Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation mission to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to make it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native users, allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead, a wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
I think it depends on the community.
For example, in the case of Coptic, it is very much alive in certain senses of the word - it is a thriving liturgical language, and it represents their unique cultural heritage.
In the case of the Massachusett-Narragansett language, there is a community actively working at reviving it as a living language in some form.
In the case of, say, Old English, however, for which we already have a Wikipedia, there is little interest in language revival, and most people interested in the language are hobbyists.
I would thus personally recommend approval of Coptic and Massachusett-Narragansett if they had enough "fluent speaker" supporters, but against the approval of something analagous to Old English.
Mark
On 29/03/2008, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation mission to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to make it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native users, allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead, a wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I think it depends on the community.
For example, in the case of Coptic, it is very much alive in certain senses of the word - it is a thriving liturgical language, and it represents their unique cultural heritage.
In the case of the Massachusett-Narragansett language, there is a community actively working at reviving it as a living language in some form.
In the case of, say, Old English, however, for which we already have a Wikipedia, there is little interest in language revival, and most people interested in the language are hobbyists.
I would thus personally recommend approval of Coptic and Massachusett-Narragansett if they had enough "fluent speaker" supporters, but against the approval of something analagous to Old English.
Mark
Yes, I think the exact rule we should propose is: Does this language have a contemporary literature? Are new articles or books still be written in it?
And is the contemporary literature respected by -scholars- of the "historical" language (i.e. not something merely pursued by Sumerian hobbyists)?
Because if there is a contemporary literature, then the language is not truly extinct in the written form.
When we "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being", we must recognize the diversity of human expression, and that a -full- accounting of the vehicles of intellectual discourse must include all languages that have contemporary literatures, whether they havve native speakers or not.
Pharos
On 29/03/2008, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation mission to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to make it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native users, allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead, a wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 5:04 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
For Latin, it is obvious. The latest Roman Missal was published in 2002. If you can argue it is not so much different from the second latest one, it had been published in 1962. Reflecting the so-called 2nd Vatican Counsil and its reformation, 1962 version, or Novus Ordo is very known of its differences from the earlier versions. Or we can refer to CCC or several motu proprios which the Vatican has issued.
On the other hand, Coptic Church doesn't seem to be enthusiastic to issue their documents in Coptic. As for the Orthodox, I don't know any church in the Slavic tradition using Church Slavic as their document language, while still today it is the language of liturgy and the Scrupture and many prayers, and Churches in Greek tradition don't use Attic dialect as far as I know.
There is a good reason Latin learners can be allowed to entertain their linguistic ability on this project, I think. Anyway, even in a narrow region, it is still used and viable to carry ideas.
Yes, I think the exact rule we should propose is: Does this language have a contemporary literature? Are new articles or books still be written in it?
And is the contemporary literature respected by -scholars- of the "historical" language (i.e. not something merely pursued by Sumerian hobbyists)?
Because if there is a contemporary literature, then the language is not truly extinct in the written form.
When we "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being", we must recognize the diversity of human expression, and that a -full- accounting of the vehicles of intellectual discourse must include all languages that have contemporary literatures, whether they havve native speakers or not.
Pharos
On 29/03/2008, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation mission to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to make it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native users, allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead, a wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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Latin phrases are often used in American, UK, and Australian law, as well. Such a usage was actually one of the first contacts I ever had with latin wikipedia.
-Dan On Apr 1, 2008, at 4:17 PM, Aphaia wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 5:04 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
For Latin, it is obvious. The latest Roman Missal was published in 2002. If you can argue it is not so much different from the second latest one, it had been published in 1962. Reflecting the so-called 2nd Vatican Counsil and its reformation, 1962 version, or Novus Ordo is very known of its differences from the earlier versions. Or we can refer to CCC or several motu proprios which the Vatican has issued.
On the other hand, Coptic Church doesn't seem to be enthusiastic to issue their documents in Coptic. As for the Orthodox, I don't know any church in the Slavic tradition using Church Slavic as their document language, while still today it is the language of liturgy and the Scrupture and many prayers, and Churches in Greek tradition don't use Attic dialect as far as I know.
There is a good reason Latin learners can be allowed to entertain their linguistic ability on this project, I think. Anyway, even in a narrow region, it is still used and viable to carry ideas.
Yes, I think the exact rule we should propose is: Does this language have a contemporary literature? Are new articles or books still be written in it?
And is the contemporary literature respected by -scholars- of the "historical" language (i.e. not something merely pursued by Sumerian hobbyists)?
Because if there is a contemporary literature, then the language is not truly extinct in the written form.
When we "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being", we must recognize the diversity of human expression, and that a -full- accounting of the vehicles of intellectual discourse must include all languages that have contemporary literatures, whether they havve native speakers or not.
Pharos
On 29/03/2008, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation mission to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to make it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native users, allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead, a wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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-- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
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The fact that the Coptic church may or may not issue their documents in Coptic is not enough alone to state that this is a "dead language".
We must look at all facets of modern use (and lack thereof), rather than just the issuance of new documents by a particular church in a specific language.
Mark
On 01/04/2008, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 5:04 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
For Latin, it is obvious. The latest Roman Missal was published in 2002. If you can argue it is not so much different from the second latest one, it had been published in 1962. Reflecting the so-called 2nd Vatican Counsil and its reformation, 1962 version, or Novus Ordo is very known of its differences from the earlier versions. Or we can refer to CCC or several motu proprios which the Vatican has issued.
On the other hand, Coptic Church doesn't seem to be enthusiastic to issue their documents in Coptic. As for the Orthodox, I don't know any church in the Slavic tradition using Church Slavic as their document language, while still today it is the language of liturgy and the Scrupture and many prayers, and Churches in Greek tradition don't use Attic dialect as far as I know.
There is a good reason Latin learners can be allowed to entertain their linguistic ability on this project, I think. Anyway, even in a narrow region, it is still used and viable to carry ideas.
Yes, I think the exact rule we should propose is: Does this language have a contemporary literature? Are new articles or books still be written in it?
And is the contemporary literature respected by -scholars- of the "historical" language (i.e. not something merely pursued by Sumerian hobbyists)?
Because if there is a contemporary literature, then the language is not truly extinct in the written form.
When we "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being", we must recognize the diversity of human expression, and that a -full- accounting of the vehicles of intellectual discourse must include all languages that have contemporary literatures, whether they havve native speakers or not.
Pharos
On 29/03/2008, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation mission to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to make it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native users, allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead, a wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
-- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
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Hoi, When there is no modern vocabulary and this is objectively determined by modern literature there is no living language at all. Also one hobbyist does not make a language alive. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 6:50 AM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
The fact that the Coptic church may or may not issue their documents in Coptic is not enough alone to state that this is a "dead language".
We must look at all facets of modern use (and lack thereof), rather than just the issuance of new documents by a particular church in a specific language.
Mark
On 01/04/2008, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 5:04 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com
wrote:
For Latin, it is obvious. The latest Roman Missal was published in 2002. If you can argue it is not so much different from the second latest one, it had been published in 1962. Reflecting the so-called 2nd Vatican Counsil and its reformation, 1962 version, or Novus Ordo is very known of its differences from the earlier versions. Or we can refer to CCC or several motu proprios which the Vatican has issued.
On the other hand, Coptic Church doesn't seem to be enthusiastic to issue their documents in Coptic. As for the Orthodox, I don't know any church in the Slavic tradition using Church Slavic as their document language, while still today it is the language of liturgy and the Scrupture and many prayers, and Churches in Greek tradition don't use Attic dialect as far as I know.
There is a good reason Latin learners can be allowed to entertain their linguistic ability on this project, I think. Anyway, even in a narrow region, it is still used and viable to carry ideas.
Yes, I think the exact rule we should propose is: Does this language have a contemporary literature? Are new articles or books still be written in it?
And is the contemporary literature respected by -scholars- of the "historical" language (i.e. not something merely pursued by Sumerian hobbyists)?
Because if there is a contemporary literature, then the language is not truly extinct in the written form.
