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German wikipedia

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Image: -logo-de.png 150px|right '''German ''' is the German language German-language edition of , a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia. It was started in May 2001.

Size and coverage
As of January 2006 this edition had more than 341,500 articles, ranking second in size behind the English English language edition. 97% of the articles had more than 200 characters, 84% had more than 512 bytes, 36% had more than 2 KB, the average article size was 3100 bytes. All these numbers were the biggest among the large s. Compared to the English , the German one tends to be more selective in its coverage, often rejecting small stubs, articles about fictional characters and similar materials.

Language and dialects
The German is written in the German language as recommended by the Duden. Switzerland Swiss or Austrian idiosyncrasies are accepted only in articles of regional scope. The differences are even less extreme than those between American English and British English. For instance, the Swiss don't use the ß sharp S and write ''ss'' instead. German dialects like Swiss German are not used in the German . Separate s have been created for several German dialects, including Alemannic German (:als:), Kölsch language Kölsch (:ksh:), Low German (:nds:), Luxembourgish language Luxembourgish (:lb:), and Pennsylvania German language Pennsylvania German (:pdc:).

Popularity
The January 2005 Google Zeitgeist announced that " " was the #8 most searched query on Google.de, ranking only behind the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake tsunami, George W. Bush George Bush, Mozilla Firefox firefox, Schnappi, Rudolph Moshammer, Saturn (store) Saturn, and Angelina Jolie. In February 2005 reached third place behind Firefox and Valentine's Day. In June 2005, ranked first.

Reviews
In September 2004, the respected computer magazine ''c't'' compared the German with the Brockhaus encyclopedia Brockhaus Multimedia encyclopedia and the German edition of Microsoft's Encarta. On a scale from 0 to 5, 'won' with a total score of 3.4. [http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/sj/2004/10/04] [http://lsd.newmedia.tiscali-business.com/bb/redirect.lsc?stream=hronline/fs/ctmagazin/041009testclip1.rm&content=content&media=rm Video(RealMedia/German)] A few weeks later, the weekly newspaper ''Die Zeit'' also compared content from with other reference works and found that only has to "share its lead position in the field of natural science." [http://www.zeit.de/2004/43/C-Enzyklop_8adien-Test]. The DVD version of Spring 2005 received a rather negative review by Björn Hoffmann in July 2005 [http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2005-3-017].

Characteristics
The German is different from the English in a number of aspects. * There are no fair use provisions. Material that is legal to add to the English as fair use may not be suitable for the German . * Many controversial articles are protected for months and cannot be edited [http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2005-September/031526.html]. On September 14, 2005, 253 pages were protected (compared to 138 in the English ) [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Longest_page_protections%2C_September_2005]. * Articles on indisputably notable subjects may be deleted if they are deemed too short. While the requirements for minimal articles (called stubs) are equivalent, the German and the English differ greatly when putting them into practice [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ :Stub], [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ :Stub]. * On 28 December, 2005 it was decided to eliminate the Category "stub" (and the corresponding template identifying articles as wikipedia:stub stubs) from the German . [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/ :Meinungsbilder/Stubs] * Unlike the French French, Polish Polish or Italian s, the German does not contain large collections of internet bot bot-generated stubs. * Articles are more likely to be merged, which results in many English articles pointing to a single German article. * Categories are singular and describe only one property. A female French chemist, for instance, will be in the categories "Chemiker" (chemist), "Frau" (woman), "Franzose" (Frenchman). * The equivalent to the English 's :Featured articles featured articles and :Good articles good articles are :de: :Exzellente Artikel exzellente Artikel and :de: :Lesenswerte Artikel lesenswerte Artikel. * The German lacks a detailed style guide comparable to the English :Manual of Style. Consequently, formatting is highly inconsistent even between featured articles. * :Persondata Persondata, as introduced in the English in December 2005, was pioneered by the German in December 2004. * Like the :Signpost Signpost in the English , the German also has its own internal newspaper, the :de: :Kurier Kurier. However, the Kurier is laid out on a single page and is not issued weekly but is continuously updated by interested ns, with older articles being archived.

