Wikipedia Japan: All Anime, No Politics
日本のWikipedia編集回数ランキング、アニメ・漫画が上位独占
I didn’t think I would be the first one to link to this article. (Update: Defeated by Danny Choo, who probably made $100 on his site while I type this sentence. Maybe I should have added a picture of impossibly-chested cartoon women…)
Basically, somebody compared the most-edited pages within the Wikipedia English, Wikipedia French, and Wikipedia Japan sites, and haha, the top five for Japan were all anime/manga related. Number one in the U.S. was George W. Bush — a politically controversial figure. Number three in France was Algeria — I heard France had a slightly-controversial colony there. (Update: M-Bone pointed out that I am an idiot and forgot that Algerians use French.) Japan’s only real historical topic comes at #14 — World War II. Despite the heavy internal debate on that war within Japan, everyone using the net is much more interested in fixing minutiae about cartoons.
It would be easy to show this ranking as proof that Japanese minds are more obsessed with pop culture than national issues, politics, or ideology, but my guess is that this mainly reflects the still low cultural penetration of the internet in Japan. I know that stats rarely bear out this statement of mine — broadband usage is through the roof! etc. etc. — but I don’t think your average Joe in Japan (城氏？) is as dependent upon internet resources for daily information retrieval as in the U.S., for example. I can’t put my finger on it, but something in Japan still feels like the U.S. internet circa 1998, when it was only good for looking up the master timeline to the Macross series and guitar chords to They Might Be Giants songs.
Let’s make an index: the number of Wikipedia pages in a language divided by the numbers of speakers of said language times 100. Japanese ranks very low (.38) — way below Dutch (1.6) and Polish (1.2). Those who do use Wikipedia in Japan are early adopters, much more likely to be nerds. It’s the John Locke vs. John Locke syndrome. But at least other countries have internal domestic policies in constant debate to challenge the nerd quotient.
Another interesting bit: number eight in Japan is the “complete list of adult video stars.” I guess people are constantly adding names. Certainly suggests that the reference site is used by a lot of men — who have a lot of time to dedicate to editing porn trivia.
November 13, 2008 at 8:15 pm
I think that you are making a mistake in equating the Wikipedia languages with national characteristics.
You screwed up bad here – “Number three in France was Algeria — I heard France had a slightly-controversial colony there.”
That’s number three in FRENCH. The educated, upper class in Algeria almost all speak French.
Likewise on Bush, is that Americans interested in politics, or a hardcore few fixing changes that Russians or Germans or Iraqis made? It would be possible for something to top the English list without a single native speaker ever touching it as well.
November 13, 2008 at 8:55 pm
Ah yes. You are right. Maybe I should update that. I literally wrote this with one foot out the door.
Although, that’s still a lot of editing on Algeria if it’s ONLY Francophone Algerians.
November 13, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I think that you are making a mistake in equating the Wikipedia languages with national characteristics.
At least with Japanese, I think you can say that Wikipedia Japan represents “the Japanese net.” Citizens from what other country are editing and writing on Wikipedia Japan? My guess is 99.0% Japanese people. Same goes with Italy, no?
November 13, 2008 at 9:01 pm
I actually agree with your basic point that Japanese net does not equal Japanese society and that Japanese net is mostly a sphere for the Japanese language group. I’m sure that a few committed Korean students of Japanese get in there, however.
Should also bring up how scary it is that Bush and Christ both made the English top 5.
“I literally wrote this with one foot out the door.”
Happens to everybody sometimes.
November 13, 2008 at 9:04 pm
This is not “most viewed,” but most edited. It means where the community, or people, have the most interest in altering, adding, or deleting. Bush is a controversial guy, so is Christ. Is One Piece controversial or is that not what drives edits?
November 13, 2008 at 9:27 pm
There is nothing controversial about One Piece (other than sucks or not and I say sucks).
November 13, 2008 at 9:34 pm
In any case, don’t you find it scary that some people wake up in the morning and think “oh, I have to check to see if someone made changes to the Christ Wikipeida article when I was sleeping”?
November 14, 2008 at 9:40 am
I read some article a while back saying that some enormous percentage of Wikipedia edits were done by a core group of ‘Wikimaniacs.’ I can’t find it now, but it was huge, like 80% or something.
And whatever else, the Japanese internet continues to yeah, remind me of 1998 at every turn.
November 14, 2008 at 9:49 am
Someone commented on the Japan Probe site that long-running anime series need more updates since they keep adding new episodes etc. This would explain the rankings IF the total volume of edits in Japan is low, which I suspect is true. The page#/language speakers ratio suggests that total participation in Wikipedia is very low.
November 14, 2008 at 10:45 am
Well, if you wanted you can see what kind of changes are being made to the Japanese One Piece article, so why speculate about the changes being made?
(In a totally unrelated note, does the black background/white text of this site mess with anyone else’s eyes? Like, it makes things look all stripey for a little bit? I’m not complaining or asking for it to be changed, I just want to know I’m not the only one…)
November 14, 2008 at 12:25 pm
On the subject of One Piece – strikes me as more likely that “kids” are the ones editing this article rather than 20 or 30 something otaku. One Piece really is a very, very simple Shonen series – not a whole lot in the way of “moe” or anything. It is cut from the same cloth as Dragon Ball Z. It could be that this series (which has sold something like 120,000,000 copies of its 50 or so volumes) is drawing in the under 18 crowd to its Wikipedia entry. In terms of how often it would be edited – there are weekly manga AND anime instalments, films, new video games, nearly weekly toy releases, etc. In short, the One Piece world changes faster than our one….
