Armenia: Citizens urged to write Wikipedia entry each By News from Elsewhere...

...media reports from around the world, found by BBC Monitoring Published duration 31 July 2014

image copyright ALAMY image caption National heritage is getting a boost via a flurry of articles on Armenian Wikipedia

Armenians are being urged to do their patriotic duty - by each writing an article on Wikipedia, it seems.

The national campaign - One Armenian, One Article - aims to raise the number and quality of articles in the Armenian language and promote the culture, an ad on EU Armenia TV says.

It could even be competing with Georgia and Azerbaijan in the Wikipedia stakes.

It seems Armenian Wikipedia is outstripping its neighbours in page numbers - with more than 390,000 now.

Reporting the number of Wikipedia articles has been on the agenda of Armenian TV and news agencies since the campaign began in March, and it's been noted there are around 102,000 Wikipedia pages in Azerbaijan and almost 84,000 in Georgia.

What started as a YouTube clip has a new lease of life running on satellite TV to Armenians across the world. The Armenian diaspora - thought to number some eight million people - far outnumbers the country's resident population of about 3 million.

High profile artists, musicians and politicians are getting in on the act too. Education minister Armen Ashotyan says in the clip: "One Armenian, one article - I will definitely do that and believe you will too."

Meanwhile, Defence Minister, Seyran Ohanyan, says he's already added an article about the Armenian army. Articles by celebrities and ordinary citizens are equally valued, the ad says, and a young person is even shown writing an article about radishes.

image copyright WIKIPEDIA

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