Wikipedia Explodes In China 151
eldavojohn writes "The Chinese have recently been allowed to enjoy the Chinese version of Wikipedia now that the ban has been lifted. And the result is an explosion in use after being banned for a year. From the article, 'Activity on nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation's Chinese Wikipedia site has skyrocketed since its release, which Internet users in China first started reporting on Nov. 10. Since then, the number of new users registering to contribute to the site has exceeded 1,200 a day, up from an average of 300 to 400 prior to the unblocking. The number of new articles posted daily has increased 75% from the week before, with the total now surpassing 100,000, according to the foundation.' No one's sure how long this will be available to the People's Republic of China but hopefully the government will recognize that at least a significant part of the populace enjoys a Wikipedia community."
Censorship is a bad thing (Score:2, Interesting)
Ugh... (Score:1, Interesting)
Imagine.. a completely different culture that was hidden from us by democracy loving folks exploits itself in 100.000 articles/day...
What's it Like? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Censorship is a bad thing (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Censorship is a bad thing (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, would they use the PRC Body count (23) or the Student Association's and the Chinese Red Cross body count? (2000 - 3000, as many as 10,000 injured).
Population Bomb (Score:4, Interesting)
How about donation activity? OK, it's only 5 days into the popularity explosion. But if Chinese support of the nonprofit doesn't also explode by, say, Feb 18, 2007 [wikipedia.org], then how will Wikipedia accommodate the huge demand increase that Chinese popularity represents?
Will the "capitalists" now paying to operate Wikipedia have to give the "Communists" a free ride? Just how does Chinese Communism cooperate with global nonprofits when their government isn't managing the process?
Re:Is it about people enjoying it? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that I'm really saying that this is what they are doing. But it is certainly a valid possibility. So many decry this type of thing as paranoid and conspiracy, but the fact of the matter is people with power and control will do anything they can to remain in power and control. This has been proven countless times in human history. It really irritates me when people fail to admit that this type of thing could happen at home or abroad...America had to fight a war to remove ourselves from tyranny. Do people think that you really only have to do that once?
Ain't seen nothin' yet... (Score:3, Interesting)
You gotta love scale. Imagine what will happen once they get genuinely interested in the West and start checking out something more than just college entrance fees...
Maybe this will finally get people outside China to start showing a bit of awareness when told they have no reliable/previous experience with the shear scale of things China brings to the table.
Maybe, just maybe, a few outsiders will get a clue and stop thinking they can judge China according to how they go about their (statistical) lives every day. More than one business model is going out the window, I can promise that much
Another day, another protest (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not so sure about assuming the quality of Chinese censorship. If you're only watching mainstream news feeds, it looks like "another day, another protest" in China. In the Washington Post via MSNBC this morning, it's One-dog policy resisted in Beijing crackdown [msn.com] where in these near-daily articles, juicy quotes like this one are increasingly common, too:
"More and more people own dogs. It is pointless to restrict dog-raising. The stricter the government is, the more people will love to own a dog," said Liu Tao, 26, who was at the unauthorized protest Saturday. "We are not blocked from the outside now. With the Internet, we can see how Western countries treat dogs well. It's hard to stop us from communicating with the outside."
Aside from the groundswell of Western ideals changing China, and back to their Wikipedia: Chinese officials might believe they can handle it. In addition to the drumbeat of articles in our free press indicating their people's increasingly free access to information, I also have known many friends and colleagues in China who have effectively unfettered access. Party-types might think they can handle it, but I would not assume they actually can. BG
Re:What's it Like? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tiananmensquar
image accessable inside the great firewall?
Re:Another day, another protest (Score:2, Interesting)
Tianennemnemanenen rhomboid (Score:3, Interesting)
It'd go something like this...
- Original article would cite the 2000-3000 number.
- Another visitor would edit this to say 23.
- Authors would re-edit back to 2000-3000.
- Another edit changes it back to 23.
- Irate users re-edit again back to 2000-3000.
- Talk page would get filled up with debate over the issue. Number would be tagged with "citation needed" and the language would be softened to make the figure seem less reliable and acknowledge the 23 figure.
- Vandal would replace the whole article with various rude comments about foreigners.
- Sneaky bastard would claim to be reverting the article to undo the vandalism - but sneak in a change that makes the 2000-3000 figure sound completely unbelievable.
- New vandalism would go unnoticed for some time - even in future vandalism/revert cycles by other editors.
Re:Censorship is a bad thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh, and yeh, there are a LOT of foreign nationals who work in China and vastly under-report their earnings. Effectively committing tax evasion, just like they would if they could back home. (Not sure about this part, but I also understand that the tank did NOT run down that man, but he was under the body cavity area, uncrushed. If THAT is true, then there are a lot of opportunistic and sensationalistic jerks in the media who need to be brought up/flogged...)
I wonder if China's Wikipedia site will report about the foreigners there who are exploiting the system.