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Swedish Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Favicon of Wikipedia Swedish Wikipedia
Swedish version of the Wikipedia logo
(Swedish: The free encyclopedia)
Screenshot
The Main Page of the Swedish Wikipedia on 9 September 2012
Website type
Online encyclopedia
Available inSwedish
HeadquartersWikimedia Sweden
OwnerWikimedia Foundation
FoundersLinus Tolke, Dan Koehl
EditorSwedish Wikipedia community
Websitesv.wikipedia.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional
Users1.08 million
Launched21 May 2001; 25 years ago (2001-05-21)
Current statusActive
Content license
Creative Commons Attribution/
Share-Alike 4.0 (most text also dual-licensed under GFDL)
Media licensing varies
Written inMediaWiki (PHP)

The Swedish Wikipedia (Swedish: Svenskspråkiga Wikipedia) is the Swedish-language edition of the free content online encyclopedia Wikipedia, started in 2001.

Swedish Wikipedia is the largest reference work in Swedish history. It is consistently ranked as the most visited or one of the most visited Swedish-language websites.[1] Along with the rest of Wikipedia, content quality assessments have gradually improved.[2]

With 2,628,380 articles in a depth of 19.08, it is the fifth largest Wikipedia by article count.[3] It counts 4,793 active users, including 62 one year-elected administrators.[4] As with other editions, since the 2010s, editing has been assisted by bots.[5][6] In 2014, it topped relatively as the second largest after English Wikipedia.[7] As of 2026, it ranked as the 24th most visited Wikipedia language version.[8]

Shortly after the creation of the English Wikipedia on 15 January 2001, more language editions were discussed. The Swedish Wikipedia was started on 21 May 2001 as the 4th Wikipedia edition.[9][10] Instrumental Swedish co-founders were Linus Tolke, who partook in its prototype launch, and Dan Koehl, first system operator who pioneered the contemporary platform, corpus, and community including the "thing", which set a precedent as the earliest form of arbitration committee in the history of Wikipedia, effectively making Swedish Wikipedia the first independent franchise not directly controlled by Jimmy Wales.

The Swedish Wikipedia is owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organisation, along with the other language editions. It is supported locally by the national chapter Wikimedia Sweden, headquartered in Stockholm, founded in 2007 by Lennart Guldbrandsson, and Lars Aronsson.

History

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Screenshot of sv.wikipedia.com 23 May 2001, using the prototype "Phase I" UseModWiki software
External image
Debut of contemporary Swedish Wikipedia (2002)
via The Internet Archive
image icon sv.wikipedia.org
Screenshot of sv.wikipedia.org 6 December 2002, using the contemporary "Phase III" MediaWiki software installed 1 December 2002

Wikipedia in English was founded 15 January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Soon, more language versions were discussed, including with foreign language speakers. The decision to create the Swedish Wikipedia is estimated to around April 2001, then as the 4th language.[citation needed]

Jimmy Wales set up the Swedish Wikipedia on 21 May 2001 at sv.wikipedia.com as Wikipedia's 4th[citation needed] language version.[10][11] All of Wikipedia was still in its early stage in terms of web development, translations, as well as establishing the online encyclopedia community. Jimmy Wales delegated the creation to two Swedes who had previously been active on English Wikipedia: initially in 2001 to Linus Tolke, a Swedish systems architect tasked with translating the prototype software, and subsequently in 2002 to Dan Koehl, previously creator of one of the first online encyclopedias in 1995, who concluded the translations and whom Jimmy Wales appointed as the Swedish Wikipedia's first system operator.

Establishment

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The prototype "Phase I" UseModWiki software for sv.wikipedia.com was translated in May 2001 by Linus Tolke and the conclusive "Phase III" MediaWiki contemporary platform under the since web address sv.wikipedia.org in November 2002 by Dan Koehl.[12] The "Phase III" PHP-engined MediaWiki Swedish interface premiered on sv.wikipedia.org 1 December 2002, where the Swedish Wikipedia has remained ever since, becoming the foundation for subsequent, contemporary versions.[12][10][13]

The article sv:Götaland, first edited 23 May 2001 using the prototype "Phase I" UseModWiki software, may be the first article on Swedish Wikipedia. Image from Så funkar Wikipedia ("How Wikipedia Works"), the first historiography on Swedish Wikipedia published in 2008 by Lennart Guldbrandsson [sv], the first president of Wikimedia Sweden.

