When some think of Armenia, one particular family may come to mind.
"I'm Kim Kardashian."
The government of Armenia is looking to change that. (Via E! / "Keeping Up With The Kardashians)
In an effort to promote national culture, the tiny landlocked country of three million is asking its citizens to each contribute an article to Wikipedia’s Armenian language site.
The campaign — dubbed One Armenian, One Article — started with this YouTube video from the Ministry of Education, but according to the BBC, is now getting air time on major TV networks with the help of celebrities and politicians.
The founder of the London-based Centre for Armenian Information and Advice told The Guardian, “If it can help increase the profile of Armenian language and culture then I say why not.”
Getting every single Armenian to pen an article would be quite the feat. Especially considering most of the eight million Armenians living abroad don’t read or speak the Armenian language.
And another potential problem: the articles, per Wikipedia guidelines, must be written from what it calls neutral point-of-view. And due to the site’s self-policing policy, controversial issues are regularly subject to edit wars.
Among them, the mass killing of Ottoman-era Armenians in present-day Turkey, which Armenia describes as a gencide. (Via Wikipedia)
But Turkey won’t call what happened in the aftermath of World War I a genocide, and some historians have questioned the label as well. (Via U.S. Library of Congress)
One Armenian Wikipedia user describes to Motherboard what happened when he tried writing about these historical events from an Armenian point of view. “When I tried to make corrections or additions regarding the Armenian Genocide ... I quickly saw my edits getting deleted again and again."
Looks like the campaign still has a ways before reaching its goal of having every Armenian write a Wikipedia entry. According to the site itself, Armenia has 30,000 registered users — just a sliver of its population of three million.
