On Thu, Jun 19, 2008 at 11:35 PM, Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org> wrote: Seriously, does it have a sense? I mean, does Vatican has some news production (news readers would be easier to find) in Latin?

On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 7:24 AM, Aphaia <aphaia(a)gmail.com> wrote: Hm. If no one relevant is making news in Latin (which should be checked; however, the most relevant institution isn't doing that), I don't see a reason why Wikimedia should do that.

On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 1:43 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: Thanks. I remembered now for the Finnish radio... So, it seems that Latin Wikinews may be useful.

2008/6/19 Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com>om>: Not a problem liturgical Latin (which is what people generally use) isn't ancient. Oh bits of it are but so are bits of say welsh. -- geni

2008/6/20 Dan Rosenthal <drosenthal(a)wikimedia.org>rg>: No latin is something of an exception. What we see here is peopel trying to to use Latin to allow them to create wikis in truly dead languages. -- geni

Dan Rosenthal wrote: For that matter, what's so wrong about having a Simple English Wikinews? The question of an ISO code may be a strong prima facie consideration, but it should not be an absolute rule. Assuming that there are enough interested people to keep it going, such a progress has a clear audience. It would, for example, be very useful for English as a Second Language (ESL) classes where having contemporary texts in readable language would be a great stimulus to language development. Ec

We've been over this before. No matter how ridiculous the rules are, they're rules. If you have any idea about how to budge the Language Committee, I'm all ears. While I don't personally support Simple English projects, and I don't know that a Latin Wikinews would be useful, I certainly don't think we should have any rule against the latter - it has an ISO code and we already have a Wikipedia in Latin (although it is not as "successful" as some here like to claim, they're certainly working on it). I hope nobody mistakes my posts earlier in this thread for my personal opinion, because they are not. I was stating the rules as they exist and as they have been interpreted by the language committee. Mark 2008/6/20 Dan Rosenthal <swatjester(a)gmail.com>om>:

Thanks, I've already concentrated 16,000 edits on to English Wikipedia. A Latin Wikinews would probably be less of a playground than the English Wikinews currently is, anyway. -Dan On Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 7:47 PM, Mohamed Magdy <mohamed.m.k(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- Dan Rosenthal

Ｉ would like to join the choir of John Vandenberg as an administrator of Latin Wikiquote, where people do not need to write by themselves, but only find a legitimate source and quote. 4 year passes after its launch, but it has less than 100 articles. I suppose now it would be no good idea the Latin language should be used everywhere. Collecting Latin quotes do not require the description of the authors or community policy should also be written in Latin. But we lack a community to decide what will be the alternative. Latin Wikiquote has no active member currently. I am afraid we are slowly deemed and all Latin projects except Wikipedia face the same challenge. On Wikinews you need to find sources and put them into Latin. The process is more complicated than on Wikiquote and Wikisource. A global online philolatina community sure exists, as we see on Latin Wikipedia, but it is not so big as some other expect, I suppose. On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 4:52 PM, John Vandenberg <jayvdb(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 6:35 PM, Dan Rosenthal <swatjester(a)gmail.com> wrote: My point was that a community should develop where there is opportunity for it to develop. A community that care about Latin is most likely to spring up around either the sources, or a 'pedia. This hasnt happened. Thus, it is fair to say that one will not magically appear around a newsy project. If I am wrong, we will see a host of current affair blogs appear in Latin to fill the void. I do not buy into the argument that people might join a new project but not another existing project in the same language or field. People decide how to use their free time based on the options available to them. The lack of an ideal option will mean they join a project within the available options; or, they won't. Of those that don't, only the most minuscule number would have been significant contributors anyway. It is far wiser to force the hand of those who are proactive enough to get involved in the existing options, and require they choose between the available options, so that they will be a part of an existing (growing) community, rather than exerting their efforts trying to justify their existence in a lonely project. That is a bloody ridiculous comparison, and makes me suspect you have not strayed far from the English Wikipedia, nor have you investigated the Latin projects, using tools like http://stats.wikimedia.org/ . English Wikiversity was started in mid 2006, and it is doing very well for a fledgling project. The Latin Wikipedia looks like it started in mid 2002, and the other Latin projects were started in late 2004, and all are doing very poorly. Not every language can be English. Wikisource requires less skill/proficiency than Wikinews, and Wikiquote requires even less, as it doesnt have the same foibles with copyright. You could go to the Latin Wikisource proofreading page I linked to previously, and proofread a page, without even knowing Latin. The pagescans show you what text is required, and the Latin alphabet is familiar to us all. Here is the link again: http://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Liber:De_assensione_Stoici_quid_senserint.djvu I am not proficient at Latin, but I infrequently contribute to the Latin Wikisource project, and promote the project widely. I could not in good conscience promote a Latin Wikinews, as I dont know anyone (nor I could I even imagine someone) who cares about Latin and would write about current affairs in Latin, but would not prefer to catalogue and preserve Latin works on Wikisource. The Latin Wikipedia project is doing OK, but the community is barely functional. CommonsTicker is the most active user in the project namespace. http://la.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Specialis%3ANuper+mutata&name… The Latin Wikisource project is also doing OK, but they need a lot more members before they are self-sustaining community. It doesnt send any message, except if they want a Wikinews (which I sincerely doubt they do), they should first develop a functioning community in their existing projects available to them. -- John Mark Vandenberg

