Polish Wikipedia is 20 years old

Wikipedia appeared in Polish in 2001, a few months after its creation in the USA. It was one of the first language versions. Wikipedia is currently recognized as the world’s largest freely available source of knowledge. There are about 1.5 million entries in the Polish language version. This site is one of the ten most visited sites in Poland.

As Nina Gabrio, a spokeswoman for the Wikimedia Polska Society, pointed out in a statement sent to PAP, Wikipedia in Polish was founded by internist Krzysztof Jasiutowicz and physicist Pawe Jochym. The first article is devoted to the Titius-Bode Rule. Initially, it worked as an independent project of the Polish Free Network Encyclopedia and was located at wiki.rozeta.com.pl, owned by the Krakow businessman Shift.

On January 12, 2002, at the suggestion of the authors of the English version, the Polish Wikipedia joined the international project and moved to pl.wikipedia.com, and on November 22, 2002 – to the main to this day pl.wikipedia.org.

“Wikipedia has always been guided by the ideas of openness and cooperation, a project that thousands of people throughout Poland have participated in on an ongoing basis. Anyone can join the spontaneously growing community of volunteers at any time and boldly edit pages”- encouraged Gabryś. A total of more than 4,600 editors and editors oversee Wikipedia articles and the development of sister projects such as Wiktionary and Wikisource.

As Natalia Szafran Kozakovska, Wikimedia Polska community support specialist quoted in the statement, said, the Wikipedia community is very diverse — it is made up of teens and retired professors, women and men, people from big cities and small towns, teachers and students, experts and hobbyists, with different opinions and interests.

“They all share a passion for sharing knowledge, curiosity, and a desire to help others. That is why they can collaborate so excellently, beyond differences. And although for a few years there have often been voices that the Wikipedia community will inevitably shrink, these prophecies It turned out to be incorrect. The number of active editors on Polish Wikipedia has been increasing since 2016, and this year they have had the highest increase in years – the average monthly number of people actively editing Wikipedia has increased by more than 6 percent.” – She said.

In May 2020, in an interview with PAP, Szafran-Kozakowska reported that the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic meant that Polish Wikipedia started adding new entries faster than before. Many of them did not worry about the epidemic at all. In her opinion, this was due to the effect of restrictions, for example on freedom of movement.

In turn, about the fact that there are no ads on Wikipedia and will not be presented in an interview with PAP in January of this year. the professor. Dariusz Jemielniak of Kozminski University, Wiki Scientist, Member of the Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees. “We made such a decision years ago. If we had to place ads, we would also have to consider suspending the operation of the site. We believe that the sum of human knowledge should be available for free. It is freely available. It is not meant for + for user data + or for watch time.” – He said then.

a. Gimelniak said that although the entire Wikipedia is 50 times larger than Encyclopedia Britannica, there is still plenty of room for its development. “If someone is using Wikipedia, I believe it is their moral duty to either donate to or support Wikipedia with their work: whether it is correcting a comma or adding a sentence, paragraph or slogan. I prefer the public good that we create. I would encourage everyone to develop Wikipedia entries in The field they are interested in. It will certainly turn out that a lot of information is still missing there “- he pointed out. (PAP)

Author: Szymon Zdziebijowski

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