When we "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being",
we
must recognize the diversity of human expression, and that a -full- accounting of the vehicles of intellectual discourse must include
all
languages that have contemporary literatures, whether they havve native speakers or not.
Pharos
On 29/03/2008, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com
wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a
living
native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist
nature).
This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation
mission
to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being".
Thus,
the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is
to make
it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no
native users,
allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission
because it
does not make that project accessible to more human beings.
Instead, a
wiki in their native languages should be requested if it
doesn't
already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language
don't
want to provide educational material to more people at all,
but only
want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble
goals,
they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki
should
not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be
allowed in
every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
-- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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Yes, well then, what does make a language alive? An Ethnologue or ISO classification as a living language? Or is this determined based on some set of objective criteria we don't know about? Is it only the question of native speakers, or is there something else?
Also, what if there are conflicting sources? For example some sources state that there are native speakers of Coptic; others state that it is completely dead since the 18th century.
On 01/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When there is no modern vocabulary and this is objectively determined by modern literature there is no living language at all. Also one hobbyist does not make a language alive. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 6:50 AM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
The fact that the Coptic church may or may not issue their documents in Coptic is not enough alone to state that this is a "dead language".
We must look at all facets of modern use (and lack thereof), rather than just the issuance of new documents by a particular church in a specific language.
Mark
On 01/04/2008, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 5:04 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com
wrote:
For Latin, it is obvious. The latest Roman Missal was published in 2002. If you can argue it is not so much different from the second latest one, it had been published in 1962. Reflecting the so-called 2nd Vatican Counsil and its reformation, 1962 version, or Novus Ordo is very known of its differences from the earlier versions. Or we can refer to CCC or several motu proprios which the Vatican has issued.
On the other hand, Coptic Church doesn't seem to be enthusiastic to issue their documents in Coptic. As for the Orthodox, I don't know any church in the Slavic tradition using Church Slavic as their document language, while still today it is the language of liturgy and the Scrupture and many prayers, and Churches in Greek tradition don't use Attic dialect as far as I know.
There is a good reason Latin learners can be allowed to entertain their linguistic ability on this project, I think. Anyway, even in a narrow region, it is still used and viable to carry ideas.
Yes, I think the exact rule we should propose is: Does this language have a contemporary literature? Are new articles or books still be written in it?
And is the contemporary literature respected by -scholars- of the "historical" language (i.e. not something merely pursued by Sumerian hobbyists)?
Because if there is a contemporary literature, then the language is not truly extinct in the written form.
When we "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being",
we
must recognize the diversity of human expression, and that a -full- accounting of the vehicles of intellectual discourse must include
all
languages that have contemporary literatures, whether they havve native speakers or not.
Pharos
On 29/03/2008, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com
wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a
living
native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist
nature).
This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation
mission
to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being".
Thus,
the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is
to make
it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no
native users,
allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission
because it
does not make that project accessible to more human beings.
Instead, a
wiki in their native languages should be requested if it
doesn't
already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language
don't
want to provide educational material to more people at all,
but only
want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble
goals,
they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki
should
not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be
allowed in
every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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-- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
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On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 1:04 AM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, well then, what does make a language alive? An Ethnologue or ISO classification as a living language? Or is this determined based on some set of objective criteria we don't know about? Is it only the question of native speakers, or is there something else?
Also, what if there are conflicting sources? For example some sources state that there are native speakers of Coptic; others state that it is completely dead since the 18th century.
We have to look at the literature. To me, it shouldn't matter whether it's the Coptic Church that's writing the new literature, or someone else notable (I'm not actually sure if the Coptic Church is doing this, but let's assume for the sake of argument). As long as there is a notable -contemporary- literature, vocabulary problems will be minimal.
Fact is, many native languages also tend to only be written in certain genres, and the fact that literature may tend to be concentrated in certain genres shouldn't be held against a written language.
Thanks, Pharos
On 01/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When there is no modern vocabulary and this is objectively determined by modern literature there is no living language at all. Also one hobbyist does not make a language alive. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 6:50 AM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
The fact that the Coptic church may or may not issue their documents in Coptic is not enough alone to state that this is a "dead language".
We must look at all facets of modern use (and lack thereof), rather than just the issuance of new documents by a particular church in a specific language.
Mark
On 01/04/2008, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 5:04 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com
wrote:
For Latin, it is obvious. The latest Roman Missal was published in 2002. If you can argue it is not so much different from the second latest one, it had been published in 1962. Reflecting the so-called 2nd Vatican Counsil and its reformation, 1962 version, or Novus Ordo is very known of its differences from the earlier versions. Or we can refer to CCC or several motu proprios which the Vatican has issued.
On the other hand, Coptic Church doesn't seem to be enthusiastic to issue their documents in Coptic. As for the Orthodox, I don't know any church in the Slavic tradition using Church Slavic as their document language, while still today it is the language of liturgy and the Scrupture and many prayers, and Churches in Greek tradition don't use Attic dialect as far as I know.
There is a good reason Latin learners can be allowed to entertain their linguistic ability on this project, I think. Anyway, even in a narrow region, it is still used and viable to carry ideas.
Yes, I think the exact rule we should propose is: Does this language have a contemporary literature? Are new articles or books still be written in it?
And is the contemporary literature respected by -scholars- of the "historical" language (i.e. not something merely pursued by Sumerian hobbyists)?
Because if there is a contemporary literature, then the language is not truly extinct in the written form.
When we "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being",
we
must recognize the diversity of human expression, and that a -full- accounting of the vehicles of intellectual discourse must include
all
languages that have contemporary literatures, whether they havve native speakers or not.
Pharos
On 29/03/2008, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com
wrote:
> Hello, > > The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a
living
> native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist
nature).
> This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation
mission
> to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being".
Thus,
> the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is
to make
> it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no
native users,
> allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission
because it
> does not make that project accessible to more human beings.
Instead, a
> wiki in their native languages should be requested if it
doesn't
> already exist. > > Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language
don't
> want to provide educational material to more people at all,
but only
> want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble
goals,
> they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki
should
> not be created simply to fulfill them. > > But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be
allowed in
> every extinct language? > > > -- > Yours cordially, > Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild) > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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-- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
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Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
As long as there is a notable -contemporary- literature, vocabulary problems will be minimal.
What is "notable"?
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
As long as there is a notable -contemporary- literature, vocabulary problems will be minimal.
What is "notable"?
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 1:31 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
As long as there is a notable -contemporary- literature, vocabulary problems will be minimal.
What is "notable"?
Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English Wikipedia or another major-language Wikipedia.
Thanks, Richard
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
What is "notable"?
Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English Wikipedia or another major-language Wikipedia.
English should not have a wiki? I don't think it's a very good criteria if even our most prolific non-extinct language doesn't qualify.
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:23 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
What is "notable"?
Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English Wikipedia or another major-language Wikipedia.
English should not have a wiki? I don't think it's a very good criteria if even our most prolific non-extinct language doesn't qualify.
I'm proposing a standard for languages that don't have native speakers, which must be judged solely on the output of their written literatures.
This would not restrict Wikipedias for languages with native speakers.
(Obviously [[Modern English literature]] is notable enough a subject to be FA-worthy anyway, and it would hardly need to be demonstrated)
Thanks, Pharos
Hoi, Having a criterion that is dependent on the English language Wikipedia is not and cannot be seriously considered as a standard. What it considers note worthy is not necessarily relevant from a linguistic or otherwise point of view. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:38 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:23 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
What is "notable"?
Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English Wikipedia or another major-language Wikipedia.
English should not have a wiki? I don't think it's a very good criteria if even our most prolific non-extinct language doesn't qualify.
I'm proposing a standard for languages that don't have native speakers, which must be judged solely on the output of their written literatures.
This would not restrict Wikipedias for languages with native speakers.