George Herbert wrote: That's an interesting analysis. For Simple English or the simple version of any other language (which has yet to be tried) it takes some very strong writing skills that the rest of us can't cover with big words. You can start from an existing English Wikinews article, and rewrite it to fit a restricted vocabulary. Any unavoidable or additional big word needs to be defined. Ec

Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yes, we have been over this before. The policy is a consensus compromise between the positions of the language subcommittee members. The community may make a change to the policy at any time by reaching a similar consensus to do so. This has so far not happened, and has nothing to do with the language subcommittee not listening to the community. -- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)

Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote: That's a very ironic statement. ;) More seriously, I think many users voicing opposition to a proposal and no apparent attempts to reach any compromise indicates a lack of consensus. This is only reinforced by the many other users voicing conflicting alternative proposals. -- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)

Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote: I've seen a lot of people who would prefer we make some changes to the policy (which is very common in any compromise), but not much agreement on how to change it. Are you suggesting that we stop processing requests for dead languages until we reach consensus on a policy with which to do so? That leads to the same result as applying the established policy. -- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)

Mark If you can find time can you google Sherry Peel Jackson and Joe Banister? Both are former IRS agents that have been worked over pretty well. In fact Sherry is still in prison as a political example. cay you figure out how to get her released? Her kids are teenagers and need her. Then google Peter Hendrickson and Tom Cryer both of which hav mastered the IRS Mafia people. Thanksfor your time. You seem quite capable. Ron Moss ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Williamson" <node.ue(a)gmail.com> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Sent: Sunday, June 22, 2008 5:25 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Please REJECT the latin wikinews project.inmediatly

Jesse Plamondon-Willard wrote: Am I wrong to just get more confused about this situation? The function of any (sub-)committee is to recommend rather than to decide. It can recommend that a project be started or not. It can recommend criteria to guide such decisions. This goes off the rails when those criteria are treated as set-in-stone rules. Whether a language is dead is a fine criterion. Whether a language has an ISO code is a fine criterion. The presence of an adequate community for a project is a fine criterion. There are surely other fine criteria. None should be absolutely determinative by itself. The committee's recommendations should take all of these into account and not get overly upset when the community or the Board occasionally comes to a different conclusion. Ec

This is silly. The biggest Wikinews project is English, and we struggle. On a good day, we have 10-20 articles, but the days where we have ten or less outnumber those. Just how many competent Latin authors do we seriously think we can muster? How many articles can they write *per day*? This is seriously different from Wikipedia, you have a very short window of opportunity where something is news; it just comes across as a vanity idea for those would-be dilettantes who might contribute one or two articles a month. You need to generate new content day-in, day-out, continually. I've said it before, and it is effectively a project axiom now, "Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news". Efforts would be better directed at working out how to get those guilty of recentism on Wikipedia to work on Wikinews, and to getting Wikinews' archiving managed such that the project's stories can be used as sources for Wikipedia articles. Simple English is a different kettle of fish, but Wikinews would realistically only be provided as an educational project for improving people's language skills. I'm afraid it seems we're a long way from educators regularly using Wikimedia projects for such purposes. For a simple English Wikinews to work those educators would have to be doing the translation/simplification themselves, I think we're 5-10 years away from wiki in general being sufficiently accepted to see such happen. I hope it happens, and I see a great potential for simple English coverage of current affairs being an educational tool. Yet, there is nothing stopping people from contributing articles on the regular English project that are restricted to the simple vocabulary and labelling them as such. I would have no problem with less common words having links to wiktionary for a definition, and if such were to improve the function of the project in spreading knowledge I don't think anyone else would either. Brian McNeil -----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ziko van Dijk Sent: 22 June 2008 21:21 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Please REJECT the latin wikinews project.inmediatly I am not so happy about the rules for allowing new Wikipemia projects... as Latin Wikipedia has proved to do very well (much better than many languages with many native speakers), and as there are Latin news e.g. at Finnish radio, I don't see a problem with allowing Wikinews in Latin. Ziko 2008/6/22 Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net>et>: -- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 5:20 AM, Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk(a)googlemail.com> wrote: For a 'pedia to be doing "well", it needs to be creating content that would not have been created elsewhere. Projects in languages which have native speakers are able to easily attain this, as contributors may speak no other language, and thus the project brings them into the fold. The same can't be said of Latin, as all contributors will have been able to contribute to a different 'pedia. The Latin Wikipedia provides an opportunity for people of different native languages to collaborate in Latin, but in reality, this is rarely happening. It is not a beacon of free content creation. It is a social experiment that is self-sustaining, and I am sure it will become more useful as time goes on. I very much doubt a Latin Wikinews will be self-sustaining. I would be more inclined to believe the proponents if they were high volume Wikinews contributors, or they were highly active in other Latin projects. -- John

