This issue was discussed a number of times here. As some changes has happened, you should know that.
Requests for Wikisource in Ancient Greek and Coptic have became eligible, as well as request for Ancient Greek Wikiquote. The condition for those projects is to keep default interface in English.
Rationale: Both languages have large amount of texts and it is reasonable to keep them separately. At the other side, languages are not living, which means that interface can't be written in those languages. As the heritage written in those languages belong to the whole humanity, there is no common modern language for those who use those languages in scientific or cultural purposes, and English is world's lingua franca, the default interface should be in English.
Consequences: All requests will be considered on case by case basis. For some ancient languages there is a sense to have separate Wikisource and Wikiquote, for some it is reasonably to have just Wikisource, for some it is not. And it is because of various reasons.
For example, request for Wikisource in Classical Chinese has been rejected. Written Chinese is not very different for millenniums and WS in Classical Chinese would have interface in modern Chinese (probably, in Traditional Hanji), as person who knows Classical Chinese has to know modern Chinese. Thus, it would be just a fork of Chinese Wikisource.
The other example which would be rejected is Wikisource in Old Church Slavonic. There are less than 20 preserved documents written in Old Church Slavonic and thus there is no need to create a project for such amount of texts. At the other side, Church Slavonic Wikisource would have sense and the default interface would be in Russian -- as the most of those who know to read Church Slavonic, know to read Russian, too.
Requests for Wikisource and Wikinews in Esperanto have became eligible, too. Esperanto projects are treated as projects in any other language, as Esperanto is a living language.
Rationale: Esperanto is a living language with significant number of native speakers.
Consequences: Esperanto is an exceptional case for artificial languages. It is the only artificial language which has significant culture behind itself, as well as there are numerous examples of Esperanto as a native language. As it is a living language, it can have the full set of Wikimedia projects.
The only comparable case with Esperanto is Latin, although Latin is not an artificial language. As it is a living language, it can get the full set of projects.
Request for Wikipedia in Ancient Hebrew has been rejected. It is not possible to have article about train in Ancient Hebrew and it is not living language, which means that article about train won't be created at all.
Consequences: It is not possible to get Wikipedia in ancient language.
A pure question: is there any means we have a multilingual website for those Classical language rather than saying the default is English?
On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 2:58 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
This issue was discussed a number of times here. As some changes has happened, you should know that.
Requests for Wikisource in Ancient Greek and Coptic have became eligible, as well as request for Ancient Greek Wikiquote. The condition for those projects is to keep default interface in English.
Rationale: Both languages have large amount of texts and it is reasonable to keep them separately. At the other side, languages are not living, which means that interface can't be written in those languages. As the heritage written in those languages belong to the whole humanity, there is no common modern language for those who use those languages in scientific or cultural purposes, and English is world's lingua franca, the default interface should be in English.
Consequences: All requests will be considered on case by case basis. For some ancient languages there is a sense to have separate Wikisource and Wikiquote, for some it is reasonably to have just Wikisource, for some it is not. And it is because of various reasons.
For example, request for Wikisource in Classical Chinese has been rejected. Written Chinese is not very different for millenniums and WS in Classical Chinese would have interface in modern Chinese (probably, in Traditional Hanji), as person who knows Classical Chinese has to know modern Chinese. Thus, it would be just a fork of Chinese Wikisource.
I find here a wrong assupmtion. First wrong assumption is "Written Chinese is not very different for millenniums", they aren't same, and consequently Edo period Japanese who were taught Classical Chinese already found difficulty to understand the contemporary which was similar to the modern one. Second wrong assumption is "person who knows Classical Chinese has to know modern Chinese." In East Asia, Classical Chinese had been lingua franca of the literate for millenniums, and there are many written sources, the earliest of them are dated at mid 19th C. And it is still taught in some countries including Japan. I, as a highly educated Japanese, read Classical Chinese to some extent, but I don't understand modern Chinese beyond the tourist level. I know many people who can enjoy zh-classical-Wikipedia but cannot (modern) zhwiki. So I object your statement and it wouldn't be just a fork of ZhWS but preferable to be a multilingual project.
The other example which would be rejected is Wikisource in Old Church Slavonic. There are less than 20 preserved documents written in Old Church Slavonic and thus there is no need to create a project for such amount of texts. At the other side, Church Slavonic Wikisource would have sense and the default interface would be in Russian -- as the most of those who know to read Church Slavonic, know to read Russian, too.
Requests for Wikisource and Wikinews in Esperanto have became eligible, too. Esperanto projects are treated as projects in any other language, as Esperanto is a living language.
