Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia and the 7th most visited website on the internet. The encyclopedia is the largest and most-read reference work in history. Its contents are written by a community of volunteers across the world who are known as “Wikipedians” or “editors.”
The English-language Wikipedia, which is the most popular language version of Wikipedia, has more than six million articles, and Wikipedia exists in more than 300 languages, including Yoruba.
The Yoruba language version of Wikipedia is called “Yoruba Wikipedia”, and its domain name is “yo.wikipedia.org.”
While the Yoruba Wikipedia was created in October 2002, its contents were largely written by non-native speakers of the Yoruba language prior to 2018. This is due to a lack of editors who are native speakers of Yoruba.
In 2012, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales recognised the contributions of one Yoruba Wikipedia editor, Demmy, and named him Wikipedian of the Year for creating a bot to translate 15,000 short English Wikipedia articles into Yoruba Wikipedia.
The readership level of Yoruba Wikipedia was very low at the time, as there were not enough contents for its readers, and the available contents were of low quality. As of 2015, the Yoruba Wikipedia was read 6,878,222 times.
On August 3, 2019, the Affiliation Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation that hosts and operates Wikipedia recognised the Yoruba Wikimedians User Group, a group of Yoruba language Wikipedia editors that are committed to developing, improving, and promoting Yoruba language Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects that are related to the Yoruba Wikimedia projects.
As of the time of the recognition of this group, the Yoruba Wikipedia had been read 12,824,420 times. This could be attributed to the contributions of this group of editors prior to their recognition. The readership level of Yoruba Wikipedia continues to increase steadily following its recognition.
In 2020, the readership level increased to 15,623,531, followed by 16,931,921 in 2021 and 20,330,113 in 2022. In 2023, the Yoruba Wikipedia recorded 25,217,471 views, making the Yoruba Wikipedia the most read Nigerian language Wikipedia and the most visited website in Yoruba.
This milestone could be attributed to the immense contributions of the Yoruba Wikimedians User Group and other volunteer members of the Yoruba Wikipedia community.
The group has implemented several strategic projects to create awareness for Yoruba Wikipedia. This includes a radio program on Bond FM (92.9 F.M) and Radio Lagos (107.5 FM).
The Yoruba Wikimedians User Group has also collaborated with Mr. Macaroni, a multi-award-winning Nigerian comic skit maker and actor with millions of followers on various social media, to produce a short comic skit to promote the Yoruba language on Wikipedia.
The skit was viewed by millions of Nigerians. These efforts, among others, have helped to increase the traffic and readership level of Yoruba Wikipedia.
As of February 15, 2024, Yoruba Wikipedia has a total of 33,745 articles and 110 active editors (editors who contribute to Yoruba Wikipedia regularly).
According to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, “the closest thing we have to a Prime Directive” is to “imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.”
Wales has described Wikipedia as “an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language.”.
Wikipedia in all languages is supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, which provides the infrastructure and supports its user groups, chapters, and thematic groups. (The Nation)
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