The Indonesian Wikipedia (, WBI for short) is the

Indonesian language Indonesian (; ) is the official language, official and national language of Indonesia. It is a standard language, standardized variety (linguistics), variety of Malay language, Malay, an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language that has ...

edition of

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

. It is the fifth-fastest-growing Asian-language Wikipedia after the Japanese, Chinese,

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

, and Turkish language Wikipedias. It ranks 25th in terms of depth among Wikipedias. Its first article was written on 30 May 2003, yet its main page was created six months later on 29 November 2003. There are articles in the Indonesian Wikipedia. In April 2016, there were 462 editors who made at least five edits in that month.

Background

Indonesian Wikipedia with modified Timeless skin screenshot

Although the Indonesian language is similar to the

Malay language Malay ( , ; , Jawi alphabet, Jawi: ) is an Austronesian languages, Austronesian language spoken primarily by Malays (ethnic group), Malays in several islands of Maritime Southeast Asia and the Malay Peninsula on the mainland Asia. The lang ...

, the Indonesian Wikipedia remains separate from the Malay Wikipedia Lih, p. 136. (initiated in October 2002) because they were started separately by two different user groups within six months of each other. In 2009,

Andrew Lih Andrew Lih (; born 1968)Andrew Lih
"

Indonesian is a normative form of the Malay language, an Austronesian (or Malayo-Polynesian) language which had been used as a

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

in the Indonesian archipelago for centuries, and was elevated to the status of an official language with the

Indonesian Declaration of Independence The Proclamation of Indonesian Independence (, or simply ''Proklamasi'') was read at 10:00 Tokyo Standard Time on Friday 17 August 1945 in Jakarta. The declaration marked the start of the diplomatic and armed resistance of the Indonesian Nati ...

in 1945, drawing inspiration from the Sumpah Pemuda (

Youth Pledge The Youth Pledge (, ), officially titled as Decision of the Congress of Indonesian Youth ( van Ophuijsen spelling ) is the pledge made by young Indonesians since 28 October 1928, which defined the identity of Indonesians. The decision proclaimed t ...

) event in 1928. Although it is very similar to the official Malaysian form of the language, it does differ from the Malaysian form in some ways, with key differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, due in large part to the many Dutch words in the Indonesian vocabulary. It is spoken as a mother tongue by only about 7% of the population in Indonesia, but altogether more than 200 million people speak it. The

is spoken by ethnic groups who reside in the

Malay Peninsula The Malay Peninsula is located in Mainland Southeast Asia. The landmass runs approximately north–south, and at its terminus, it is the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland. The area contains Peninsular Malaysia, Southern Tha ...

, southern

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

, parts of the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

, and

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

. Malay is also considered one of the dialects of the Indonesian language by Indonesians living in central eastern Sumatra, the Riau Islands and parts of the coast of Borneo.

Contributors

In 2004, ''

Tempo In musical terminology, tempo (Italian for 'time'; plural 'tempos', or from the Italian plural), measured in beats per minute, is the speed or pace of a given musical composition, composition, and is often also an indication of the composition ...

'' magazine published a feature about the Indonesian Wikipedia, in which Revo Soekatno, one of its best known contributors, described it as the "Encyclopedia from the boarding houses", meaning an encyclopedia that was produced by Indonesians living and studying overseas. The article contributed to the popularization of Wikipedia in the archipelago. Since then, the Indonesian Wikipedia has seen its number of users rise remarkably. In 2006, following ''Time'' featuring "

You In Modern English, the word "''you''" is the second-person pronoun. It is grammatically plural, and was historically used only for the dative case, but in most modern dialects is used for all cases and numbers. History ''You'' comes from ...

" as its person of the year, ''

Kompas ''Kompas'' () is an Indonesian national newspaper published in Jakarta, founded on 28 June 1965. It is published by PT Kompas Media Nusantara, which is part of Kompas Gramedia Group. The paper's head office is located at the Kompas Multimedia ...

'' published a feature article on Revo where he was called the "Father of Wikipedia in Indonesian". The article highlighted the spirit of participation as the type of "addiction to the cyberspace that needed to be endorsed". Other Indonesian publications followed suit to refer to Revo Soekatno as an "activist that built a community portal in Indonesia" praising his contributions to the presence of Indonesia in the Internet. In February 2009, the Indonesian Wikipedia achieved the milestone of 100,000 articles. One of the contributors mentioned in the article was the user borgx, who made 80,000 edits starting in 2005. That year, the Indonesian Wikipedia only had about fifty active contributors.

Workshop and seminars

In March 2007,

Bina Nusantara University Bina Nusantara University, also known as BINUS UNIVERSITY, is a private university in Indonesia. The main campus of the university is located in Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta. Most of its campuses are located within the area of Jabodetabek, Greater J ...

invited Indonesian Wikipedians to speak at the first Wikipedia seminar for the public and to introduce Wikipedia Bahasa Indonesia and Wikimedia Foundation projects at its campus in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , Betawi language, Betawi: ''Jakartè''), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta (; ''DKI Jakarta'') and formerly known as Batavia, Dutch East Indies, Batavia until 1949, is the capital and largest city of Indonesia and ...

