From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The logo for the Finnish Wikipedia.

The Finnish Wikipedia is the edition of Wikipedia in the Finnish language. By article count, it is the 13th largest Wikipedia with more than 100,000 articles as of February 11, 2007.

The Finnish language project was started in late 2002, but it remained at a very primitive stage until well into 2003. The speed of development picked up somewhat after the wiki software was upgraded to Phase III in late November, 2003, and continued to increase steadily through 2004. As of spring 2005, the project seems to be gaining momentum rapidly, most likely due to recent media exposure in Finland, and the gradually maturing content of the encyclopedia.

The relatively small number of articles is due to the small number of native Finnish speakers, virtually non-existent number of non-native Finnish speakers and the high number of the native speakers who are also fluent in English. However, the ratio of Finnish language Wikipedia articles to the number of Finnish speakers is quite high.

As with many other languages wikipedias the growing prominence in the media has mostly been with a positive slant (including an editorial from the Finnish newspaper of record Helsingin Sanomat which suggested that Time Magazine had missed a trick in not naming wikipedia the Time Magazine Person of the Year), but inevitably there were some less edifying confrontations with the outside world as well. One major news-story involved a former government ministers article having been adjusted to a more flattering form by internet connections traced back to the computers of the house of representatives. Another tempest in a teapot was when a former VJ and current newspaper columnist madet tabloid headline by asking the police to investigate if her article had contained something that was illegal. The situation was defused however, and the police declared that the complaint was far too vague to be actionable.

• 100,000 articles - February 11, 2007
• 90,000 articles - December 7, 2006
• 85,000 articles - November 3, 2006
• 80,000 articles - September 27, 2006
• 75,000 articles - August 19, 2006
• 70,000 articles - July 12, 2006
• 65,000 articles - June 6, 2006
• 60,000 articles - May 1, 2006
• 50,000 articles - February 21, 2006
• 45,000 articles - January 11, 2006
• 40,000 articles - December 6, 2005
• 35,000 articles - October 15, 2005
• 30,000 articles - August 16, 2005
• 25,000 articles - June 27, 2005
• 20,000 articles - April 27, 2005
• 15,000 articles - February 9, 2005
• 10,000 articles - October 14, 2004
• 5,000 articles - April, 2004
• 1,000 articles - September, 2003

• Finnish Wikipedia
• Report from the Finnish Wikipedia, from Wikipedia Signpost (in English Wikipedia), 2006-10-23.