104 Country Report: Wikipedia
cowley38
The overall use in Japan is pretty widespread. Article 21 in Japan’s constitution doesn’t allow censorship of any kind and protects freedom of speech, press, etc., so there’s no restriction of media which allows for media access to almost anyone. According to WikiProject Japan, as of right now, there are 88, 232 total articles “within the scope of WikiProject Japan, of which 177 are featured”, and this makes up 1.33% of articles on Wikipedia. As to how well-regarded the information is as a source, there’s no clear direction as to if the information is the most reliable or not. WikiProject Japan is really trying their hardest to improve articles and even posts their progress on their wikipedia page, so it’s safe to say there’s Japan-related information out there that is a reliable information source. According to the Japanese Wikipedia page, however, they have more anonymous contributors than actual registered users compared to other languages in Wikipedia. With this being said, not having many registered users who can be back-ground checked and verified of their identities, it’s easier for false information to be spread if there’s more random people adding in information as they please. I couldn’t find any information on the number of Wikipedia users within Japan.
On the Japan Wikipedia page, there are various tabs on the side detailing all types of information about Japan, like culture, history, geography, government, economy, etc. The etymology tab discusses the origins of the name Japan, and different pronunciations of the country. In the government and politics tab, there’s even a color-coordinated map presenting the different administrative divisions with descriptions of all the prefectures within the divisions. In the economy tab, there’s descriptions of Japans main economic sectors along with links to the main articles in which the information was cited from. There’s pretty much short descriptions of all the foundations that make up Japan and it’s existence as a country. Compared to the Japanese translated wikipedia page, the English one seems a bit lackluster in terms of the amount of tabs and the information within the tabs. The etymology tab for the Japanese translated page alone is almost longer than the whole Japan page in english. Another example of this is in the history section, the english Japan page basically only discusses ancient and modern day Japan, but the Japanese translated page talks about various time periods throughout history. The information about the country is edited by a little over 15,000 active contributors according to the Japanese Wikipedia page.
Sources:
https://freedomhouse.org/country/japan/freedom-net/2021#:~:text=Article%2021%20of%20Japan’s%20constitution,and%20several%20laws%20have%20negative
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Japan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Wikipedia