November 14, 2008 at 12:27 pm
My guess is that ALL popular entertainment topics get edited a lot worldwide. So why are other current topics beating them out in other language spheres?
November 14, 2008 at 12:48 pm
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maybe it just reflects the low popularity of wikipedia in Japan? i mean remember, google for example is far less popular here than it is in america. I think your bringing a heavily american slanted bias to your criticism here that you arent honestly accounting for.
Also you tend to leave out that Japanese people in their social lives utilize the internet differently than americans (isn’t home PC penetration pretty minimal?) but this partly because the main access point for the internet for most people still their cell phones? Whats odd is that with the invention of the Iphone/smart phone, increased mobile internet availability and american cellphone companies inability to not screw their customers (Text message class action lawsuits/anti-competition stuff etc) the american internet is most likely going to look more and more like the Japanese internet in terms of sites and services dedicated to mobile (cell phone) users, than vice versa.
November 14, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I think your bringing a heavily american slanted bias to your criticism here that you arent honestly accounting for.
Look at the stats: I am clearly bringing a Polish and Dutch bias.
November 15, 2008 at 4:33 am
“Japan’s only real historical topic comes at #14 — World War II.”
Had it ever occured to you that there is more than five diffrent version to describe “the war”in Japanese?
November 15, 2008 at 8:20 am
I don’t get what you are saying. In theory, all the “different ways” would still lead to the same page, no?
November 15, 2008 at 10:22 am
Now you know how much average Joe Japanese is adjusted to web 2.0 environment!
November 15, 2008 at 2:36 pm
number eight in Japan is the “complete list of adult video stars.”
A good sign! Porn stats are direct indicators of a medium taking off in a country, like when everyone bought VCRs in the eighties!
Soon, the internet will rule Japan!
“the american internet is most likely going to look more and more like the Japanese internet in terms of sites and services dedicated to mobile (cell phone) users, than vice versa.”
In terms of sites, I can’t see the US falling for sites like Mobage-town and the other gated community stuff presented at handset users. In addition, the lack of a concentrated infrastructure to deploy services like Mobile Suica overseas will not be the norm in the US and Europe, rather it is a particularly Japanese solution that won’t work anywhere else (and that doesn’t even mention the fact that Japan refuses to have the technology produced overseas – which also impedes any kind of diffusion of the service overseas).
Part of what has created greater usage and participation in the social web in the west (and in the US, in particular) is the proliferation of services, and a cultural tendency to express oneself openly, and get famous by providing good content. The web in Japan, though, is still very much a “medium” that is owned and operated like a media company. Mobile services are the best example of this, actually; gated access and limited access is the accepted norm. In terms of content production, you have mobile novels, and manga, and most of these are simply adaptations of “offline” rituals in a smaller, more compact space. And you’re mistaken about the iPhone – though it may not be the runaway success it is in other countries, it does have a strong appeal to Japanese who prefer their content delivered to them in a PC web format, nor would anyone refer to it as a failed attempt to enter the Japanese market.
This is how I see this playing out: what you’ll see on the mobile web in the west is what you see on the phone. People have expectations for the medium to look, feel and act like the web with key functionality available (albeit stripped down), and if mobile sites for them are not up to snuff they won’t bother with them. In reverse, in a lot of cases Japanese people expect the web to act and look a lot like mobile, which tempers the expectation of the medium (outside of viewing old Japanese TV episodes) in the same fashion.
November 16, 2008 at 4:50 am
“I read some article a while back saying that some enormous percentage of Wikipedia edits were done by a core group of ‘Wikimaniacs.’ I can’t find it now, but it was huge, like 80% or something.”
Is this the one you mean?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/magazine/01WIKIPEDIA-t.html
November 16, 2008 at 7:05 pm
“And you’re mistaken about the iPhone – though it may not be the runaway success it is in other countries, it does have a strong appeal to Japanese who prefer their content delivered to them in a PC web format, nor would anyone refer to it as a failed attempt to enter the Japanese market.”
I dont think its a failure at all, but i dont think the reason the iphone was/is at all succesful is that it allows you to access things in web format. I know lots of people who have them, i dont know any who bought them for any reason besides the fact that it was an iphone. now this may change the way people interact with their phones, but the majority of sites that japanes people use are already optimized for mobile use.
I meant more that i would expect the American webspace to become much more mobile friendly in the sense of site design and content (think hotpepper type sites if google maps doesnt just replace them).
November 16, 2008 at 11:00 pm
“I dont think its a failure at all, but i dont think the reason the iphone was/is at all succesful is that it allows you to access things in web format. I know lots of people who have them, i dont know any who bought them for any reason besides the fact that it was an iphone. now this may change the way people interact with their phones, but the majority of sites that japanes people use are already optimized for mobile use.”
My point wasn’t about platform, it’s about user expectations determining what content is to be consumed on a particular format. If you’re used to looking and consuming content with limited functionality on the mobile, you’re going to have higher expectations for the PC web as you have more power, but it’s not going to make you more demanding. Low expectations breeds low expectations.
“I meant more that i would expect the American webspace to become much more mobile friendly in the sense of site design and content (think hotpepper type sites if google maps doesnt just replace them).”
But the difference is that a lot of these Americans have an expectation that the medium will have to at least strive to be as useful as the PC site. I think this is the primary reason the mobile area hasn’t taken off stateside, and to some extent, Europe. Of course, you’re right that companies will create apps and optimized mobile sites for this platform, but the expectations and functionality of these things will more closely mirror the PC websites.