(Obviously [[Modern English literature]] is notable enough a subject to be FA-worthy anyway, and it would hardly need to be demonstrated)
Thanks, Pharos
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Gerard Meijssen ha scritto:
Hoi, Having a criterion that is dependent on the English language Wikipedia is not and cannot be seriously considered as a standard. What it considers note worthy is not necessarily relevant from a linguistic or otherwise point of view. Thanks, GerardM
I think a reasonable inclusion criterium would be whether a language with no native speakers is used anyway as a lingua franca to communicate between people of different native languages. This definitely applies to Latin, and I guess it could be applied to Classical Greek. At the end of the day, if the Wiki* in my native language is deficient in the argument I'm interested in, I'll try to read about it in a language I know. I don't know if Classics scholars communicate in Classical Greek if they haven't got any other communal language, but I wouldn't be too surprised.
Cruccone
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 7:29 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Having a criterion that is dependent on the English language Wikipedia is not and cannot be seriously considered as a standard. What it considers note worthy is not necessarily relevant from a linguistic or otherwise point of view.
Are you denying the usefulness of the wiki model?
To become a Featured Article, a literature article would have to go through the very serious Featured Article Candidates Review. This is the best process we have -anywhere- on Wikimedia to weed out fake and non-notable things.
I'll tell you one thing, there was never a Featured Article on [[Siberian language literature]].
This is just one way for the Languages subcommittee to farm out the research work, to let an established review process advise their opinion on these particular cases, and spare the subcommittee many pages of useless back-and-forth arguments and spurious "facts" supporting different sides.
And it's about literary relevance, not linguistic relevance.
Neither is there a reason to privilege English: an FA is any major-language Wikipedia would demonstrate the same point.
Thanks, Pharos
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:38 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:23 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
What is "notable"?
Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English Wikipedia or another major-language Wikipedia.
English should not have a wiki? I don't think it's a very good criteria if even our most prolific non-extinct language doesn't qualify.
I'm proposing a standard for languages that don't have native speakers, which must be judged solely on the output of their written literatures.
This would not restrict Wikipedias for languages with native speakers.
(Obviously [[Modern English literature]] is notable enough a subject to be FA-worthy anyway, and it would hardly need to be demonstrated)
Thanks, Pharos
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Hoi, If I were not to believe in the usefulness of the Wiki model, I would not invest so much in it. There is however a limit to its usefulness. For one when we publish a text, we indicate in the meta data for that text that it is in a specific linguistic entity. This list is based on standards, these standards are shared and as a consequence things are inferred from the correct usage of these standards. It is perfectly possible to write a featured article on "Westfries". Westfries is a dialect of the Dutch language. Writing a fa about this does not make for a standard that is recognised by others. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 7:51 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 7:29 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Having a criterion that is dependent on the English language Wikipedia
is
not and cannot be seriously considered as a standard. What it considers
note
worthy is not necessarily relevant from a linguistic or otherwise point
of
view.
Are you denying the usefulness of the wiki model?
To become a Featured Article, a literature article would have to go through the very serious Featured Article Candidates Review. This is the best process we have -anywhere- on Wikimedia to weed out fake and non-notable things.
I'll tell you one thing, there was never a Featured Article on [[Siberian language literature]].
This is just one way for the Languages subcommittee to farm out the research work, to let an established review process advise their opinion on these particular cases, and spare the subcommittee many pages of useless back-and-forth arguments and spurious "facts" supporting different sides.
And it's about literary relevance, not linguistic relevance.
Neither is there a reason to privilege English: an FA is any major-language Wikipedia would demonstrate the same point.
Thanks, Pharos
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:38 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:23 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
What is "notable"?
Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English
Wikipedia or
another major-language Wikipedia.
English should not have a wiki? I don't think it's a very good criteria if even our most prolific non-extinct language doesn't qualify.
I'm proposing a standard for languages that don't have native speakers, which must be judged solely on the output of their written literatures.
This would not restrict Wikipedias for languages with native
speakers.
(Obviously [[Modern English literature]] is notable enough a subject to be FA-worthy anyway, and it would hardly need to be demonstrated)
Thanks, Pharos
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On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, If I were not to believe in the usefulness of the Wiki model, I would not invest so much in it. There is however a limit to its usefulness. For one when we publish a text, we indicate in the meta data for that text that it is in a specific linguistic entity. This list is based on standards, these standards are shared and as a consequence things are inferred from the correct usage of these standards. It is perfectly possible to write a featured article on "Westfries". Westfries is a dialect of the Dutch language. Writing a fa about this does not make for a standard that is recognised by others.
A featured article on a dialect is quite different from a featured article on a dialect's literature. For example, my native dialect is [[New York dialect]], also known as "Brooklynese". This dialect is spoken by millions of people in the New York metropolitan area. And, although the dialect appears sometimes in fiction (usually spoken by gangsters!) to add "local color", it is clearly not a standard literary language of any kind. [[New York dialect literature]] would not be notable.
I don't know the case with "Westfries"; maybe it is similar, maybe it is different.
Anyway, my proposal is directly about "historical" languages that still have active literatures; the scope is important because this is a category that the ISO chooses not to assess.
OK, so the only remaining issue then, appears to be the metadata codes.
Let me just say that I think the metadata issue should be distinctly secondary, and that our -priority- should be recognizing the full diversity of contemporary human expression. We can file it under our own code for the time being, and we could easily move it if the ISO ever chooses to change their procedures on this, in say 10 years.
Thanks, Pharos
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 7:51 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 7:29 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Having a criterion that is dependent on the English language Wikipedia
is
not and cannot be seriously considered as a standard. What it considers
note
worthy is not necessarily relevant from a linguistic or otherwise point
of
view.
Are you denying the usefulness of the wiki model?
To become a Featured Article, a literature article would have to go through the very serious Featured Article Candidates Review. This is the best process we have -anywhere- on Wikimedia to weed out fake and non-notable things.
I'll tell you one thing, there was never a Featured Article on [[Siberian language literature]].
This is just one way for the Languages subcommittee to farm out the research work, to let an established review process advise their opinion on these particular cases, and spare the subcommittee many pages of useless back-and-forth arguments and spurious "facts" supporting different sides.
And it's about literary relevance, not linguistic relevance.
Neither is there a reason to privilege English: an FA is any major-language Wikipedia would demonstrate the same point.
Thanks, Pharos
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:38 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:23 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
> What is "notable"?
Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English
Wikipedia or
another major-language Wikipedia.
English should not have a wiki? I don't think it's a very good criteria if even our most prolific non-extinct language doesn't qualify.
I'm proposing a standard for languages that don't have native speakers, which must be judged solely on the output of their written literatures.
This would not restrict Wikipedias for languages with native
speakers.
(Obviously [[Modern English literature]] is notable enough a subject to be FA-worthy anyway, and it would hardly need to be demonstrated)
Thanks, Pharos
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New York has less of a "dialect" than what is known in linguistics as a regional variety. Dialects differ from each other more than New York English does from most other American English varieties.
Mark
On 02/04/2008, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Gerard Meijssen
gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi,
If I were not to believe in the usefulness of the Wiki model, I would not invest so much in it. There is however a limit to its usefulness. For one when we publish a text, we indicate in the meta data for that text that it is in a specific linguistic entity. This list is based on standards, these standards are shared and as a consequence things are inferred from the correct usage of these standards. It is perfectly possible to write a featured article on "Westfries". Westfries is a dialect of the Dutch language. Writing a fa about this does not make for a standard that is recognised by others.
A featured article on a dialect is quite different from a featured article on a dialect's literature. For example, my native dialect is [[New York dialect]], also known as "Brooklynese". This dialect is spoken by millions of people in the New York metropolitan area. And, although the dialect appears sometimes in fiction (usually spoken by gangsters!) to add "local color", it is clearly not a standard literary language of any kind. [[New York dialect literature]] would not be notable.
I don't know the case with "Westfries"; maybe it is similar, maybe it is different.
Anyway, my proposal is directly about "historical" languages that still have active literatures; the scope is important because this is a category that the ISO chooses not to assess.
OK, so the only remaining issue then, appears to be the metadata codes.
Let me just say that I think the metadata issue should be distinctly secondary, and that our -priority- should be recognizing the full diversity of contemporary human expression. We can file it under our own code for the time being, and we could easily move it if the ISO ever chooses to change their procedures on this, in say 10 years.
