Comments on: Egypt: Lots of bloggers, fewer wikipedians

By: Christian

Christian — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:59:02 +0000

Hi Ethan,
just found this article by Al Arabiya News channel:

According to a recent report published by the Egyptian Cabinetâ€™s Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC), Egypt has over 162,000 bloggers [mostly between 20-30 year olds], which constitutes 30 percent of Arab bloggers.

The detailed report raises pertinent questions that require further examination. The efforts invested in investigating the numbers of Egyptian bloggers and gathering information about their activities is a testimony of the growing influence of this segment in society in the political and media spheres â€“ not only in Egypt but in the world.

http://www.alarabiya.net/views/2008/08/11/54623.html

By: Brian Barker

Brian Barker — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:11:10 +0000

The way that Esperanto keeps being discussed at the moment, is certainly significant.

In order to aid unbiased analysis may I suggest http://www.lernu.net

By: Why is the Arabic Wikipedia So Small? « Blurring Borders

Why is the Arabic Wikipedia So Small? « Blurring Borders — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:26:53 +0000

[...] See Ethan’s response to this post, where he considers the popularity of blogging in Egypt compared to Wikipedia. [...]

By: Oscar Howell

Oscar Howell — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:17:41 +0000

I know many people in Mexico (probably not enough to be representative of a trend…) that blog and publish in Spanish, but make contributions to Wikipedia in English only.

The issue here is not the reach they can have with an article in the English Wikipedia, it is that the content of the English project is closer to their interests and reality.

The Spanish Wikipedia is, well, very “Spain-Spanish” to put it somehow. It would take a tremendous effort to “mexicanize” it. And it would not be in the best interest of the project or community anyway.

It is the idea of the Universal Encyclopedia, which is embodied by the English language Wikipedia project. Every other Wikipedia tends to be local in content and interest. But problems arise when it is not clear or accepted what “local” means. It may well be that smaller wikipedia-like projects could emerge that mimic the impact and popularity of blogs, use the local language, and do aim to collect useful knowledge.

By: Amr

Amr — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:43:21 +0000

I have seen very little Arabic coverage on Wikimania so far. The most prominent independent Egyptian daily quoted Jimbo saying that both Egypt and the USÂ censor the web, and that’s about it. Alas, IÂ think we shouldn save all the money and jet fuel, and organise most of wikimania online.

It may be worthwhile to note that a few years ago, there was a lot of overlap in the circles of bloggers, wikipedians, and free software geeks, and this applies to rest of the Arabic-speaking countries as well.

My impression is that the culture of the Arabic wikipedia, and I have been there since the early days, has involved a lot of censorship, comparing to my impression of other wikipedias. Blogging, on the other hand, is more of a one-man show. Things are getting better, though. The Arabic wikipedia is growing more reliable and interesting.

By: Alaa

Alaa — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:55:22 +0000

note that the study says only 48% of these blogs are active, my guess is 60-80 thousand bloggers is a more accurate number (but we where only a handful back in 2004 so rate of growth is staggering).

By: Kevin Donovan

Kevin Donovan — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:57:15 +0000

Great points, Ethan. The comparison with blogging is especially smart and makes me consider the differences in peer-approval and authority-approval. It seems blogging in Egypt has benefited from the Streisand effect which may be more important than positive encouragement. So, if Wikimania in Egypt doesn’t work, perhaps we need Mubarak to ban Wikipedia for a while ;)

By: Hanan Cohen

Hanan Cohen — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:35:35 +0000

For people who would like to get to know Arab blogs, I suggest http://itoot.net

Blog posts are in English and Arabic.

“Today’s handpicked bloggers from 172 blogs selected by toot. We find the best and freshest voices from across Arabia and around the world.”

By: baz

baz — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:28:18 +0000

This reminded me of a scary factoid I read in Sam Harris’ “The End of Faith”: Spain translates as many books into Spanish each year as the entire Arab world has translated into Arabic since the 9th century.” He’s quoting from a 2002 UN report.

By: Eddie

Eddie — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:20:24 +0000

I guess no press is bad press for Wikipedia – hopefully, though, the press extends to the greater Arabic speaking world instead of just Egypt.

By the way, do you have a link to the original blog post? I can’t find it in a search