So far we've concentrated on the English-language version of Wikipedia, but Wikipedias have been created in over 250 languages, each representing its own individual community and unique collection of content. A common assumption is that articles in the other Wikipedias are basically translated from English, but this couldn't be more misleading: These sites all create their own content with translations only playing a minor role. Taken as a whole, the Wikimedia projects count as one of the most comprehensively multilingual and global projects on the Internet today.^[32]

The English-language Wikipedia is the largest site, but other Wikipedias are also impressively large: Fifteen of the other-language editions of Wikipedia have over 100,000 articles. These very active sites often have high growth rates and are technically innovative. If you visit http://wikipedia.org/ (Figure 15.1, “Wikipedia.org portal page, showing all the languages”), you'll see that it serves as the gateway to the other language editions of Wikipedia.

In this chapter, we'll explore what being global means for Wikipedia, by now a truly international and connected project. What are other-language Wikipedias like, and how can you get involved in them? We'll also talk about language issues as they relate to the English-language Wikipedia, including displaying foreign-language characters, writing about topics from a global perspective, and adding links to other-language versions of Wikipedia.