Well then, what do we have to do to show we have a consensus? A straw poll? Or do we need an angry mob? Mark 2008/6/22 Jesse Plamondon-Willard <pathoschild(a)gmail.com>om>:

Wikimedia is a very non-traditional community. Mark 2008/6/22 Jesse Plamondon-Willard <pathoschild(a)gmail.com>om>:

Mark Williamson wrote: It's as much about the decision making process in general. Angry mobs are a product of frustration and a sense of isolation. Decisions that reflect a snapshot in time may not be the best. Polls that reach an adoption threshold may be adequate to allow action to be taken, but it would be best to keep them open indefinitely after they have reached that threshold. If, over an extended period of time, new additional votes result in a different decision, that's OK too. Ec

Jesse Plamondon-Willard wrote: I didn't mention consensus in my comments. Viewed in cold mechanistic terms you are likely correct. You are also unlikely to find enough editors interested in the particular project to care one way or the other to make a difference to the vote to reject a project. Alternative views on small minority proposals are likely to be scattered enough that rule makers can depend on inertia to keep decisions unchanged. Ec

2008/6/20 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>: See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikinews_Simple_E… It cannot be created. -- Al Tally (User:Majorly)

I already stated that, as one of the more senior Wikinews contributors, I would welcome an effort to make templates and write articles within the Simple English limited vocabulary on the standard English Wikinews project. Writing simple English is hard; I doubt I could do it. In addition, the focus is not primarily the news event, but the demonstration of the basics of the language in use. News has a potential to be good for this because there is a chance students already know the story from sources in their own language. There is scope to infer meaning from unknown words and increase known vocabulary. I cannot ever see an independent Simple English Wikinews working. The very idea is closer to a Wikiversity language education project than a news dissemination project. I would be delighted to see the proponents of such a project redirected to the main English Wikinews, and the Wikinews-l mailing list. I believe the project can find a place for them and their work - provided it is recognised that they are providing educational texts based on current affairs. Brian McNeil -----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of George Herbert Sent: 23 June 2008 20:43 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Please REJECT the latin wikinews project.inmediatly On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 9:28 AM, Al Tally <majorly.wiki(a)googlemail.com> wrote: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikinews_Simple_En glish That's a "rejected under current policy, you might do it within existing english Wikinews" not "cannot be created". There's an important difference... -- -george william herbert george.herbert(a)gmail.com _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Al Tally wrote: That's a rather categorical POV push on your part. Your lack of imagination should not be treated as a condition equivalent to everyone else's disability. While it is true that simple languages do not have separate ISO codes from their complete counterparts, reference to that seems more like an excuse than a reason. The closing statement on the cited page also states: 1. No standard orthography, 2. No literature. These are both utterly false. Ec

Al Tally wrote: OK, I'll take that at face value. In closing the discussion, Pathoschild is presumably expressing the collective view of the committee. If your categorical sounding comment was intended to be ironic a smiley would have helped. Without it, it at least sounds defeatist. I didn't, and I just checked the history of the discussion, and found nothing by you in there. Some of us only hear about these discussions after the fact, and can't be expected to know where other discussions on the subject have taken place. I accept that now that I know that to be the case. In this and my following comment I was addressing the specific comments in the closing statement for the request. I'm sorry that I misunderstood your comment. Ec

Mark Williamson wrote: This could be said about any language, but in the case of a "simple" language we have the luxury of being able to define the simple vocabulary as, for example, the 1,000 most common words in the language. Even if we dispute whose statistics we use to find the 1,000 most common words, most such lists will have a considerable degree of overlap. In some respects we can take the Japanese historical approach to "official" Kanji as an example. There is even a gradation there of which characters should be learned at various stages of language learning. Ec

Brian McNeil wrote: Your proposal is very good. Strangely though, I don't think that grandparents will generally be the best source for this kind of writing. Language education has gone well beyond this, and most grandparents may be too far removed from knowing how children learn. Writing a good 'simple' article may be more difficult than writing a good article with all the available tools that the language provides for us. Ec

I think we need to get the english project working first before we go on further. brown_cat _________________________________________________________________ It's simple! Sell your car for just $30 at CarPoint.com.au http://a.ninemsn.com.au/b.aspx?URL=http%3A%2F%2Fsecure%2Dau%2Eimrworldwide%…

The key is that there are no native speakers. I can write a letter to somebody in Sumerian, it is still considered an extinct language. Iraq could decide to issue all of their laws in Sumerian, and it would still be extinct. Mark 2008/6/19 Przykuta <przykuta(a)o2.pl>pl>: