Wikipedia Japanese edition is the Japanese edition of Wikipedia, a free, open content encyclopedia. As of November 2003 it had around 19000 articles.
History
It seems that Wikipedia started being multilingual in May 2001. According to the announcement [1], May, about 12 non-English editions have been created, including a Japanese one. The original site address was http://ja.wikipedia.com and all pages were written in latin characters, or Romaji, as the software did not work with Japanese characters.
The first article was named "Nihongo No Funimekusu" (though incorrect, it was probably intented to mean onso taikei (phonemics.) and was written in entirely romaji. RoseParks, who was one of the initial members of Wikipedia, posted it in late March to early April. It seems the site had been in the test stage. Until late December in that year, there were only two pages.
Japanization
On September 1, 2002, the software hosting wikipedia was changed into so-called "Phase III" and articles in the old version were moved into the new one. From that articles can be traced. As old articles show, there were articles posted by several non-native-Japanese speakers. The major coverage in that time includes Japanese culture, Language, Geography, and programming related articles.
In the same month, the translation into Japanese of the interface of Wikipedia sofware began. Before the end of year, pages about how to edit or about the GNU Free Documentation License were translated.
In the middle of December, the number of registered users was about 10 and the number of articles was around 10.
Coverage in Wired News Japanese edition
In January 31, 2003, a Japanese online magazine, Wired News Japanese edition covered Wikipedia. It seems that it was the first time that Wikipedia was mentioned in the Japanese media.
After that, the number of participants started to increase considerably and many pages about the Wikipedia project were translated or created.
There have been a handful of articles about cartoonists, Japanese prefectures as well as stock trades.
1000 page milestone
On February 12, 2003, the Japanese edition of Wikipedia reached the 1000 pages milestone, two years after the English edition.
Slashdotted
Given that accomplishment, Slashdot Japan posted a story about the Wikipedia, Japanese edition. Several days after that, the number of participants doubled and it attested the slashdot effect though smaller than that in the United States.
Because of this exposition, a variety of articles started to appear. Such include Physics, Biology, Information technology, Literature, Music, Game, Manga, Celebrity.