One-fifty
After a year and a month in operation, the Vietnamese Wikipedia (Wikipedia Tiếng Việt) now has 150 registered users, an increasing number of whom are active contributors to the project.
See the announcement for details: in English, en español, bằng tiếng Việt (2).
The project started in October/November 2003 with just four articles, three users, and a messy makeshift HomePage. (View the page using Wikipedia’s Nostalgia skin to see what it actually looked like using the old software.)
Today, the site has (as I said before) 150 registered users. It has 147 articles and 1,527 pages in all [1]. It ranks second in a Google search for tiếng việt – the native name for the language – just below BBC Vietnamese.
I am one of three administrators (“sysops”) at the Vietnamese edition, and I edit almost every day. I’ve also started the Vietnamese editions of Wiktionary and Wikibooks, both companion projects from the Wikimedia Foundation.
I’ve learned a whole lot working on these projects. I’ve increased my understanding of and skill with the Vietnamese language, enabling me to actually hold meaningful conversations in the language. Working on Wikipedia is more than a hobby for me (one reason I advertise it so much around here). It’s the 150 articles and 150 user-strong community that I’m a part of. And I’m proud of it.
Most of you probably don’t speak any Vietnamese, but it’s quite easy to start participating in any of the 198 languages of Wikipedia. Just edit this page.