Rationale: Esperanto is a living language with significant number of native speakers.
Consequences: Esperanto is an exceptional case for artificial languages. It is the only artificial language which has significant culture behind itself, as well as there are numerous examples of Esperanto as a native language. As it is a living language, it can have the full set of Wikimedia projects.
The only comparable case with Esperanto is Latin, although Latin is not an artificial language. As it is a living language, it can get the full set of projects.
Request for Wikipedia in Ancient Hebrew has been rejected. It is not possible to have article about train in Ancient Hebrew and it is not living language, which means that article about train won't be created at all.
Consequences: It is not possible to get Wikipedia in ancient language.
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On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 6:58 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
This issue was discussed a number of times here. As some changes has happened, you should know that.
Requests for Wikisource in Ancient Greek and Coptic have became eligible, as well as request for Ancient Greek Wikiquote. The condition for those projects is to keep default interface in English.
Rationale: Both languages have large amount of texts and it is reasonable to keep them separately. At the other side, languages are not living, which means that interface can't be written in those languages. As the heritage written in those languages belong to the whole humanity, there is no common modern language for those who use those languages in scientific or cultural purposes, and English is world's lingua franca, the default interface should be in English.
I agree with this decision but probably it's better that the communities could change the interface. In my opinion the contributors of an old language may not be able to understand the "latin script" (IMHO the Greek should have the interface with Greek alphabet also to avoid the mix of different characters).
I think that the better solution is to have an interface with the most similar living language like happened for Church Slavonic Wikisource.
Consequences: All requests will be considered on case by case basis. For some ancient languages there is a sense to have separate Wikisource and Wikiquote, for some it is reasonably to have just Wikisource, for some it is not. And it is because of various reasons.
The only comparable case with Esperanto is Latin, although Latin is not an artificial language. As it is a living language, it can get the full set of projects.
Request for Wikipedia in Ancient Hebrew has been rejected. It is not possible to have article about train in Ancient Hebrew and it is not living language, which means that article about train won't be created at all.
Consequences: It is not possible to get Wikipedia in ancient language.
In my opinion also if there is an old extinct language the decision should be based on the *liveliness* of language. Probably some old languages are studied at school (like ancient Greek) and there are persons which are able to understand them also without a dictionary.
Wikipedia should defend the "endangered languages" and if someone is not mother tongue but he is able to write and read (not necessary to speak), the proposal to open the Wikipedia in this language should be well accepted. The project could help the language to don't be forgotten.
A decision moved to the "liveliness" based on the diffusion at secondary schools (excluded Universities) for example could be better. Some students would agree to write an article in old Greek for example and the teachers could support the initiative.
Ilario
On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 4:48 PM, Ilario Valdelli valdelli@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with this decision but probably it's better that the communities could change the interface. In my opinion the contributors of an old language may not be able to understand the "latin script" (IMHO the Greek should have the interface with Greek alphabet also to avoid the mix of different characters).
I think that the better solution is to have an interface with the most similar living language like happened for Church Slavonic Wikisource.
If you know Ancient Greek, you may or may not know Modern Greek. If you know Church Slavonic (or Anglo-Saxon), you know [modern] Russian (or [modern] English). In the first case you don't know the most of users won't know what does "file" (in Modern Greek) means, in the second they will know.
In other words, Russian and English in the second case were not chosen because of similarity, but because usefulness. Because of the same reason fail back language for Tungusic language editions is not English, but Russian, as well as it is similar in relation between Native American languages from Latin America toward Spanish and Portuguese.
In my opinion also if there is an old extinct language the decision should be based on the *liveliness* of language. Probably some old languages are studied at school (like ancient Greek) and there are persons which are able to understand them also without a dictionary.
Wikipedia should defend the "endangered languages" and if someone is not mother tongue but he is able to write and read (not necessary to speak), the proposal to open the Wikipedia in this language should be well accepted. The project could help the language to don't be forgotten.
A decision moved to the "liveliness" based on the diffusion at secondary schools (excluded Universities) for example could be better. Some students would agree to write an article in old Greek for example and the teachers could support the initiative.
There is one more issue about we (members of the Language committee) didn't agreed [yet]. It is about usefulness; that principle would partially ignore previous rules.
* Classical Chinese Wikipedia is useful because a lot of people with different native languages are able to communicate with it. * If Latin Wikipedia exists, usefulness of creating neologisms in Ancient Greek is questionable. Almost all classical philologists know Latin first, and then Ancient Greek. And all Greeks know Modern Greek.
One more change have happened. Wikisource in Sorbian have become eligible.
The problem with eligibility of Wikisource in Sorbian is that there are two Sorbian languages: Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian. According to the Language proposal policy, one project should be written in just one language.
However, there are a couple of reasonable points for one IAR: * Wikisource can hold texts in different languages. * Communities around Lower and Upper Sorbian are very small. * They want to have their own Wikisource. * They want to have one Wikisource for both languages. * Languages are very similar. * They don't have Wikisource in their languages. * There is a valid ISO 639-5 code [2][3] (codes for language groups), and ISO 639-5 codes don't overlap with ISO 639-3 codes.
Consequence is that it is possible to do IAR (and, consequently, to try to change the existing rules) if there is a *very* good reason for that if: * it is about a [type of] Wikimedia project which can accept that; * community/communities agree about that; * it is not in conflict with existing projects; * it is possible to make formalization which has sense.
However, note that it is about *very* good reason. Not about *any* reason.
[1] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikisource_Sorbian [2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_639-5 [3] - http://www.loc.gov/standards/iso639-5/id.php
Milos Rancic wrote:
One more change have happened. Wikisource in Sorbian have become eligible.
The problem with eligibility of Wikisource in Sorbian is that there are two Sorbian languages: Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian. According to the Language proposal policy, one project should be written in just one language.
Setting this up as a separate Wikisource does not seem like a good idea. It should be noted that the 180 or so pages in Upper Sorbian at Oldwikisource are essentially the efforts of a single individual.
Ec
On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 11:05 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Setting this up as a separate Wikisource does not seem like a good idea. It should be noted that the 180 or so pages in Upper Sorbian at Oldwikisource are essentially the efforts of a single individual.
This is another issue, related to the final approval. Just active projects (at Multilingual Wikisource, Beta Wikiversity or Incubator) can be approved. Nothing has changed in relation to that [and it would be stupid to change it].
There are two steps which one proposal has to pass: eligibility and approval. The most of problems about which we were talking last years in relation to LangCom are related to eligibility, not to approval. Approval is relatively straight-forward issue: translated interface + sustainable activity.
Milos Rancic wrote:
On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 11:05 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Setting this up as a separate Wikisource does not seem like a good idea. It should be noted that the 180 or so pages in Upper Sorbian at Oldwikisource are essentially the efforts of a single individual.
This is another issue, related to the final approval. Just active projects (at Multilingual Wikisource, Beta Wikiversity or Incubator) can be approved. Nothing has changed in relation to that [and it would be stupid to change it].
There are two steps which one proposal has to pass: eligibility and approval. The most of problems about which we were talking last years in relation to LangCom are related to eligibility, not to approval. Approval is relatively straight-forward issue: translated interface + sustainable activity.
And I would have thought that eligibility was the easy one. :-)
For minor languages sustainable activity is often the very good work of one extremely dedicated individual with no-one else making any significant contribution.
Ec
On 13 March 2010 19:12, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
For minor languages sustainable activity is often the very good work of one extremely dedicated individual with no-one else making any significant contribution.
I thought the definition of "sustainable activity" included at least five reasonably active participants. Or am I thinking of something else?
- d.
On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 8:21 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 13 March 2010 19:12, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
For minor languages sustainable activity is often the very good work of one extremely dedicated individual with no-one else making any significant contribution.
I thought the definition of "sustainable activity" included at least five reasonably active participants. Or am I thinking of something else?
If it is about a language of population which has 1000 persons on Internet (because there there are just 1000 speakers of that language in a highly developed area or because they belong to 0.01% of population which has internet access in highly undeveloped area), it would be really unfair not to give a project to one or two highly devoted persons. But, it is usually about Wikipedia.
Milos Rancic hett schreven:
If it is about a language of population which has 1000 persons on Internet (because there there are just 1000 speakers of that language in a highly developed area or because they belong to 0.01% of population which has internet access in highly undeveloped area), it would be really unfair not to give a project to one or two highly devoted persons. But, it is usually about Wikipedia.
Yes, we should highlight the fact that our projects are quite different. The requisites for "sustainable activity" should reflect that. A Wikipedia shouldn't be written by a single individual cause then there would be nobody who could act as a corrective if the single individual starts to drift away from the basic Wikipedia policies or from NPOV. But I see no problem in a single individual working on a Wikisource. Wikisource material is fixed and timeless. It's not meant to change. Even if the single individual abandons Wikisource completely the content is still there and keeps its usefulness. That's very different from e.g. Wikinews where a few days without activity will render the project almost meaningless. So the requisites for "sustainable activity" should be quite low for Wikisource, but much higher for Wikinews, Wikipedia being somewhere between.
Marcus Buck
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