Editing German Wikipedia (section)

== History ==

=== Early history ===
[[File:Hauptseite12801024.png|thumb|Main Page of the German Wikipedia in May 2004]]
The German edition of Wikipedia was the first non-English Wikipedia subdomain, and was originally named {{mono|deutsche.wikipedia.com}}. Its creation was announced by [[Jimmy Wales]] on 16 March 2001.<ref name="JWales01" /> One of the earliest snapshots of the home page, dated 21 March 2001 (revision&nbsp;#9), can be seen at the [[Wayback Machine]] site.<ref>Internet Archive's snapshots of German Wikipedia [https://web.archive.org/web/20010425083506/http://deutsche.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=browse&id=HomePage&revision=9 HomePage], 21 March 2001 12:10 (revision #9), and related [https://web.archive.org/web/20010408205505/http://deutsche.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=history&id=HomePage revision history]. Retrieved 4 November 2008.</ref> Aside from the home page, creation of articles in the German Wikipedia started as early as April 2001, apparently with translations of [[Nupedia]] articles.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20010411030440/http://deutsche.wikipedia.com/wiki/Nupedia_Deutsch-L_Sektion "Nupedia German-L Section"] (6 April 2001), [https://web.archive.org/web/20010424025539/http://deutsche.wikipedia.com/wiki/Nupedia_Deutsch-L_Sektion/Vergil "Vergil"] (16 April 2001),[https://web.archive.org/web/20010424024043/http://deutsche.wikipedia.com/wiki/Nupedia_Deutsch-L_Sektion/Pylos "Pylos"] (17 April 2001).</ref> After the [[Catalan Wikipedia]], the German Wikipedia was the second non-English edition to contain articles. The earliest article still available on Wikipedia's site is apparently [[:de:Polymerase-Kettenreaktion|Polymerase-Kettenreaktion]], dated May 2001.<ref>[http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Polymerase-Kettenreaktion&oldid=2613 "Polymerase-Kettenreaktion"] article on German Wiki showing edit dated May 2001</ref>

[[Andrew Lih]] wrote that the hacker culture in Germany and the {{lang|de|[[Eingetragener Verein|Verein]]}} concept solidified the German Wikipedia's culture. The geography of Europe facilitated face-to-face meetups among German Wikipedians.<ref>[[Andrew Lih|Lih]], p. 147.</ref>

=== Growth, coverage and popularity ===
{| align="right"
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| {{bar box
|title=Origin of page viewers (September 2018)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageViewsPerLanguageBreakdown.htm|title = Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report – Page Views per Wikipedia Language – Breakdown}}</ref>
|titlebar=#ddd
|width=300px
|bars=
{{bar percent|{{DEU}}|blue|77.0}}
{{bar percent|{{AUT}}|blue|8.0}}
{{bar percent|{{CHE}}|blue|5.4}}
{{bar percent|{{USA}}|blue|1.3}}
{{bar percent|Other|blue|8.3}}
}}
|}

{| align="right"
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| {{bar box
|title=Origin of page edits (October 2012 – September 2013)<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/squids/SquidReportPageEditsPerLanguageBreakdown.htm#German |title=Wikimedia Traffic Analysis Report – Page Edits Per Wikipedia Language – Breakdown}}</ref>
|titlebar=#ddd
|width=300px
|bars=
{{bar percent|{{DEU}}|Red|83.4}}
{{bar percent|{{AUT}}|Red|7.0}}
{{bar percent|{{CHE}}|Red|4.1}}
{{bar percent|{{ITA}}|Red|0.6}}
{{bar percent|{{USA}}|Red|0.5}}
{{bar percent|Other|Red|4.4}}
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[[File:Artikelzahl in dewiki 01 (fcm).png|thumb|upright=1.1|Article growth]]
On 27 December 2009, the German Wikipedia exceeded 1,000,000&nbsp;articles,<ref>[http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spezial:Statistik&uselang=en Statistics] of German Wikipedia (English)</ref> becoming the second edition, after the [[English Wikipedia|English-language Wikipedia]] to do so. The millionth article was [[:de:Ernie Wasson|Ernie Wasson]]. In March 2014, 88% of the edition's articles had more than 512&nbsp;[[byte]]s, 57% had more than 2&nbsp;[[kilobyte]]s, and the average article size was 4,298&nbsp;bytes.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaDE.htm |title=Wikipedia Statistics – Tables – German |website=stats.wikimedia.org |access-date=26 August 2024}}</ref> As of August 2024, the German Wikipedia has nearly 950,000 biographies and 350,000 disambiguation pages.<ref>{{cite web |title=Liste der Biografien |url=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Biografien |website=German Wikipedia |publisher=Wikimedia Foundation |access-date=26 August 2024}}</ref><ref name="disamb">{{cite web |title=Kategorie:Begriffsklärung |url=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategorie:Begriffsklärung |website=German Wikipedia |publisher=Wikimedia Foundation |access-date=26 August 2024}}</ref>

As of January 2025, the German Wikipedia is the fourth most viewed language edition of Wikipedia, after the English, [[Japanese Wikipedia|Japanese]] and [[Russian Wikipedia]]s.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://analytics.wikimedia.org/dashboards/vital-signs/#projects=eswiki,itwiki,enwiki,jawiki,dewiki,ruwiki,frwiki/metrics=Pageviews |title=Vital Signs: Pageviews |access-date=4 March 2025 |website=Wikimedia}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Wikimedia projects comparison [public] |date=January 2025 |publisher=Wikimedia |url=https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a-UBqsYtJl6gpauJyanx0nyxuPqRvhzJRN817XpkuS8/edit?gid=2092166039#gid=2092166039&range=E:E}}</ref>