Thanks, Pharos
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 7:51 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 7:29 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Having a criterion that is dependent on the English language Wikipedia
is
not and cannot be seriously considered as a standard. What it considers
note
worthy is not necessarily relevant from a linguistic or otherwise point
of
view.
Are you denying the usefulness of the wiki model?
To become a Featured Article, a literature article would have to go through the very serious Featured Article Candidates Review. This is the best process we have -anywhere- on Wikimedia to weed out fake and non-notable things.
I'll tell you one thing, there was never a Featured Article on [[Siberian language literature]].
This is just one way for the Languages subcommittee to farm out the research work, to let an established review process advise their opinion on these particular cases, and spare the subcommittee many pages of useless back-and-forth arguments and spurious "facts" supporting different sides.
And it's about literary relevance, not linguistic relevance.
Neither is there a reason to privilege English: an FA is any major-language Wikipedia would demonstrate the same point.
Thanks, Pharos
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:38 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:23 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
> > What is "notable"? > > Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin > literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English
Wikipedia or
> another major-language Wikipedia. >
English should not have a wiki? I don't think it's a very good criteria if even our most prolific non-extinct language doesn't qualify.
I'm proposing a standard for languages that don't have native speakers, which must be judged solely on the output of their written literatures.
This would not restrict Wikipedias for languages with native
speakers.
(Obviously [[Modern English literature]] is notable enough a subject to be FA-worthy anyway, and it would hardly need to be demonstrated)
Thanks, Pharos
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On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 3:41 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
New York has less of a "dialect" than what is known in linguistics as a regional variety. Dialects differ from each other more than New York English does from most other American English varieties.
I would say there's not a clearing dividing line, but anyway it's not this particular case that matters.
Surely the general point stands, no? That a dialect or language can be notable without having a notable modern written tradition. And that this is a useful way of distinguishing "historical" languages that merit a Wikipedia, and those that don't.
(I actually don't think we should be so strict on languages that -do have- native speakers, though.)
Thanks, Richard
On 02/04/2008, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Gerard Meijssen
gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi,
If I were not to believe in the usefulness of the Wiki model, I would not invest so much in it. There is however a limit to its usefulness. For one when we publish a text, we indicate in the meta data for that text that it is in a specific linguistic entity. This list is based on standards, these standards are shared and as a consequence things are inferred from the correct usage of these standards. It is perfectly possible to write a featured article on "Westfries". Westfries is a dialect of the Dutch language. Writing a fa about this does not make for a standard that is recognised by others.
A featured article on a dialect is quite different from a featured article on a dialect's literature. For example, my native dialect is [[New York dialect]], also known as "Brooklynese". This dialect is spoken by millions of people in the New York metropolitan area. And, although the dialect appears sometimes in fiction (usually spoken by gangsters!) to add "local color", it is clearly not a standard literary language of any kind. [[New York dialect literature]] would not be notable.
I don't know the case with "Westfries"; maybe it is similar, maybe it is different.
Anyway, my proposal is directly about "historical" languages that still have active literatures; the scope is important because this is a category that the ISO chooses not to assess.
OK, so the only remaining issue then, appears to be the metadata codes.
Let me just say that I think the metadata issue should be distinctly secondary, and that our -priority- should be recognizing the full diversity of contemporary human expression. We can file it under our own code for the time being, and we could easily move it if the ISO ever chooses to change their procedures on this, in say 10 years.
Thanks, Pharos
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 7:51 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 7:29 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Having a criterion that is dependent on the English language Wikipedia
is
not and cannot be seriously considered as a standard. What it considers
note
worthy is not necessarily relevant from a linguistic or otherwise point
of
view.
Are you denying the usefulness of the wiki model?
To become a Featured Article, a literature article would have to go through the very serious Featured Article Candidates Review. This is the best process we have -anywhere- on Wikimedia to weed out fake and non-notable things.
I'll tell you one thing, there was never a Featured Article on [[Siberian language literature]].
This is just one way for the Languages subcommittee to farm out the research work, to let an established review process advise their opinion on these particular cases, and spare the subcommittee many pages of useless back-and-forth arguments and spurious "facts" supporting different sides.
And it's about literary relevance, not linguistic relevance.
Neither is there a reason to privilege English: an FA is any major-language Wikipedia would demonstrate the same point.
Thanks, Pharos
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:38 AM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:23 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote: > Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote: > > > > What is "notable"? > > > > Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin > > literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English
Wikipedia or
> > another major-language Wikipedia. > > > > English should not have a wiki? I don't think it's a very good > criteria if even our most prolific non-extinct language doesn't > qualify.
I'm proposing a standard for languages that don't have native speakers, which must be judged solely on the output of their written literatures.
This would not restrict Wikipedias for languages with native
speakers.
(Obviously [[Modern English literature]] is notable enough a subject to be FA-worthy anyway, and it would hardly need to be demonstrated)
Thanks, Pharos
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Much discussion, few outcome.
So I tried to write down my very personal opinion about which languages should be accepted for new projects and which not. Read it, if you like, under: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Slomox/Languages.
I took Sater Frisian as a case, which was recently approved by the Language Subcomittee. So, we can presume, this language fulfils the criteria of the current policy on Language approval. Sater Frisian has some 1000 to 2000 speakers (some sources have numbers up to 5000, but as the policy asks for "native" speakers, speakers fully able to speak the language, we should stick to the bottom end). I took the number of 1000 speakers as a basis for my thoughts. 1000 speakers is few, but not that few, that a language with 1000 speakers has no chance to survive. So the premise of my thoughts is: any language with 1000 real speakers ("real" meaning, that you can speak the language fluently; for example I wouldn't say, my English is fluently, far away from that, so 1000 speakers who can speak their language far better than I can speak English) should be able to get its own Wikipedia. Let's make the check: Volapük will fail. Ido, Novial, Interlingua, Interlingue (all having their own project) too. Esperanto has more than 1000 real speakers. Klingon, Toki Pona, Gothic, Anglo-Saxon will all fail. Latin, Greek and Sanskrit have more than 1000 fluent speakers and would be eligible. All natural languages approved so far have more than 1000 speakers. With the sole exception of Norfuk/Pitkern with some 600 speakers. But my proposal allows for exceptions from the 1000 speakers rule, if there are good arguments. The 1000 speakers rule only applies to unique languages, so Brooklynese wouldn't be accepted. My proposal has no additional provisions on deciding whether dialects are unique languages of their own or not. This means there's no difference to the current policy based on ISO code and discussion.
I weighed the wish of the proposing community for progress in the proposal and the foundation's need to only accept viable projects. So I defined exact numbers on how long a test project should run at least, how much editors there should be at least and how much content they should have created before the project can be approved. I tried to rise the barrier as low as possible, cause I know many proposers of projects are disencouraged when there is no progress. For every type of project I defined specific requisites, cause the projects have different goals and work differently. For example for Wiktionary and Wikisource I set no 1000 speakers rule as for Wikipedia (and Wikinews and Wikibooks). See the link above for more details. I added rationales to all requisites to make them a bit more transparent.
Marcus Buck
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:44 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 1:31 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
As long as there is a notable -contemporary- literature, vocabulary problems will be minimal.
What is "notable"?
Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English Wikipedia or another major-language Wikipedia.
I think this proposed criteria is too subjective and naive. Specially regarding to the fact English Wikipedia is not always good at humanities, in particular non European literatures. Having a FA may too be occasionally I'm afraid.
But I like the idea of "notable authors". They are notable since they have a decent size of readership. It means their writings are read and surrounded by the reader community which the language in question is actively, at least, read and have a possibility to be written again. And even if we still use Wikipedia again, "having an article of that author" is a less opportunity driven criteria, I think.
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:27 AM, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:44 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 1:31 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
As long as there is a notable -contemporary- literature, vocabulary problems will be minimal.
What is "notable"?
Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English Wikipedia or another major-language Wikipedia.
I think this proposed criteria is too subjective and naive. Specially regarding to the fact English Wikipedia is not always good at humanities, in particular non European literatures. Having a FA may too be occasionally I'm afraid.
