Talk:Task force/Arabic Task Force/Demand for Arabic Wikipedia
- What is the demand for Arabic Wikipedia?
Huge. It is one of the few references around.
- What does the online landscape for reference information in Arabic look like?
Bleak. Most reference material are religious in nature and it is very hard to find any useful reference material on any other topic in Arabic. Arabs constitute only 1.1% of Global scientific publishing according to the 2009 knowledge report.
- Demand for standard Arabic content versus colloquial?
This is a political issue not an educational one. Some national groups push for colloquial written material to enforce nationalism, but the fact is that all schools in the Arab world teach only formal Arabic, and colloquial is very rarely used in written media, so any person who can read at all will be more well versed in standard Arabic.
- In various countries, what is the level of literacy for written, standard Arabic?
That can be easily retrieved from the CIA world fact book for example (or wolfram alpha) , For Egypt, the rate is ~ 70%
- How standardized (and well-written) is the material that is written on the Arabic Wikipedia?
It varies, there are some very well written material and a core of very active contributors on a variety of topics, but there is still a problem with quality, bias and the inclination of a big fraction of contributors to write about religious topics and family trees (there is a policy specifically banning family trees in most cases on ar.wp).
- What level/extent of ability is there in the English and/or French languages in various countries?
I think it varies per country, Egypt teaches English as a second language in all High schools, although with not a very high proficiency. I think French is also a popular second language in Morroco/Tunisia/Algeria.
- What demand or usage is there for English Wikipedia versus Arabic Wikipedia in Arabic-speaking countries? Why is there preference for one or the other?
Anyone who knows English well enough will usually use the English one because its bigger and more extensive, the problem is that the majority of people don't know English very well.
- What segments (demographics) of the population are more likely to contribute to a project like Wikipedia?
Students and Young professionals.