I'm not sure this is the right list for this, but I've been thinking about this for awhile now. Surely, some languages that Wikipedia is offered in are unnecessary and obsolete. For example Gothic and Allemanisch and many other German dialects. Anybody who can uses Wikipedia in a German dialacet spoken in Germany can also at least read standard German.
Why am I against such languages? A) They are an additional cost and Wikipedia isn't exactly swimming in money and B) the contributors of these Wikipedias would be making contributions to the larger more popular and also more necessary standard version of the language. I know this from several cases that good editors switched from Standard German to their local dialect, for "a laugh".
Of course, this doesn't apply to all dialects and all dead languages. Latin for example is still used in academic circles and is therefor not dead in my opinion. However, I don't see many people writing in Goth anymore.
What is the general opinion on this, am I alone in thinking that this is maybe an issue that needs to be addressed?
Ian [[User:Poeloq]], who is running the risk of making some enemies ;-)
Well, this is an old argument....
I know some manufactured language Wikipedias have been moved to Wikia, such as Toki Pona and Klingon, But I don't see a real case for moving away real genuine languages. You are talking about moving them, aren't you? Not just deleting entire wikipedias?
I tend to think that removing a dialect Wikipedia to try and force editors onto the "main language" Wikipedia is for a great many reasons a bad idea. If these editors wanted to contribute more tot he other project, so be it. If you start removing languages, where do you stop?
If there is a case, however for moving or deleting a particular wiki, that is a meta discussion anyway. It has been done before, it probably will be done again. This is the wrong forum though.
-aliasd
On Jan 18, 2008 3:24 PM, Ian A Holton poeloq@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure this is the right list for this, but I've been thinking about this for awhile now. Surely, some languages that Wikipedia is offered in are unnecessary and obsolete. For example Gothic and Allemanisch and many other German dialects. Anybody who can uses Wikipedia in a German dialacet spoken in Germany can also at least read standard German.
Why am I against such languages? A) They are an additional cost and Wikipedia isn't exactly swimming in money and B) the contributors of these Wikipedias would be making contributions to the larger more popular and also more necessary standard version of the language. I know this from several cases that good editors switched from Standard German to their local dialect, for "a laugh".
Of course, this doesn't apply to all dialects and all dead languages. Latin for example is still used in academic circles and is therefor not dead in my opinion. However, I don't see many people writing in Goth anymore.
What is the general opinion on this, am I alone in thinking that this is maybe an issue that needs to be addressed?
Ian [[User:Poeloq]], who is running the risk of making some enemies ;-)
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Ian A Holton wrote:
I'm not sure this is the right list for this, but I've been thinking about this for awhile now. Surely, some languages that Wikipedia is offered in are unnecessary and obsolete. For example Gothic and Allemanisch and many other German dialects. Anybody who can uses Wikipedia in a German dialacet spoken in Germany can also at least read standard German.
Why am I against such languages? A) They are an additional cost and Wikipedia isn't exactly swimming in money and B) the contributors of these Wikipedias would be making contributions to the larger more popular and also more necessary standard version of the language. I know this from several cases that good editors switched from Standard German to their local dialect, for "a laugh".
Of course, this doesn't apply to all dialects and all dead languages. Latin for example is still used in academic circles and is therefor not dead in my opinion. However, I don't see many people writing in Goth anymore.
What is the general opinion on this, am I alone in thinking that this is maybe an issue that needs to be addressed?
Ian [[User:Poeloq]], who is running the risk of making some enemies ;-)
Where's Mark Williamson when you need him?
-- Tim Starling
On 18/01/2008, Ian A Holton poeloq@gmail.com wrote:
Why am I against such languages? A) They are an additional cost and Wikipedia isn't exactly swimming in money and B) the contributors of these Wikipedias would be making contributions to the larger more popular and also more necessary standard version of the language. I know this from several cases that good editors switched from Standard German to their local dialect, for "a laugh".