But I like the idea of "notable authors". They are notable since they have a decent size of readership. It means their writings are read and surrounded by the reader community which the language in question is actively, at least, read and have a possibility to be written again. And even if we still use Wikipedia again, "having an article of that author" is a less opportunity driven criteria, I think.
Of course it would be a powerful incentive to develop some of those non-European literature articles. And one that could probably be met by a dedicated person or small group with a medium effort.
But actually having an FA wouldn't be so important as demonstrating that such an FA is possible. Really, it's an idea of making an outlet where the notableness of the subject would be absolutely demonstrable.
"Notable authors" is another idea that could certainly work, though this might be complicated a bit by some authors being notable for work in more than one language, and that some borderline languages might have notable contemporary literatures, without many notable individual authors. Still, it's a concept that could help a lot.
Thanks, Pharos
Maybe we should drop the "computer-world-based" criteria like the ISO-code and introduce more "real-life" criteria when accepting a new language ("new" even if ancient): *The language is taught at a university *There is a journal or newspaper in or about that language *20 or more speakers or scholars (with a certificate or some prove that they can at least write in that language) endorse the project
Ziko van Dijk
2008/4/2, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:27 AM, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:44 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 1:31 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
As long as there is a notable -contemporary- literature, vocabulary problems will
be
minimal.
What is "notable"?
Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English Wikipedia or another major-language Wikipedia.
I think this proposed criteria is too subjective and naive. Specially regarding to the fact English Wikipedia is not always good at humanities, in particular non European literatures. Having a FA may too be occasionally I'm afraid.
But I like the idea of "notable authors". They are notable since they have a decent size of readership. It means their writings are read and surrounded by the reader community which the language in question is actively, at least, read and have a possibility to be written again. And even if we still use Wikipedia again, "having an article of that author" is a less opportunity driven criteria, I think.
Of course it would be a powerful incentive to develop some of those non-European literature articles. And one that could probably be met by a dedicated person or small group with a medium effort.
But actually having an FA wouldn't be so important as demonstrating that such an FA is possible. Really, it's an idea of making an outlet where the notableness of the subject would be absolutely demonstrable.
"Notable authors" is another idea that could certainly work, though this might be complicated a bit by some authors being notable for work in more than one language, and that some borderline languages might have notable contemporary literatures, without many notable individual authors. Still, it's a concept that could help a lot.
Thanks,
Pharos
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Ziko van Dijk hett schreven:
Maybe we should drop the "computer-world-based" criteria like the ISO-code and introduce more "real-life" criteria when accepting a new language ("new" even if ancient): *The language is taught at a university *There is a journal or newspaper in or about that language *20 or more speakers or scholars (with a certificate or some prove that they can at least write in that language) endorse the project
I read much about "notable literature", "taught at university level", "scholars" and all this in the posts here on the list (I don't address only you, Ziko van Dijk, I only quoted you, cause you name a whole row of that points). Please keep in mind, that the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to bring knowledge to the people. Knowledge which was previously not available to them (if it would have been available, Wikipedia and the other projects would have been pointless). Not available cause companies/publishers wanted to/had to make money with it and they couldn't afford it. Or not available cause they spoke the wrong language or their society not being wealthy enough, so that no publisher even tried to publish works providing this knowledge. Wikimedia wants to include them, give them the opportunity to aquire knowledge. Wikimedia wants to give. Without requiring. In the past it was like: "You want to aquire knowledge? Well, then learn English/German/Russian/French/Chinese/Spanish/Portuguese/whatever may be the dominant language in your country!" Wikimedia aims to overcome this barrier. "You want to aquire knowledge? Here's the material, start right away!" Without forcing the people to first spend a year on learning how to read the material.
This should be done for every language. Regardless of whether there already is scholarly work in the language. If _we_ aim at providing knowledge to them, why should we demand existing "knowledge providers" like universities or newspapers? "You want to aquire knowledge? Okay, please furnish proof that you have enough knowledge first!"
Ten enthusiasts in a language cannot build a university. They perhaps can write a newspaper or a batch of novels, fiction and textbooks, but if their language's society is poor, who will buy the newspaper, who will buy their textbooks and novels? But ten enthusiasts can create a good start in a Wikipedia and provide knowledge to the whole language community. Wikipedia is the easiest, the most efficient way to start the business of providing knowledge. There are many languages with no knowledge providers at all, but who have a language community large enough to be able to form an own Ausbausprache.Don't put obstacles in their way.
Marcus Buck
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 11:53 AM, Marcus Buck me@marcusbuck.org wrote:
Please keep in mind, that the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to bring knowledge to the people. Knowledge which was previously not available to them (if it would have been available, Wikipedia and the other projects would have been pointless). Not available cause companies/publishers wanted to/had to make money with it and they couldn't afford it. Or not available cause they spoke the wrong language or their society not being wealthy enough, so that no publisher even tried to publish works providing this knowledge.
This seems to put the burden of proof onto the content consumers, instead of the content providers. That is, we shouldn't have a project for a particular language unless there are established groups of people available to consume content in that language. We can ignore the issue of Wikisource and Wikiquote, for now, since those projects aim to consolidate and preserve existing knowledge, and you can't really do that unless there is existing knowledge to preserve. For those two projects the burden of proof needs to lie with the content producers, not the content consumers.
This should be done for every language. Regardless of whether there already is scholarly work in the language. If _we_ aim at providing knowledge to them, why should we demand existing "knowledge providers" like universities or newspapers? "You want to aquire knowledge? Okay, please furnish proof that you have enough knowledge first!"
We shouldn't do EVERY language. It's not just about demanding preexisting content, but we also need to ensure that there is a viable community of project editors. A wiki cannot exist if there are no editors. We should also take into consideration, if only peripherally, the existence of readers and content consumers.
If there are editors but no readers, the project essentially becomes one of knowledge obfuscation, not knowledge sharing. If I take information that I have and I write it in language X for which there are no readers, that information is "hidden" from everybody but myself. It becomes little more then a complicated encryption system. The WMF is certainly not in the habit of encrypting and hiding information. To recap, there are several things that should be considered before creating a new language project:
1) Is there a viable community of editors? We can gauge this based on translations at Betawiki, and on activity at the incubator 2) Is there a community of potential readers? The community of readers should not exactly overlap the community of editors (or else we run into an encryption problem, like I outlined above). 3) Are there any other additional restrictions that we need to consider on a per-project basis? that is, does it make sense to have a wikinews, wikisource, or wikiversity in this particular language?
Of course, how we define words like "viable" and "community" is still up in the air.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 9:55 AM, Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.com wrote:
Maybe we should drop the "computer-world-based" criteria like the ISO-code and introduce more "real-life" criteria when accepting a new language ("new" even if ancient): *The language is taught at a university *There is a journal or newspaper in or about that language *20 or more speakers or scholars (with a certificate or some prove that they can at least write in that language) endorse the project
I would support loosening of "computer-world-based" criteria; all we should really need to do is demonstrate that modern use of the languages is supported by -scholars- of the "historical" language or notable -institutions- (like the Vatican for Latin).
But I understand the reason why the subcommittee likes "computer-world-based" criteria (it spares them a huge amount of pointless research and arguments), and so I've proposed the "Can someone write an FA on the language's modern literature?" criterion as a useful surrogate for the types of criteria you suggest.
Thanks, Pharos
2008/4/2, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:27 AM, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:44 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 1:31 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
As long as there is a notable -contemporary- literature, vocabulary problems will
be
minimal.
What is "notable"?
Notable enough to have a Featured Article about [[Modern Latin literature]] or [[Modern Coptic literature]] on English Wikipedia or another major-language Wikipedia.
I think this proposed criteria is too subjective and naive. Specially regarding to the fact English Wikipedia is not always good at humanities, in particular non European literatures. Having a FA may too be occasionally I'm afraid.
But I like the idea of "notable authors". They are notable since they have a decent size of readership. It means their writings are read and surrounded by the reader community which the language in question is actively, at least, read and have a possibility to be written again. And even if we still use Wikipedia again, "having an article of that author" is a less opportunity driven criteria, I think.
Of course it would be a powerful incentive to develop some of those non-European literature articles. And one that could probably be met by a dedicated person or small group with a medium effort.