The German edition tends to be selective in its coverage, often rejecting small stubs, articles about individual fictional characters and similar materials. Instead, there is usually one article about all the characters from a specific fictional setting, usually only when the setting is considered important enough (for example, all [[:de:Figuren aus Star Wars|characters from ''Star Wars'']] are listed in a single article). A dedicated article about a single fictional entity generally exists only if the character in question has a very significant impact on popular culture (for example, [[:de:Hercule Poirot|Hercule Poirot]]).<ref name="relev" /> Andrew Lih wrote that German Wikipedia users believe that "having no article at all is better than a very bad article."<ref name="Lihp148">[[Andrew Lih|Lih]], p. 148.</ref> Therefore, growth on the German Wikipedia leveled before it did for the English Wikipedia, with accelerating growth in article count shifting to constant growth in mid-2006. The number of users signing up for accounts began to steadily decline in 2007 through 2008.<ref name="Lihp148" />

[[File:Active editors on German Wikipedia over time.png|thumb|upright=1.1|Active editors from 2003–2018; the top curve shows editors with more than five edits per month on content pages.]]
[[File:Benutzer angemeldet.png|thumb|upright=1.1|Number of registered users between 2001 and May 2006]]
The number of volunteer authors began to stagnate in 2007 and has decreased since then. In Germany, the number of regularly active authors fell by more than a third from the peak of 9,254 at the beginning of 2008 to 5,862 at the end of 2015.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dobusch |first=Leonhard |title=Warum Wikipedia nach 15 Jahren in der Krise steckt |url=https://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/online-lexikon-warum-wikipedia-nach-15-jahren-in-der-krise-steckt-1.2816858 |access-date=2022-01-30 |website=[[Süddeutsche Zeitung]] |date=15 January 2016 |language=de}}</ref>

The January 2005 [[Google Zeitgeist]] announced that "Wikipedia" was the eighth most-searched query on {{mono|www.google.de}}. In February 2005, Wikipedia reached third place behind [[Firefox]] and [[Valentine's Day]]. In June 2005, Wikipedia ranked first.

=== Lack of diversity, decline of authors and paid editing ===
On the 20th anniversary of Wikipedia, the German-language edition faced a number of problems. According to German media the most significant are a lack of diversity, a decline in active users and the influence of paid editing. While in 2006 there were 8,614 active authors in the German Wikipedia, in December 2018 there were only 5,262. Active Wikipedians only saw about 300 people as the "hard core" of the German Wikipedia who write articles. 

As the number of authors decreases, the influence of a few increases, researchers found. The scientist [[Taha Yasseri]] describes those authors as "super editors" who write an excessive number of Wikipedia articles and thus keep the community project alive. It is problematic when "super editors" dominate much-discussed articles, build up an elite circle among themselves and "defend" their area.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Giessler |first=Denis |date=2021-01-15 |title=Wikipedia wird 20 Jahre alt: Ungleich verteiltes Wissen |language=de |work=Die Tageszeitung: taz |url=https://taz.de/!5739248/ |access-date=2023-07-26 |issn=0931-9085}}</ref> 

German Wikipedia has been criticized for [[conflict-of-interest]] manipulations by [[Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure|paid editors]] who overwhelm a small number of [[Wikipedia administrators|administrators]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-09-03 |title=Absolut diskret: So entlarvt Böhmermann Wikipedia-Manipulationen |url=https://www.br.de/nachrichten/kultur/absolut-diskret-so-entlarvt-boehmermann-wikipedia-manipulationen,Shwtnez |access-date=2022-01-22 |website=BR24 |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-01-23 |title=Nach Kritik: DFB entschuldigt sich wegen geändertem Wikipedia-Artikel |url=https://www.fr.de/sport/fussball/deutscher-fussball-bund-dfb-wikipedia-seite-friedrich-curtius-general-sekretaer-statement-90172530.html |access-date=2022-01-22 |website=www.fr.de |language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Lobe |first=Adrian |date=25 June 2019 |title=Gekaufte Wahrheiten auf Wikipedia |url=https://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/wikipedia-werbung-manipulation-schleichwerbung-wissen-1.4496890 |access-date=2022-01-22 |website=Süddeutsche.de |language=de}}</ref>

With the withdrawal of users and an interpretation of the rules that is not always perceived as appropriate, German Wikipedia can hardly counter the influence of lobby groups and [[paid editing]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Drosdowski |first=Johannes |date=2022-04-24 |title=Enthüllung über Bundesbehörden: Geweihe und Corona-Boni |language=de |work=Die Tageszeitung: taz |url=https://taz.de/!5846956/ |access-date=2023-07-26 |issn=0931-9085}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-06-09 |title=Wikipedia: Handlungsbedarf bei bezahltem Schreiben |url=https://netzpolitik.org/2022/wikipedia-handlungsbedarf-bei-bezahltem-schreiben/ |access-date=2023-07-26 |website=netzpolitik.org |language=de-DE}}</ref>

{{As of|2022|post=,}} the size of the German Wikipedia database is about 6&nbsp;gigabytes.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Technik/Datenbank/Download&oldid=207346209|title=Wikipedia:Technik/Datenbank/Download|date=6 January 2021|via=Wikipedia}}</ref>