. In November 2007, the Indonesian government, through its Department of Communication and Information, decided to establish an annual Indonesian ICT Award and invited the Indonesian Wikipedia community to hold a workshop on how to write Wikipedia articles. Ivan Lanin, one of the speakers interviewed by Antara, stated that the number of contributors to the Indonesian Wikipedia was rising, and the articles were beginning to become more diverse. According to Revo's speech, the challenge for the Indonesian Wikipedia in the future was to gain credibility and give the public assurance about the quality of the content provided. At the first day, the workshop was attended by 40 people, although the number of computers provided for hands-on practice was considerably less than the number of participants. The following year, at the 2008 Indonesian ICT Awards, the Indonesian Wikipedia community held separate workshop sessions for the public and for organizations.

Partnership with Google

On 4 December 2018, Google announced a partnership with Wikipedia in order to translate relevant Wikipedia's articles from English to Bahasa Indonesia language through their AI-powered Google Neural Machine Translation.

Physical releases

In August 2008, the Indonesian version of '' CHIP'' magazine distributed a complimentary DVD containing more than 80,000 articles (without images) with its 11th anniversary edition. This edition also featured a three-page Wikipedia article titled "Wikipedia: When one thousand brains are better than one". The article provided an extensive history of Wikipedia, including the Indonesian Wikipedia, as well as a description of the Wikimedia Indonesia chapter, which was in preparation at that time. However, a DVD version of the Indonesian Wikipedia with photos was already in existence since April 2008 and could be purchased online from an independent vendor for 20 thousand rupiah, around US$2.

Controversies

Inclusion of the 1965-1966 mass killings and the communist party of Indonesia

On 3 June 2020, ''#BoikotWikipedia'' (#BoycottWikipedia) became trending on

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

, now known as X, due to , an ustaz and committee member of

Indonesian Ulema Council Indonesian Ulema Council (, , abbreviated MUI) is Indonesia's top Islamic scholars' body. MUI was founded in Jakarta on 26 July 1975 during the New Order era. The council comprises many Indonesian Muslim groups including Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), ...

at the time, complaining about Wikipedia's article on the 1965-66 mass killings and the

Communist Party of Indonesia The Communist Party of Indonesia (Indonesian language, Indonesian: ''Partai Komunis Indonesia'', PKI) was a communist party in the Dutch East Indies and later Indonesia. It was the largest non-ruling communist party in the world before its Indo ...

(PKI). Zulkarnain pressured the

chief of the Indonesian National Police The chief of the Indonesian National Police (), commonly known as the national police chief (), is the official who heads the Indonesian National Police. Since it was first formed, this position has experienced several changes in hierarchy and p ...

Idham Azis and President

Joko Widodo Joko Widodo (; born 21 June 1961), often known mononymously as Jokowi, is an Indonesian politician, engineer, and businessman who served as the seventh president of Indonesia from 2014 to 2024. Previously a member of the Indonesian Democratic ...

to take action and arrest the author. Some things, like

Suharto Suharto (8 June 1921 – 27 January 2008) was an Indonesian Officer (armed forces), military officer and politician, and dictator, who was the second and longest serving president of Indonesia, serving from 1967 to 1998. His 32 years rule, cha ...

's photo and mentions of the PKI were later removed from the article. The Crescent Star Party's leader urged Wikipedia to remove that edit forever, also claiming that the PKI is the sole writer. An expert on communism called the article "brainwashing". The

Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (, PDI-P) is a centre to centre-left secular-nationalist political party in Indonesia. Since 2014, it has been the ruling and largest party in the House of Representatives (DPR), having won 110 seat ...

states that it is a "reflection of the country's war on history". The

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as foundation (United States law), a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, th ...

of Indonesia states that they are "neutral and unpaid for any articles made in its site." It also acknowledged that many of its articles were mainly translated from the

English Wikipedia The English Wikipedia is the primary English-language edition of Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia. It was created by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15 January 2001, as Wikipedia's first edition. English Wikipedia is hosted alongside o ...

Milestones

* 1,000 articles: 16 March 2004 * 10,000 articles: 31 May 2005 * 50,000 articles: 1 February 2007 * 100,000 articles: 21 February 2009 * 180,000 articles: 26 December 2011 * 200,000 articles: 27 March 2012 * 300,000 articles: Oct 2013 * 400,000 articles: 27 April 2017 * 500,000 articles: 15 August 2019 * 600,000 articles: 18 October 2021 * 700,000 articles: 2 August 2024

Users and editors

Related Wikipedias

These are Wikipedias written in local Indonesian languages. * Acehnese Wikipedia ( :ace:) *

Balinese Wikipedia Balinese Wikipedia () is the edition of Wikipedia in the Balinese language. The Balinese Wikipedia generally follows the basic rules of Indonesian Wikipedia. The Balinese Wikipedia was in the project '' incubator'' Wikimedia, since the incubato ...

( :ban:) * Banjarese Wikipedia ( :bjn:) * Banyumasan Wikipedia ( :map-bms:) * Betawi Wikipedia ( :bew:) * Buginese Wikipedia ( :bug:) * Batak Toba Wikipedia ( :bbc:) * Batak Mandailing Wikipedia ( :btm:) * Gorontalo Wikipedia ( :gor:) * Javanese Wikipedia ( :jv:) * Komering Wikipedia ( :kge:) * Madurese Wikipedia ( :mad:) * Malay Wikipedia ( :ms:) * Minangkabau Wikipedia ( :min:) * Nias Wikipedia ( :nia:) * Sundanese Wikipedia ( :su:)

References

* Lih, Andrew. '' The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia''. Hyperion,

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. 2009. First Edition. (alkaline paper).

Notes

External links

* * Putra, Budi (31 August 2006).
Fast growing of Indonesian Wikipedia
. CNET Asia. {{Wikipedias Wikipedia in Indonesia

Internet properties established in 2003 Wikipedias by language