But actually having an FA wouldn't be so important as demonstrating that such an FA is possible. Really, it's an idea of making an outlet where the notableness of the subject would be absolutely demonstrable.
"Notable authors" is another idea that could certainly work, though this might be complicated a bit by some authors being notable for work in more than one language, and that some borderline languages might have notable contemporary literatures, without many notable individual authors. Still, it's a concept that could help a lot.
Thanks,
Pharos
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-- Ziko van Dijk Roomberg 30 NL-7064 BN Silvolde _______________________________________________
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On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
I've proposed the "Can someone write an FA on the language's modern literature?" criterion as a useful surrogate for the types of criteria you suggest.
But just saying that a person "can" do something doesn't mean that the person "will" do it. Volunteers work on what they want to work on, and if nobody wants to write a particular article or class of article, it will never get written.
Through Wikipedia policy, if the article exists then the topic must be notable. However if the article doesn't exist, that doesnt mean that the topic is non-notable. What this is, is a test with potential false negatives.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
I've proposed the "Can someone write an FA on the language's modern literature?" criterion as a useful surrogate for the types of criteria you suggest.
But just saying that a person "can" do something doesn't mean that the person "will" do it. Volunteers work on what they want to work on, and if nobody wants to write a particular article or class of article, it will never get written.
Through Wikipedia policy, if the article exists then the topic must be notable. However if the article doesn't exist, that doesnt mean that the topic is non-notable. What this is, is a test with potential false negatives.
What I'm saying is, we have to allow an outlet for people proposing a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language to prove their case. Right now, the subcommittee tells them, "Don't bother me kid, go to the International Organization for Standardization", which is an impossible task, because the ISO is a big bureaucracy that just doesn't deal with categorizing "historical" languages that are still alive in a written form.
Writing an FA would not be easy, but it is a task that the proposers of a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language could be reasonably expected to be able to accomplish to prove their case (or not). The time-scale for writing an FA would typically be a few months, which is quite comparable to the time-scale of the -vastly unproductive- back-and-forth arguments that characterize a typical request to the subcommittee of this type.
Thanks, Pharos
About Wikipedias of weak languages: There is a West Flemish and a Volapük way. The West Flemish have a small, but decent Wikipedia, mostly with (though often short) articles about the region and regional culture. The Volapük Wikipedia is a phantom, consisting for 99% of geographical bot genereated stubs. I would like to see a rule that allows West Flemish Wikipedias, but not Volapük Wikipedias... Ziko
2008/4/2, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
I've proposed the "Can someone write an FA on the language's modern literature?" criterion
as
a useful surrogate for the types of criteria you suggest.
But just saying that a person "can" do something doesn't mean that the person "will" do it. Volunteers work on what they want to work on, and if nobody wants to write a particular article or class of article, it will never get written.
Through Wikipedia policy, if the article exists then the topic must be notable. However if the article doesn't exist, that doesnt mean that the topic is non-notable. What this is, is a test with potential false negatives.
What I'm saying is, we have to allow an outlet for people proposing a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language to prove their case. Right now, the subcommittee tells them, "Don't bother me kid, go to the International Organization for Standardization", which is an impossible task, because the ISO is a big bureaucracy that just doesn't deal with categorizing "historical" languages that are still alive in a written form.
Writing an FA would not be easy, but it is a task that the proposers of a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language could be reasonably expected to be able to accomplish to prove their case (or not). The time-scale for writing an FA would typically be a few months, which is quite comparable to the time-scale of the -vastly unproductive- back-and-forth arguments that characterize a typical request to the subcommittee of this type.
Thanks, Pharos
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Seconded.
On 02/04/2008, Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.com wrote:
About Wikipedias of weak languages: There is a West Flemish and a Volapük way. The West Flemish have a small, but decent Wikipedia, mostly with (though often short) articles about the region and regional culture. The Volapük Wikipedia is a phantom, consisting for 99% of geographical bot genereated stubs. I would like to see a rule that allows West Flemish Wikipedias, but not Volapük Wikipedias...
Ziko
2008/4/2, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
I've proposed the "Can someone write an FA on the language's modern literature?" criterion
as
a useful surrogate for the types of criteria you suggest.
But just saying that a person "can" do something doesn't mean that the person "will" do it. Volunteers work on what they want to work on, and if nobody wants to write a particular article or class of article, it will never get written.
Through Wikipedia policy, if the article exists then the topic must be notable. However if the article doesn't exist, that doesnt mean that the topic is non-notable. What this is, is a test with potential false negatives.
What I'm saying is, we have to allow an outlet for people proposing a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language to prove their case. Right now, the subcommittee tells them, "Don't bother me kid, go to the International Organization for Standardization", which is an impossible task, because the ISO is a big bureaucracy that just doesn't deal with categorizing "historical" languages that are still alive in a written form.
Writing an FA would not be easy, but it is a task that the proposers of a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language could be reasonably expected to be able to accomplish to prove their case (or not). The time-scale for writing an FA would typically be a few months, which is quite comparable to the time-scale of the -vastly unproductive- back-and-forth arguments that characterize a typical request to the subcommittee of this type.
Thanks, Pharos
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--
Ziko van Dijk Roomberg 30 NL-7064 BN Silvolde _______________________________________________
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Hoi, You are wrong when you think that we do not know of the process of getting recognition in the ISO or IANA standards. We have been instrumental in getting linguistic entities considered. This is something that we do when we feel there is merit. The ISO may be a big bureaucracy but it is interested in learning from us.
Again, we can and we do get recognition for linguistic entities if there is a need. We prefer not to, so the need must be convincing. It does not negate any of the arguments however about allowing for Wikipedias for dead languages. They are imho not a good thing to have. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:24 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
I've proposed the "Can someone write an FA on the language's modern literature?" criterion
as
a useful surrogate for the types of criteria you suggest.
But just saying that a person "can" do something doesn't mean that the person "will" do it. Volunteers work on what they want to work on, and if nobody wants to write a particular article or class of article, it will never get written.
Through Wikipedia policy, if the article exists then the topic must be notable. However if the article doesn't exist, that doesnt mean that the topic is non-notable. What this is, is a test with potential false negatives.
What I'm saying is, we have to allow an outlet for people proposing a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language to prove their case. Right now, the subcommittee tells them, "Don't bother me kid, go to the International Organization for Standardization", which is an impossible task, because the ISO is a big bureaucracy that just doesn't deal with categorizing "historical" languages that are still alive in a written form.
Writing an FA would not be easy, but it is a task that the proposers of a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language could be reasonably expected to be able to accomplish to prove their case (or not). The time-scale for writing an FA would typically be a few months, which is quite comparable to the time-scale of the -vastly unproductive- back-and-forth arguments that characterize a typical request to the subcommittee of this type.
Thanks, Pharos
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Yes, but remember that IMHO stands for "in my HUMBLE opinion".
Mark
On 02/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You are wrong when you think that we do not know of the process of getting recognition in the ISO or IANA standards. We have been instrumental in getting linguistic entities considered. This is something that we do when we feel there is merit. The ISO may be a big bureaucracy but it is interested in learning from us.
Again, we can and we do get recognition for linguistic entities if there is a need. We prefer not to, so the need must be convincing. It does not negate any of the arguments however about allowing for Wikipedias for dead languages. They are imho not a good thing to have. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:24 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
I've proposed the "Can someone write an FA on the language's modern literature?" criterion
as
a useful surrogate for the types of criteria you suggest.
But just saying that a person "can" do something doesn't mean that the person "will" do it. Volunteers work on what they want to work on, and if nobody wants to write a particular article or class of article, it will never get written.
Through Wikipedia policy, if the article exists then the topic must be notable. However if the article doesn't exist, that doesnt mean that the topic is non-notable. What this is, is a test with potential false negatives.
What I'm saying is, we have to allow an outlet for people proposing a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language to prove their case. Right now, the subcommittee tells them, "Don't bother me kid, go to the International Organization for Standardization", which is an impossible task, because the ISO is a big bureaucracy that just doesn't deal with categorizing "historical" languages that are still alive in a written form.
