158 Country Report: Wikipedia

In 2001, the Swedish version of Wikipedia — Svenskspråkiga Wikipedia — was started and has become the fourth largest Wikipedia by article-count. At the time the Swedish Wikipedia started, another wiki website in the Swedish language called Susning.nu had already begun to become immensely popular in Sweden. However, the site became targeted by vandalism. After being unable to stop the vandalism, and becoming more unpopular, the website was shut down and the Swedish Wikipedia ultimately took its place.^[1] This edition of Wikipedia has amassed 2,648,483 articles; however, most of these articles have been generated by LSJBot, a bot that takes articles and automatically translates them to a specific language. These bots have caused many issues with articles in Svenskspråkiga Wikipedia, as many of these generated articles have outdated information, lack of sourcing, and bland language; subsequently, many of these auto-generated articles have been deleted, causing the Swedish-language Wikipedia to decrease from 3.8 million articles to 2.6 million.^[2]

According to Wikimedia Statistics, there are 760 current editors in Sweden editing the Swedish Wikipedia.^[3] The page views for Svenskspråkiga Wikipedia accumulate to 86 million in Sweden, 2 million in Finland, and 1 million in the United States.^[4] Each month, this Wikipedia achieves roughly 100,000 to 200,000 total page views.^[5] The wiki page for the country of Sweden is very extensive, with information ranging from the country’s history, geography, politics, economy, infrastructure, demography, and culture.^[6] Many of the popular articles in Svenskspråkiga Wikipedia are regarding Swedish people, issues, and topics. With 137,785 views, the Haijby affair wiki article discusses a Swedish legal affair between King Gustaf V and Kurt Haijby in the 1950s.^[7] Another popular article, with 85,149 views, is about Swedish journalist and author David Lagercrantz.^[8] Other popular articles also include international issues. One of the most viewed articles is on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with 171,891 total views.^[9]