Unique projects and miscellanea
Image:F%C3%BCnf_Jahre_ _IMG_0377.JPG Göttingen University.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|Exhibition "Five Years " at the [[Göttingen University library, March 2006.html" title="Meaning of Exhibition "Five Years " at the [[Göttingen University">thumb|Exhibition "Five Years " at the [[Göttingen University library, March 2006">Exhibition "Five Years " at the [[Göttingen University">thumb|Exhibition "Five Years " at the [[Göttingen University library, March 2006 Since July 2004 some German ns have employed a web of trust known as :de: :Vertrauensnetz Vertrauensnetz: they use a special template on a subpage of their user page to list all the other users whom they trust, along with reasons for the trust and links to the other users' trust pages. This "trust" is not meant as personal sympathy, but as testimony of serious engagement with the project. By using the "What links here" feature, one can then also obtain a list of all participants who trust a given user. In August 2005 one user wrote the influential essay :de:Benutzer:Southpark/Playing_ Playing in which he described as a "browser based massive multiplayer online game (MMOG)" with the "exciting world of encyclopedias" as subject. Within a framework of constantly changing rules, players are supposed to influence the construction of an online encyclopedia. The essay goes on to describe the various popular strategies employed by the players. In February 2006 a new experimental project was started with the goal of evaluating users, providing feedback, and eventually eliminating the voting for adminships. Every participating user keeps a special evaluation subpage of their user page; others can leave positive or negative evaluations (with reasons) of the user on that page. A central page keeps track of the net number of positive evaluations received by every participant. See :de:Benutzer:Brummfuss/Wahlen_abschaffen. From 17 March to 15 April 2006, the Göttingen State and University Library held a special exhibition documenting the first 5 years of . See :de: :Ausstellung.

Contacts with Brockhaus
In April 2004, a complete list of article titles from the leading German encyclopedia ''Brockhaus encyclopedia Brockhaus'' was uploaded to the German , in an apparent attempt to facilitate the creation of still missing articles. A representative of ''Brockhaus'' pointed out the copyright infringement, and the list was deleted. As a result of the developing email conversation, a group of five ns visited the "new media" group of ''Brockhaus'' in Mannheim on 2004-07-01. The friendly meeting saw a lively discussion of the differing approaches to writing an encyclopedia; it became clear that ''Brockhaus'' had closely observed for quite some time.

Wikimedia Deutschland
The German ns were the first to form a chapter of Wikimedia outside the United States. ''Wikimedia Deutschland'' was formed as ''Eingetragener Verein (e. V.)'' (registered association) on June 13, 2004.

Off-line publication

CD November 2004
In November 2004, Directmedia Publishing Directmedia Publishing GmbH started distributing a CD-ROM containing a German snapshot [http://www.digitale-bibliothek.de/scripts/ts.dll?s=1&id=E0016306&mp=/art/1266/&sc= .htm]. Some 40,000 compact disc CDs were sent to registered customers of directmedia. The price was 3 Euro per CD. The display and search software used for the project, ''Digibib'', had been developed by Directmedia Publishing for earlier publications; it ran on Microsoft Windows Windows and Mac OS X (and now also on Linux). (See screenshots: [http://www.gnubb.net/wikidvd1.png] and [http://www.gnubb.net/wikidvd2.png].) The articles had to be converted to the XML format used by ''Digibib''. To produce the CD, a dump of the live had been copied to a separate server, where a team of seventy ns vetted the material, deleting nonsense articles and obvious copyright violations. Questionable articles were added to a special list, to be reviewed later. The final CD contained 132,000 articles and 1,200 images. The ISO image was distributed for free via eMule and BitTorrent. In December, the CHIP (magazine) CHIP computer magazine placed the data on the DVD that it distributes with every issue. The materials are published under GFDL while the ''Digibib'' software may only be copied for non-commercial use (the Linux version is GPLed).