Writing an FA would not be easy, but it is a task that the proposers of a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language could be reasonably expected to be able to accomplish to prove their case (or not). The time-scale for writing an FA would typically be a few months, which is quite comparable to the time-scale of the -vastly unproductive- back-and-forth arguments that characterize a typical request to the subcommittee of this type.
Thanks, Pharos
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Hoi, Now who is trolling? Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 9:50 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but remember that IMHO stands for "in my HUMBLE opinion".
Mark
On 02/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You are wrong when you think that we do not know of the process of
getting
recognition in the ISO or IANA standards. We have been instrumental in getting linguistic entities considered. This is something that we do
when we
feel there is merit. The ISO may be a big bureaucracy but it is
interested
in learning from us.
Again, we can and we do get recognition for linguistic entities if
there is
a need. We prefer not to, so the need must be convincing. It does not
negate
any of the arguments however about allowing for Wikipedias for dead languages. They are imho not a good thing to have. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:24 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Andrew Whitworth <
wknight8111@gmail.com>
wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pharos <
pharosofalexandria@gmail.com>
wrote:
I've proposed the "Can someone write an FA on the language's modern literature?"
criterion
as
a useful surrogate for the types of criteria you suggest.
But just saying that a person "can" do something doesn't mean that
the
person "will" do it. Volunteers work on what they want to work on,
and
if nobody wants to write a particular article or class of article,
it
will never get written.
Through Wikipedia policy, if the article exists then the topic
must be
notable. However if the article doesn't exist, that doesnt mean
that
the topic is non-notable. What this is, is a test with potential
false
negatives.
What I'm saying is, we have to allow an outlet for people proposing a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language to prove their
case.
Right now, the subcommittee tells them, "Don't bother me kid, go to the International Organization for Standardization", which is an impossible task, because the ISO is a big bureaucracy that just doesn't deal with categorizing "historical" languages that are still alive in a written form.
Writing an FA would not be easy, but it is a task that the proposers of a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language could be reasonably expected to be able to accomplish to prove their case (or not). The time-scale for writing an FA would typically be a few months, which is quite comparable to the time-scale of the -vastly unproductive- back-and-forth arguments that characterize a typical request to the subcommittee of this type.
Thanks, Pharos
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That's a good question :-)
On 02/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Now who is trolling? Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 9:50 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but remember that IMHO stands for "in my HUMBLE opinion".
Mark
On 02/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You are wrong when you think that we do not know of the process of
getting
recognition in the ISO or IANA standards. We have been instrumental in getting linguistic entities considered. This is something that we do
when we
feel there is merit. The ISO may be a big bureaucracy but it is
interested
in learning from us.
Again, we can and we do get recognition for linguistic entities if
there is
a need. We prefer not to, so the need must be convincing. It does not
negate
any of the arguments however about allowing for Wikipedias for dead languages. They are imho not a good thing to have. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:24 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Andrew Whitworth <
wknight8111@gmail.com>
wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pharos <
pharosofalexandria@gmail.com>
wrote:
I've proposed the "Can someone write an FA on the language's modern literature?"
criterion
as
a useful surrogate for the types of criteria you suggest.
But just saying that a person "can" do something doesn't mean that
the
person "will" do it. Volunteers work on what they want to work on,
and
if nobody wants to write a particular article or class of article,
it
will never get written.
Through Wikipedia policy, if the article exists then the topic
must be
notable. However if the article doesn't exist, that doesnt mean
that
the topic is non-notable. What this is, is a test with potential
false
negatives.
What I'm saying is, we have to allow an outlet for people proposing a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language to prove their
case.
Right now, the subcommittee tells them, "Don't bother me kid, go to the International Organization for Standardization", which is an impossible task, because the ISO is a big bureaucracy that just doesn't deal with categorizing "historical" languages that are still alive in a written form.
Writing an FA would not be easy, but it is a task that the proposers of a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language could be reasonably expected to be able to accomplish to prove their case (or not). The time-scale for writing an FA would typically be a few months, which is quite comparable to the time-scale of the -vastly unproductive- back-and-forth arguments that characterize a typical request to the subcommittee of this type.
Thanks, Pharos
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On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 3:46 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You are wrong when you think that we do not know of the process of getting recognition in the ISO or IANA standards. We have been instrumental in getting linguistic entities considered. This is something that we do when we feel there is merit. The ISO may be a big bureaucracy but it is interested in learning from us.
Again, we can and we do get recognition for linguistic entities if there is a need. We prefer not to, so the need must be convincing. It does not negate any of the arguments however about allowing for Wikipedias for dead languages. They are imho not a good thing to have. Thanks, GerardM
By "we", you mean the Language subcommittee, not the proposers of Wikipedias in new languages. As an official organ of Wikimedia, an internationally recognized entity, the subcommittee a lot more clout than some random person proposing a new Wikipedia.
But even you (meaning the subcommittee) have never gotten ISO to recognize a -new category- of languages, that being "historical" languages that still have active written literatures.
Latin is one such language, and the metadata code we use for the Latin Wikipedia in fact classifies it as an "ancient language".
In fact, there -already are- codes for all of the proposed Wikipedias in "historical" languages with active written literatures. You have objected in the past to such languages because they are officially classified as "ancient languages" or "historical languages", but Latin faces -exactly- the same issue.
If ISO chooses to make a new code for "Modern Latin" 10 years from now that would be great, and we'll change the code, but for now the "Latin" code should be satisfactory.
With the current system, it's all down to your personal subjective opinion of Latin, and whether you personally consider other languages to have a Latin-like status. You idea that, say, Sanskrit is "dead", but that Latin is not is just totally subjective. It is wrong to consider that your personal knowledge of such languages would be sufficient to make such a judgment.
I realize that the subcommittee might have success persuading ISO to create a new category, but that it has other things to do, and does not consider the matter a pressing issue. So, instead, I am making a proposal that would not require work on your part, and that would rely on the objective analysis of the highest level of the wiki model, i.e. whether an FA can be written on the modern literature of a "historical" language. And of course, this would not be a misuse of codes any more than using la.wikipedia.org for the Latin Wikipedia.
Thanks, Pharos
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:24 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:07 PM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 2:00 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com
wrote:
I've proposed the "Can someone write an FA on the language's modern literature?" criterion
as
a useful surrogate for the types of criteria you suggest.
But just saying that a person "can" do something doesn't mean that the person "will" do it. Volunteers work on what they want to work on, and if nobody wants to write a particular article or class of article, it will never get written.
Through Wikipedia policy, if the article exists then the topic must be notable. However if the article doesn't exist, that doesnt mean that the topic is non-notable. What this is, is a test with potential false negatives.
What I'm saying is, we have to allow an outlet for people proposing a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language to prove their case. Right now, the subcommittee tells them, "Don't bother me kid, go to the International Organization for Standardization", which is an impossible task, because the ISO is a big bureaucracy that just doesn't deal with categorizing "historical" languages that are still alive in a written form.
Writing an FA would not be easy, but it is a task that the proposers of a new language Wikipedia in a "historical" language could be reasonably expected to be able to accomplish to prove their case (or not). The time-scale for writing an FA would typically be a few months, which is quite comparable to the time-scale of the -vastly unproductive- back-and-forth arguments that characterize a typical request to the subcommittee of this type.
Thanks, Pharos
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An arbitrary measurement of importance.
Sadly, it's entirely subjective according to each person's feelings.
-Chad
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 1:31 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
As long as there is a notable -contemporary- literature, vocabulary problems will be minimal.
What is "notable"?
--
Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
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Hoi, This sounds reasonable. However the beauty of the current system is its simplicity and the way in which things can be considered "obvious". The beauty is that we use an external authority that does its best to define languages. The way they categorise languages is not one that I think is absolutely great. This is why Latin is deemed an "ancient" language.
Then again I also think that the current policy is deliberately ambiguous in the way it expresses opinions about constructed languages. The notion that native speakers are needed is a complete road block even when it is said that a level of importance is to be determined. Any and all constructive suggestions have been stonewalled so far. Thanks, GerardM
On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 10:04 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I think it depends on the community.