The money argument doesn't have much to it - setting up a new wiki is a one-off in developer's time, with the volunteer developers usually doing it.
The argument to bilinguality isn't as strong as it might sound, e.g. I recall Arwel Parry pointing out that although everyone in Wales speaks English, Welsh is nevertheless his first language and so he thinks in it more easily than in English despite his English being perfect. (If I've recalled correctly what his point was - correction welcomed if needed.)
As for channelling volunteer effort - volunteer effort isn't a commodity. Volunteers will work ten times as hard as any paid employee, but *only on what they want to*. e.g. getting rid of Pokemon articles won't send their contributors to work on history articles. The same applies to languages.
Of course, this doesn't apply to all dialects and all dead languages. Latin for example is still used in academic circles and is therefor not dead in my opinion. However, I don't see many people writing in Goth anymore. What is the general opinion on this, am I alone in thinking that this is maybe an issue that needs to be addressed?
I don't think it's actually a problem.
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 18/01/2008, Ian A Holton poeloq@gmail.com wrote:
Why am I against such languages? A) They are an additional cost and Wikipedia isn't exactly swimming in money and B) the contributors of these Wikipedias would be making contributions to the larger more popular and also more necessary standard version of the language. I know this from several cases that good editors switched from Standard German to their local dialect, for "a laugh".
The money argument doesn't have much to it - setting up a new wiki is a one-off in developer's time, with the volunteer developers usually doing it.
The argument to bilinguality isn't as strong as it might sound, e.g. I recall Arwel Parry pointing out that although everyone in Wales speaks English, Welsh is nevertheless his first language and so he thinks in it more easily than in English despite his English being perfect. (If I've recalled correctly what his point was - correction welcomed if needed.)
As for channelling volunteer effort - volunteer effort isn't a commodity. Volunteers will work ten times as hard as any paid employee, but *only on what they want to*. e.g. getting rid of Pokemon articles won't send their contributors to work on history articles. The same applies to languages.
Of course, this doesn't apply to all dialects and all dead languages. Latin for example is still used in academic circles and is therefor not dead in my opinion. However, I don't see many people writing in Goth anymore. What is the general opinion on this, am I alone in thinking that this is maybe an issue that needs to be addressed?
I don't think it's actually a problem.
- d.
Pretty much agree on David answer. I'll add that if we were going on this road, we would have a nice long walk before deciding which languages are "necessary" and which are "not necessary".
Ant
Many of the wikis you are probably referring to where created before the "new" language creation policy and committee, but the current policy can be viewed at Meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Language_proposal_policy.
That's what we have for *new* wikis, there isn't really a policy for closing *old* ones, we just have "proposals" that get voted upon on Meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects. The normal criteria for closing wikis is "inactive and only being filled up by spambots". Otherwise, it's more like what David said: if they want to write in a language for a wiki that's already been created, more power to them. :-)
On Jan 17, 2008 11:24 PM, Ian A Holton poeloq@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure this is the right list for this, but I've been thinking about this for awhile now. Surely, some languages that Wikipedia is offered in are unnecessary and obsolete. For example Gothic and Allemanisch and many other German dialects. Anybody who can uses Wikipedia in a German dialacet spoken in Germany can also at least read standard German.
Why am I against such languages? A) They are an additional cost and Wikipedia isn't exactly swimming in money and B) the contributors of these Wikipedias would be making contributions to the larger more popular and also more necessary standard version of the language. I know this from several cases that good editors switched from Standard German to their local dialect, for "a laugh".
Of course, this doesn't apply to all dialects and all dead languages. Latin for example is still used in academic circles and is therefor not dead in my opinion. However, I don't see many people writing in Goth anymore.
What is the general opinion on this, am I alone in thinking that this is maybe an issue that needs to be addressed?
Ian [[User:Poeloq]], who is running the risk of making some enemies ;-)
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