CD/DVD April 2005
Image: 2005 Label DVD small.PNG thumb|right|200px|DVD Label of German off-line publication. A new release of content was published by Directmedia on 6 April 2005. This package consisted of a 2.7 GB DVD and a separate bootable CDROM (running a version of Linux with Firefox). The CDROM did not contain all the data, but was included to accommodate users without DVD-drives. The DVD used Directmedia's ''Digibib'' software and article format; everything could be installed to a hard drive. In addition, the DVD contained an HTML tree, as well as articles formatted for use with Personal digital assistant PDAs (specifically, the Mobipocket and TomeRaider formats). German ns have developed a special format for meta data about persons (name, birth date and place etc.) known as ''[http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikimania05/Paper-JV2 Personendaten]'' . The main aim of this system was to aid the search features of the DVD. ''Personendaten'' were added to some 35,000 biographical articles on the live , partly aided by a [http://www.apper.de/pd/ somewhat automatic tool]. The vetting process was similar to the one for the CD described above and took place on a separate MediaWiki server. The process took about a week and involved 33 ns, communicating on IRC. To prevent duplication of work, editors would protect every article that they had reviewed; links to protected articles were shown in green. Lists of potential spammed or vandalized article had been produced ahead of time with SQL queries. Unacceptable articles were simply deleted on the spot. While the XML articles for the earler CD version had been produced from HTML, this time a script was used to convert Wiki markup directly to the ''Digibib'' format. The final DVD contained about 205,000 articles, with every article linking to a list of contributors. Directmedia sold 30,000 DVDs, at 9.90 Euro each. This price included 16% taxes and a 1 Euro donation to ''Wikimedia Deutschland''; production costs were about 2 Euro. The DVD image can also be downloaded for free. Following the successful launch of the DVD, Directmedia donated high-resolution pictures of 10,000 public domain paintings to Wikimedia Commons (see : _Signpost/2005-05-02/Commons_donation related Signpost story).

DVD/book December 2005
Directmedia's next edition of content was issued in December 2005. A 139 page book explaining , its history and policies was accompanied by a 7.5 GB DVD containing 300,000 articles and 100,000 images. The book with DVD is sold for 9.90 Euro; both are also available for free download. The vetting process for this version was different and did not involve human intervention. A "white list" of trusted ns was assembled, the last 10 days of every article's history were examined, and the last version edited by a white-listed n was chosen for the DVD. If no such version existed, the last version older than 10 days was used. Articles nominated for cleanup or deletion were not used.

Wikipress series
The book about was the first in a series titled ''Wikipress''. These books, published by Directmedia's sister company Zenodot, consist of a collection of articles about a common topic, selected and edited by so-called "Wikipeditors" who may receive compensation from Directmedia. ''Wikipress'' books about the Nobel Peace Prize, bicycles, Antarctica, the solar system etc. are in the planning stages. The books are assembled on a separate server, http://www.wikipress.de Every ''Wikipress'' book is accompanied by an "edit card", a post card that readers can send in to edit the book's contents.

Print editions
The publisher Zenodot announced in January 2006 that they intend to publish the complete German in print, 100 volumes with 800 pages each, starting with the letter A in October 2006, followed by two volumes each month thereafter, to end with Z in 2010. The project, code named WP 1.0, will be supported by 25 editors employed by Zenodot as well as a scientific advisory board. Changes made to articles before publication will also be available for incorporation into the online . In March 2006, Zenodot organized a "community day" to meet with ns and discuss the project. Groups of ns had already begun to polish articles with titles Aa-Af in selected topics. In late March it was announced that the project was put on hold and no books would be published in 2006; the reason given was that community support was lacking.

Legal issues and controversies

Unauthorized uses
In March 2005, the German news magazine ''Der Spiegel'' published an article on the Rwandan Genocide in its online edition; it was a copy of 's article. The article was taken down soon after and replaced with an apology. [http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2005-03-09-n29.html] In April 2005, the encyclopedia ''Brockhaus'' published an article about the new pope Josef Ratzinger in its online edition. Because of its close similarity to 's article, suspicion arose right away that the ''Brockhaus'' article might have been plagiarism. The article was removed soon after but ''Brockhaus'' did not apologize or admit guilt (see the : Signpost Signpost's : Signpost/2005-05-09/Brockhaus plagiarism suspected coverage.)

