikipedia
Screenshot
The Uzbek Wikipedia Mainpage
The homepage of the Uzbek Wikipedia.
Type of site
Internet encyclopedia project
Available inUzbek
OwnerWikimedia Foundation
URLuz.wikipedia.org
CommercialCharitable
RegistrationOptional
Content license
Creative Commons ShareAlike License 3.0

The Uzbek Wikipedia (Uzbek: Ўзбекча Википедия, 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. 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,[1] there are not many active editors in the Uzbek Wikipedia and a majority of the existing articles are poorly sourced.[2] 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.[3] The current number of articles in the Uzbek Wikipedia is 294,767.

The Uzbek Wikipedia was blocked in Uzbekistan sometime in late 2011.[4][5][6] While the reasons for the blockage were undisclosed, some hypothesized that the encyclopedia had been blocked because the Uzbek government was concerned about the appearance of articles critical of its actions.[2] 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.[7] The blockage was not very robust: the pages of the Uzbek Wikipedia could be accessed on an HTTPS connection.[8] Therefore, in 2013 Google 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. In 2022 the WikiStipendiya marathon began, in collaboration with the Uzbek government, resulting in a great growth of the Uzbek Wikipedia in terms of articles and encyclopedic coverage, while improving its quality, community size and reach in the Uzbek society.

  1. ^ "Asia Internet Stats by Country and 2019 Population Statistics". Internet World Stats. December 2018.
  2. ^ a b Ataev, Nodir (17 February 2012). "Is Wikipedia accurate?". RFE/RL (in Uzbek). Retrieved 21 February 2012.
  3. ^ "Page views for Wikipedia, all platforms, normalized". Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 2 April 2013.
  4. ^ Kilner, James (20 February 2012). "Uzbekistan blocks Wikipedia pages say witnesses". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
  5. ^ "Wikipedia articles in Uzbek blocked". RFE/RL. 16 February 2012. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
  6. ^ "The Uzbek Wikipedia is blocked in Uzbekistan". RFE/RL (in Uzbek). 16 February 2012. Retrieved 21 February 2012.
  7. ^ Kendzior, Sarah (21 February 2012). "Why did Uzbekistan ban Wikipedia?". Registan. Retrieved 24 February 2012.
  8. ^ "The number of articles in the Uzbek Wikipedia has exceeded 50,000". RFE/RL (in Uzbek). 12 November 2012. Retrieved 20 April 2014.