September 10, 2004: The 10,000th article was written.
September 20, 2004: The :he:דגל קזחסטן|Hebrew version of the Flag of Kazakhstan article became the one millionth article created in all Wikipedias.
December 24, 2006: The 50,000th article was written.
January 10, 2010: The 100,000th article was written.
August 29, 2013: The 150,000th article was written.
December 28, 2016: The 200,000th article was written.
Hebrew Wikipedia features several organized article writing projects, among them Wikitort - an academic project to write original articles about tort law, PhysiWiki - a project to write and improve articles about Physics with the cooperation of Weizmann Institute of Science, and ongoing academic projects. Another major topic is Jewish history and the History of Israel. In 2006, the Elef Millim project was launched to provide Wikipedia with free images. Groups of Wikipedians meet for field trips around the country to take pictures of Israeli sites. Hebrew spelling is a matter of debate. Since the standards published by the Academy of the Hebrew Language are not always meticulously followed in common usage, the Hebrew Wikipedia community decides on problematic cases of spelling through discussion and polls to ensure consistency. When technically possible, spelling decisions are periodically enforced using automatic replacement by a bot. Hebrew Wikipedia's requirements for standards are relatively strict. Hebrew Wikipedia organizes yearly competitions, sometimes with the assistance of the Wikimedia foundation, as well as social gatherings and picnics.
On the occasion of the 100,000 articles milestone, the Science and Technology Committee of the Knesset invited Wikipedia contributors and users to the 2 February 2010 morning meeting, to join in a debate about Wikipedia and other open-source resources. Some Wikipedia contributors at the meeting criticized "the lack of government cooperation with their efforts to compile a free online Hebrew-language encyclopedia," as well as sharing complaints from Wikipedia editors abroad that since the Israel Defense Forces does not release photos for free redistribution on the Internet, the sole source of available pictures for entries such as the Gaza War and the 2006 Lebanon War are the Palestinians.
Comparison with other language editions
In July 2006, Hebrew Wikipedia had one of the highest number of bytes per article, and the highest of all editions on Wikipedia with over 20,000 articles. Whereas the English Wikipedia requires a general consensus for deleting articles, the Hebrew Wikipedia has adopted a policy of deletion upon a 55% majority, with no minimum number of votes. In these votes, only registered users with one month seniority and at least 100 edits in the article, image, category or template namespaces in the past 90 days can vote.
Compared to English Wikipedia, Hebrew Wikipedia is more conservative with respect to content. The inclusion criteria are detailed under the "principles and guidelines" page. Some examples:
Articles on porn movies will be deleted unless they became cultural symbols.
Articles on porn stars will be deleted unless they have other notable aspects in their lives.
A book has to meet one of these four criteria: published by a known publisher, sold 10,000 copies, won a prize, or received good reviews.
Writers have to write at least two books to be notable as writers.
Singers and bands must have an album to their credit.
Articles on student films are deleted unless they win first prize in a film festival or were screened in mainstream cinemas.
List articles are rare. In particular, lists of TV series episodes are not accepted, even as part of the articles on the series. Other controversial topics are articles of about small schools and minor educational institutions.
"Hamichlol" mirror for ultra-Orthodox
Many Ultra-Orthodox Jews refrain from using the Internet in an open way. Hamichlol is a mirror site which includes a selection of wikipedia entries. Major differences are: not all articles are copied. Some entries are re-edited to be more acceptable to Ultra-Orthodox readers.
Topics
In 2019 the Hebrew Wikipedia has 71 thousand unique categories. The average article in this language version has 10 categories, while number of unique categories per articles ratio is 0.295. The largest number of articles has People and Geography category. In Hebrew Wikipedia articles related to Events and Society has the highest average quality. Content about Events is read more often and articles in Entertainment category have the highest authors' interest on average.