After initiating prototype translations and having started a few articles, Linus Tolke left, while Dan Koehl translated the concluding software foundation and went on to pioneer the fundamental corpus of articles and categorisation. After the first couple of one sentence stubs by Linus Tolke, Dan Koehl remained the sole editor until the end of 2002.[14] Besides editing, Dan Koehl set up the early organisational, maintenance and community functions, such as the Swedish Wikipedia:Meta mainsite, Bybrunnen user forums, sabotage deterrence, and called to the first Tinget.[15][16][17] This wiki "thing" of 24 November 2002 became the first instance of something akin to an arbitration committee on any Wikipedia language version, effectively making the Swedish Wikipedia the first decentralised franchise while the rest of Wikipedia was still under Jimmy Wales' direct personal supervision.

Early history

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Article increase (2002-2003), after the implementation of advertisements on Susning.nu
Article increase (2001-2024)

In the early 2000s, the Swedish Wikipedia's prototype instantiation functioned as a small, foreign-franchised competitor to the independently Swedish UseModWiki Susning.nu created 1 October 2001 by Lars Aronsson, inspired by the English Wikipedia. However, due to the founder's introduction of advertising on the website from 20 November 2002, its contributors decided to gradually abandon it for the Swedish Wikipedia.[18] Although Susning.nu became the world's second largest wiki on 28 May 2003, in April 2004, its editing features were closed down to all but a handful of users, which further increased the flow to the Swedish Wikipedia. On 14 January 2005, Wikipedia's article count surpassed that of Susning.nu.[19] Susning.nu was shut down entirely in August 2009.

Editing collaborations with other interintelligable Scandinavian languages editions has been organised by the Skanwiki project.[20]

In March 2006, the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet published a comparative evaluation of the Swedish Wikipedia, Susning.nu and the online version of Nationalencyklopedin. The evaluation was done by giving a selection of articles to independent subject matter experts for grading. While Nationalencyklopedin came out on top with respect to factuality and neutrality, the Swedish Wikipedia received a good overall grade and came out on top with respect to being up to date and having a broad coverage, also including popular culture subjects.[21]

On 21 May 2026, Swedish Wikipedia celebrated its 25th anniversary.[22]

Wikimedia Sweden

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Since the beginning, the Swedish Wikipedia like the other language editions is owned by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organisation, located in the United States. It is supported locally by the national chapter Wikimedia Sweden, since 2007. Wikimedia Sweden was founded by Lennart Guldbrandsson, and Lars Aronsson, the latter from the former Susning.nu after it declined. Lennart Guldbrandsson was appointed its first president 2007-2010 at the first meeting at the Swedish Museum of Natural History.

Massive deletions in robot-made articles

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On 27 September 2012, the wiki reached 500,000 articles.[23] On 15 June 2013 it reached 1,000,000 articles and rose from 8th to 5th place.[24] This is in large part due to a community project where bots were used in producing articles for all existing species of plants and animals. When finished, this project alone created more than a million articles, most short and sourced through available online databases on the subject.[25] In 2014 about half of its articles were created by a single bot, Lsjbot.[26] During 2015 and 2016, Lsjbot wrote more than 1 million geographical articles, increasing the number of articles to nearly 3.8 million by November 2016 when it stopped. While this practice allowed the Swedish Wikipedia to become the second largest worldwide,[27] quality suffered from a lack of sourcing, shallow articles, duplicates, and outdated information. Facing these problems, tide turned against the bots and article deletions started outpacing new creations. From the 2016 maximum of 3.8 million articles, the count to below 3.3 million articles in March 2021, and as of December 2021, the count dropped below 2.8 million articles.

