Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-10-30/Interwiki report

Status and community news
As of 23 October, 2006, the Japanese Wikipedia contained about 275,800 articles, making it the 5th largest Wikipedia. Of these, 77 articles have been selected as 秀逸な記事 (Brilliant/Excellent articles), based on the English Wikipedia's Featured articles selection system. Articles are now added and removed from the list by users' vote.

The latest three additions to the list are 大友皇子即位説 (Hypothesis of Prince Otomo's ascension to the throne), 方向指示器 (directional signals) and YS-11 (NAMC YS-11).

The Japanese Wikipedia does not have featured pictures, but a selection of new articles and pictures of the month is made. Those of September are カジキ (Marlin), 守護請 (Shugo uke; Contraction of collection tribute by Shugo), 九十九王子の旧蹟 (田辺市本宮町) (Historical spots at the Jinja at Kujuku Oji), 富士山の噴火史 (History of the eruption of Mount Fuji), 誤用 (Misuse), エジプト中王国 (Middle Kingdom of Egypt) (Articles) and Tateno Bridige (photo).

The Japanese Wikipedia has about 89,200 registered users, 51 administrators, and 5 bureaucrats.

Media Reports
Just two recent notable reports from a flux of various media coverage.

An article by Yasuda Tomooki was published on 29 July, 2006 in Asahi Shimbun, one of the top 5 Japanese newspapers. The article had a positive tone and presented the Japanese Wikipedia in a favourable light. Aphaia and Tangotango informed the Wikipedia community about it.

On 4 September 2006, NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corporation TV station, featured Wikipedia in Close-up Gendai (クローズアップ現代), a current affairs program portraying the project as an example of Web 2.0 websites.

The media tend to treat Wikipedia as a computer fad, but an increasing number of Wikipedians have been interviewed. Recent interviews were included on asahi.com on 20 October, in the November issue of "Windows 100%", and the issue of "Weekly ASCII"（週刊アスキー） for 31 October. In each recent case, a Japanese Wikipedia administrator was interviewed and in fact few non-administrator editors have been interviewed.

Reports from participants of Wikimania 2006
Last month, we had two meetings, the first in Tokyo on 2 September and the second in Osaka on 9 September. Japanese Wikipedians who participated in Wikimania 2006 were invited to talk about their experiences at the conference, and this was the main topic of both meetings. The meet-ups also served as excellent opportunities to meet fellow Wikipedians who live locally, as offline meetings between Japanese Wikipedians have not been held very frequently.

Sister projects
There are a Japanese-language Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikisource, and Wikinews. The Japanese Wiktionary recently reached 10,000 articles, and Wikisource has reached 1,000 articles. Wikibooks has about 760 articles, while Wikinews has about 5,500 articles.

Wikinews and Wiktionary are the most active sister projects. In Wiktionary, similar to Wikipedia, the contributors typically work alone, with little interaction with other contributors. Wikinews is more interactive, involving teamwork between writers. Wikinews recently began a Short Report (短信), Wikinews edition of current event. The Japanese Wikiquote and Wikisource have few active users, and it is common for only one or two users to make edits on any given day.