Large-scale copyright infringement (2003-2005)
In mid-November 2005, it was discovered that an anonymous user had entered hundreds of articles from older encyclopedias that had been published in the 1970s and 1980s in East Germany. The articles were mainly on topics in philosophy and related areas. The user had started in December 2003. A press release was issued and numerous editors started to remove the copyright protected materials. This was made difficult by the fact that the old encyclopedias were not online and not easily available from many West German libraries, and that the user had used numerous different IP addresses. The Directmedia DVD had to be updated.

Bertrand Meyer dead?
The death of well-known computer scientist Bertrand Meyer (who developed the Eiffel programming language) on December 24, 2005 was falsely announced by an anonymous user on December 28, 2005 in the article on Bertrand Meyer. The hoax was reported five days later by the Heinz Heise Heise News Ticker and the article was immediately corrected. Many major news media in Germany and Switzerland picked up on the story, creating the German 's (admittedly negligible) version of a John Seigenthaler Sr. biography controversy Seigenthaler affair. Meyer went on to publish a positive evaluation of , concluding "''The system succumbed to one of its potential flaws, and quickly healed itself. This doesn't affect the big picture. Just like those about me, rumors about 's downfall have been grossly exaggerated.''"

Naming Tron
In 2006, Wikimedia Deutschland was drawn into a legal dispute between the parents of the deceased German computer hacker Tron (hacker) Tron and Wikimedia. The parents do not wish the hacker's real name to be publicly mentioned, and in December 2005 they had obtained a preliminary injunction in a Berlin court against the American Wikimedia Foundation, requiring removal of the hacker's name from . The name was not removed. On January 19, 2006 they obtained a second injunction, this time against Wikimedia Deutschland, prohibiting the address www.wikipedia.de (which is under control of Wikimedia Deutschland) to redirect to the German at de.wikipedia.org (which is controlled by the American Wikimedia Foundation and hosts the actual encyclopedia) as long as mentions the hacker's name. Wikimedia Deutschland complied and replaced the redirect with a note explaining the situation, but without mentioning the Tron case specifically. The German remained accessible through de.wikipedia.org during this time. One day later, Wikimedia Deutschland achieved a suspension of the injunction, and linked from the note at de.wikipedia.org to the German . On February 9, the court invalidated the injunction, ruling that neither the rights of the deceased nor the rights of the parents were affected by publishing the name.

Parodies and Forks
Parodies of the German include Kamelopedia, born in April 2004, and the German version of Uncyclopedia, created in August 2005. One longtime contributor to the German , frustrated with what he saw as the lack of quality and the inclusion of un-encyclopedic material, produced a fork (software development) fork known as Wikiweise in April 2005. It is ad-supported, uses its own software (but a similar wiki markup), admits only registered editors, and prominently displays the real names of every article's major contributors. Furthermore, several MediaWiki-based German-language special topic encyclopedias have originated from the German .

External links and sources

- German
- Wikimedia Deutschland
- meets Brockhaus *Publication efforts on CD/DVD (all in German): **:de: : -CD General description of CD **:de: : -CD/Erfahrungsbericht Report on production of CD **:de: : -Distribution General description of first DVD **:de: : -Distribution/Erfahrungsbericht Erstellung Report on production of first DVD **:de: :WikiPress General description of second DVD and WikiPress **:de: :WikiPress/Erfahrungsbericht Erstellung Report on production of second DVD *
- Heise newsticker article *WP 1.0, publication in book form *
- WP 1.0, the project's home page **:de: :WP-1.0 WP 1.0, discussion of the project in the German *
- Project put on hold *:de: :DDR-URV Report on copyright infringement *:de:Benutzer:Elian/Geschichte, a personal history of the German , written by one of the core ns, in German
- Defense and illustration of , by Bertrand Meyer {{ _50,000}} Category: s by language Category:German media Category:2001 establishments es: en alemán fa:ویکی‌پدیای آلمانی ja:ドイツ語版ウィキペディア fi: :Saksankielinen zh:德語維基百科 see German

*** Shopping-Tip: German wikipedia