French Wikipedia

French Wikipedia
	Screenshot Main Page of the French Wikipedia in March 2021
Type of site	Online encyclopedia
Available in	French
Owner	Wikimedia Foundation
URL	fr.wikipedia.org
Commercial	No
Registration	Optional
Launched	23 March 2001; 23 years ago
Content license	Creative Commons Attribution/; Share-Alike 4.0 (most text also dual-licensed under GFDL); Media licensing varies

The French Wikipedia (French: Wikipédia en français) is the French-language edition of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. This edition was started on 23 March 2001, two months after the official creation of Wikipedia.^[1] It has 2,656,929 articles as of 5 January 2025, making it the fourth-largest Wikipedia language version, after the English-, Cebuano-, and German-language editions, and the largest Wikipedia edition in a Romance language. It has the third-most edits, and ranks 6th in terms of depth among Wikipedia editions, in addition to being the third-largest Wikipedia edition by number of active users as of January 2025.^[2] It was the third edition, after the English Wikipedia and German Wikipedia, to exceed 1 million articles: this occurred on 23 September 2010.^[1] In April 2016, the project had 4,657 active editors who made at least five edits in that month.

In 2008, the French encyclopaedia Quid cancelled its 2008 edition, citing falling sales on competition from the French edition of Wikipedia.^[3]

As of January 2025, there are 5,083,000 users, 146 admins and 72,654 files on the French Wikipedia.^[4]

On 2 December 2014, the French-language Wikipedia became the third-largest language edition by number of registered users,^[5] overtaking for the first time the German edition, with 2,022,504 registered users,^[6]^[7] behind the English (23,300,456)^[8] and Spanish (3,401,493)^[9] language editions.

Statistics

The audience measurement company Médiamétrie questioned a sample of 8,500 users residing in France with access to Internet at home or at their place of work. Médiamétrie found that in June 2007, French Wikipedia had: 7,910,000 unique visitors that visited the site at least once during the month of June 2007 (compared to 4,355,000 unique visitors in June 2006); 2.7 visits per visitor during the period (2.0 visits in June 2006); had held the 12th position (21st in 2006) in "the Top 30 most visited sites in France, excluding Internet applications", according to the criterion of the number of unique visitors and 12th position in "the Top 30 most visited sites in France, including Internet applications", like eMule or Real Networks (22nd position in June 2006).

By August 2011, French Wikipedia was the 7th most visited site in France, with nearly 16 million unique visitors a month (according to Médiamétrie). In April 2012, it had 20 million unique visitors per month, or 2.4 million per day^[10] with over 700 million page views.^[11]

Study

According to a 2013 study by Taha Yasseri et al., from Oxford Internet Institute, Ségolène Royal (FR) and unidentified flying object (objet volant non identifié) were the most controversial articles on the French Wikipedia.^[12]

Differences from other Wikipedias

An important difference with the English Wikipedia is that like the Spanish Wikipedia, or the Portuguese Wikipedia in the past, following a community vote in 2006 the French Wikipedia does not accept any images posted under fair use, with the only exception being logos. As of 2023, this exact ban is still in effect.^[13]

Another important difference is that while Wikipedia administrators are elected for an indefinite period, anybody can start a formal "motion of no confidence" contesting their status,^[14] with the community thereby invited to vote for or against removing their privileges. This also exists on the Spanish^[15] and Portuguese Wikipedia,^[16] but not on the English Wikipedia.

References

^ ^a ^b "Wikipédia en français dépasse le million d'articles". ZDNet France. 23 September 2010.
^ Wikimedia list of Wikipedias and their statistics. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
^ Litchfield, John. "France's favourite encyclopaedia falls victim to Wikipedia." The Independent. Wednesday 20 February 2008. Retrieved on 26 June 2013.
^ "Wikipedia Statistics - Tables - French". wikimedia.org.
^ "List of Wikipedias by edits per article". wikimedia.org.
^ fr:Spécial:Statistiques
^ de:Spezial:Statistik
^ Special:Statistics
^ "Estadísticas". es.wikipedia.org.
^ "Wikipédia dépasse 20 millions de visiteurs/mois en France (Médiamétrie)". ZDNet. 31 May 2012. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
^ "French Wikipedia at a glance". stats.wikimedia.org. Archived from the original on 30 May 2012.
^ Taha Yasseri; Anselm Spoerri; Mark Graham; János Kertész (8 July 2013). "The most controversial topics in Wikipedia: A multilingual and geographical analysis". arXiv:1305.5566v2 [physics.soc-ph].
^ "Wikipédia:Exceptions au droit d'auteur". French Wikipedia. Retrieved 19 April 2023.
^ "Wikipédia:Contestation du statut d'administrateur". French Wikipedia. Retrieved 19 April 2023.
^ "Wikipedia:Revalidación de bibliotecarios". Spanish Wikipedia. Retrieved 19 April 2023.
^ "Wikipédia:Administradores/Pedidos de remoção". Portuguese Wikipedia. Retrieved 19 April 2023.

External links

French Wikipedia website (mobile version)

[ZD_Net-1] "Wikipédia en français dépasse le million d'articles". ZDNet France. 23 September 2010.

[List1-2] Wikimedia list of Wikipedias and their statistics. Retrieved 5 January 2025.

[3] Litchfield, John. "France's favourite encyclopaedia falls victim to Wikipedia." The Independent. Wednesday 20 February 2008. Retrieved on 26 June 2013.

[4] "Wikipedia Statistics - Tables - French". wikimedia.org.

[5] "List of Wikipedias by edits per article". wikimedia.org.

[6] r:Spécial:Statistiques

[7] :Spezial:Statistik

[8] Special:Statistics

[9] "Estadísticas". es.wikipedia.org.

[10] "Wikipédia dépasse 20 millions de visiteurs/mois en France (Médiamétrie)". ZDNet. 31 May 2012. Retrieved 4 September 2014.

[11] "French Wikipedia at a glance". stats.wikimedia.org. Archived from the original on 30 May 2012.

[12] Taha Yasseri; Anselm Spoerri; Mark Graham; János Kertész (8 July 2013). "The most controversial topics in Wikipedia: A multilingual and geographical analysis". arXiv:1305.5566v2 [physics.soc-ph].

[13] "Wikipédia:Exceptions au droit d'auteur". French Wikipedia. Retrieved 19 April 2023.

[14] "Wikipédia:Contestation du statut d'administrateur". French Wikipedia. Retrieved 19 April 2023.

[15] "Wikipedia:Revalidación de bibliotecarios". Spanish Wikipedia. Retrieved 19 April 2023.

[16] "Wikipédia:Administradores/Pedidos de remoção". Portuguese Wikipedia. Retrieved 19 April 2023.

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French Wikipedia

Statistics

Study

Differences from other Wikipedias

See also

References

External links

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