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See also

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References

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  1. ↑ "Här är de 100 sajter som får mest trafik från Google i Sverige". Archived from the original on 24 July 2024. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
  2. ↑ "The other tech giant - Wikipedia is 20, and its reputation has never …". Retrieved 1 August 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  3. ↑ "List of Wikipedias - Meta". meta.wikimedia.org. Archived from the original on 24 December 2018. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
  4. ↑ "Wikipedia:Administratörer". Wikipedia (in Swedish). 18 October 2017. Archived from the original on 24 August 2025. Retrieved 12 October 2017.
  5. ↑ "Kontroversiell robot bakom wikiväxt". Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 13 June 2018. Retrieved 18 October 2017.
  6. ↑ Alshahrani, Saied; Alshahrani, Norah; Matthews, Jeanna (2023). "DEPTH+: An Enhanced Depth Metric for Wikipedia Corpora Quality". ACL Anthology. Association for Computational Linguistics: 175–189. doi:10.18653/v1/2023.trustnlp-1.16. Archived from the original on 13 January 2025. Retrieved 31 October 2024.
  7. ↑ Nyheter, S. V. T. (31 July 2014). "Svenskspråkiga Wikipedia nu näst störst i världen". SVT Nyheter. Archived from the original on 12 April 2024. Retrieved 24 July 2024.
  8. ↑ "Wiki comparison [public]". Google Docs. Retrieved 24 August 2026.
  9. ↑ Wikipedia:Multilingual coordination
  10. 1 2 3 "Wikipedia: History of HomePage". Archived from the original on 8 June 2001. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  11. ↑ "Diskussion:Svenskspråkiga Wikipedia/Arkiv 2005". 1 April 2023. Archived from the original on 14 January 2026. Retrieved 11 July 2024 – via Wikipedia.
  12. 1 2 "Wikipedia:Loggbok". Archived from the original on 7 August 2020. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  13. ↑ "Wikipedia:Loggbok: Versionshistorik – Wikipedia". Archived from the original on 21 December 2025. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
  14. ↑ "Wikipedia: NyligenSkrivnaSidor". sv.wikipedia.com. 3 October 2002. Archived from the original on 3 October 2002. Retrieved 24 August 2026.
  15. ↑ "Huvudsida - Meta".
  16. ↑ "Så fungerar Wikipedia/Wikipedias historia - Wikisource". sv.wikisource.org. Archived from the original on 25 November 2015. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  17. ↑ "Så fungerar Wikipedia/Wikipedias historia". Lennart Guldbrandsson, sv.wikisource.org. 9 March 2010. Archived from the original on 25 November 2015. Retrieved 24 November 2015.
  18. ↑ "Susning.nu och Wikipedia förnyar uppslagsverken – nu får alla skriva". Internetmuseum (in Swedish). 13 October 2022. Archived from the original on 19 July 2026. Retrieved 24 August 2026.
  19. ↑ "Wikipedia:Milstolpar". Archived from the original on 7 August 2020. Retrieved 24 May 2020.
  20. ↑ "Skanwiki". Meta-Wiki. 13 July 2026. Archived from the original on 5 July 2026. Retrieved 24 August 2026.
  21. ↑ Nandra, Ulrika (30 March 2006). "Gratis nätlexikon får bra betyg". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 21 June 2011.
  22. ↑ "Wikipedias 25-årsfirande". Wikimedia (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 24 May 2026. Retrieved 24 August 2026.
  23. ↑ "Grattis Sverige - nu har vi en halv miljon Wikipedia-artiklar!" (Press release) (in Swedish). Wikimedia Sverige. 27 September 2012. Retrieved 27 September 2012.{{cite press release}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  24. ↑ "List of Wikipedias". Archived 6 January 2020 at the Wayback Machine Meta.wikimedia.org, 2013-06-16. Retrieved 16 June 2013.
  25. ↑ "Användare:Lsjbot". Archived 18 December 2025 at the Wayback Machine Sv.wikipedia.org. Retrieved 16 June 2013. (in Swedish) Machine translation: Archived 28 July 2021 at the Wayback Machine
  26. ↑ "Swedish Wikipedia surpasses 1 million articles with aid of article creation bot « Wikimedia blog". Blog.wikimedia.org. 17 June 2013. Archived from the original on 26 July 2014. Retrieved 3 August 2014.
  27. ↑ "List of Wikipedias - Meta". meta.wikimedia.org. Archived from the original on 28 July 2021. Retrieved 24 December 2020.
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