For example, in the case of Coptic, it is very much alive in certain senses of the word - it is a thriving liturgical language, and it represents their unique cultural heritage.
In the case of the Massachusett-Narragansett language, there is a community actively working at reviving it as a living language in some form.
In the case of, say, Old English, however, for which we already have a Wikipedia, there is little interest in language revival, and most people interested in the language are hobbyists.
I would thus personally recommend approval of Coptic and Massachusett-Narragansett if they had enough "fluent speaker" supporters, but against the approval of something analagous to Old English.
Mark
Yes, I think the exact rule we should propose is: Does this language have a contemporary literature? Are new articles or books still be written in it?
And is the contemporary literature respected by -scholars- of the "historical" language (i.e. not something merely pursued by Sumerian hobbyists)?
Because if there is a contemporary literature, then the language is not truly extinct in the written form.
When we "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being", we must recognize the diversity of human expression, and that a -full- accounting of the vehicles of intellectual discourse must include all languages that have contemporary literatures, whether they havve native speakers or not.
Pharos
On 29/03/2008, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com
wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation
mission
to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to
make
it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native
users,
allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead,
a
wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki
should
not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed
in
every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
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On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 5:25 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, This sounds reasonable. However the beauty of the current system is its simplicity and the way in which things can be considered "obvious". The beauty is that we use an external authority that does its best to define languages. The way they categorise languages is not one that I think is absolutely great. This is why Latin is deemed an "ancient" language.
Then again I also think that the current policy is deliberately ambiguous in the way it expresses opinions about constructed languages. The notion that native speakers are needed is a complete road block even when it is said that a level of importance is to be determined. Any and all constructive suggestions have been stonewalled so far. Thanks, GerardM
In terms of "obviousness" and simplicity, one guidepost I've suggested is that the language demonstrates the notability of its contemporary literature, by having a Featured Article, on e.g. [[Modern Latin literature]], on the English Wikipedia or another major-language Wikipedia.
This type of guidepost might make things easier and more "obvious" for the Language subcommittee.
Thanks, Pharos
On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 10:04 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 5:33 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I think it depends on the community.
For example, in the case of Coptic, it is very much alive in certain senses of the word - it is a thriving liturgical language, and it represents their unique cultural heritage.
In the case of the Massachusett-Narragansett language, there is a community actively working at reviving it as a living language in some form.
In the case of, say, Old English, however, for which we already have a Wikipedia, there is little interest in language revival, and most people interested in the language are hobbyists.
I would thus personally recommend approval of Coptic and Massachusett-Narragansett if they had enough "fluent speaker" supporters, but against the approval of something analagous to Old English.
Mark
Yes, I think the exact rule we should propose is: Does this language have a contemporary literature? Are new articles or books still be written in it?
And is the contemporary literature respected by -scholars- of the "historical" language (i.e. not something merely pursued by Sumerian hobbyists)?
Because if there is a contemporary literature, then the language is not truly extinct in the written form.
When we "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being", we must recognize the diversity of human expression, and that a -full- accounting of the vehicles of intellectual discourse must include all languages that have contemporary literatures, whether they havve native speakers or not.
Pharos
On 29/03/2008, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com
wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation
mission
to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to
make
it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native
users,
allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead,
a
wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki
should
not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed
in
every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
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On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 5:41 PM, Pharos pharosofalexandria@gmail.com wrote:
This type of guidepost might make things easier and more "obvious" for the Language subcommittee.
I'm really of the opinion that languages should be evaluated differently depending on the project in question. For instance, the language requirements to start a new wikinews should be different from those required to start a new wikiversity, etc. Some examples of such requirements:
1) Wikibooks, Wikiversity: There are populations of school students which are taught in language X. Notice this isn't the same as being taught about language X in language Y. 2) Wikisource, Wiktionary, Wikiquote: There are original written source documents worth reading and preserving. 3) Wikinews: There is a speaking population, likely a native one, that is interested in consuming news written in language X
These are just a few examples, but it highlights some of the differences I'm thinking about. It doesnt make sense to have a Gothic Wikibooks when there are no Gothic school children in need of such books. It doesnt make sense to have a Wikisource in a language for which there are no surviving written records, etc.
--Andrew Whitworth
On 29/03/2008, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them. But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
Wikipedias probably wouldn't inform anyone needing informing. Wikisources might be very valuable.
- d.
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 7:34 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Wikipedias probably wouldn't inform anyone needing informing. Wikisources might be very valuable.
...and Wiktionaries, and Wikiquotes too.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) wrote:
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
Certainly not in every extinct language. But whether the language is extinct or not is largely irrelevant; what really matters is whether there would be a large enough community to sustain a Wikipedia in that language. If it's an extinct language that doesn't have a lot of support and the wiki would languish in obscurity, don't create a new Wikipedia for it. If it's an extinct language with widespread interest and the potential for a large community (such as Latin, which I see we already have), go for it.
- -- Ben "Cyde Weys" McIlwain ( http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/ )
On 29/03/2008, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Certainly not in every extinct language. But whether the language is extinct or not is largely irrelevant; what really matters is whether there would be a large enough community to sustain a Wikipedia in that language. If it's an extinct language that doesn't have a lot of support and the wiki would languish in obscurity, don't create a new Wikipedia for it. If it's an extinct language with widespread interest and the potential for a large community (such as Latin, which I see we already have), go for it.
That would probably apply well to conlangs as well. Esperanto has a vast interest and support base, Volapuk ... doesn't really.
- d.
Allow--indeed, encourage--for every language in which there's enough of a community to support it. How large a community is needed is the only real question.
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 6:04 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29/03/2008, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Certainly not in every extinct language. But whether the language is extinct or not is largely irrelevant; what really matters is whether there would be a large enough community to sustain a Wikipedia in that language. If it's an extinct language that doesn't have a lot of support and the wiki would languish in obscurity, don't create a new Wikipedia for it. If it's an extinct language with widespread interest and the potential for a large community (such as Latin, which I see we already have), go for it.
That would probably apply well to conlangs as well. Esperanto has a vast interest and support base, Volapuk ... doesn't really.
- d.
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And the question is wether there is a linguistic community that can be reported about. If it has no conventions, culture, literature, clubs etc... it could have articles only about stuff that exists primarily due to other linguistic communities. That' s the problem of the bot-generated Volapük Wikipedia. A linguistic community (worth to mention it) existed only from ca. 1880 to 1890, and even then many "speakers" were not capable really to communicate in that language (according to the experiences in the 1884 and 1887 conventions in Friedrichshafen and Munich, with German as a lingua franca).
Ziko van Dijk
2008/3/29, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com:
Allow--indeed, encourage--for every language in which there's enough of a community to support it. How large a community is needed is the only real question.
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 6:04 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29/03/2008, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Certainly not in every extinct language. But whether the language is extinct or not is largely irrelevant; what really matters is whether there would be a large enough community to sustain a Wikipedia in
that
language. If it's an extinct language that doesn't have a lot of support and the wiki would languish in obscurity, don't create a new Wikipedia for it. If it's an extinct language with widespread
interest
and the potential for a large community (such as Latin, which I see
we
already have), go for it.
That would probably apply well to conlangs as well. Esperanto has a vast interest and support base, Volapuk ... doesn't really.
- d.
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-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
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If the purpose of a Wikipedia or wiki in general is to communicate information... then creating a wiki to serve a small group of people who are already fluent in other major languages does not serve the purpose. I wouldn't object to a wiki of a type "Wikilang" if the idea is only to save the crucial and various aspects of the language itself for historical purposes in a way not conducive to a Wikipedia article, but a full Wikipedia or other project seems unnecessary.
On the other hand, the question should be asked: are we saving significant resources by denying the creation of dead or constructed language projects? Would the folks creating these projects otherwise be contributing more constructively, and do these projects require significant meta-resources if the local communities remain small and isolated? Particularly in the areas of PR risk and legal liability for projects that are WMF-hosted, the answer could easily be that significant resources are theoretically devoted to each project. In that case, it makes sense to continue to deny these projects.
Nathan
2008/3/29, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
If the purpose of a Wikipedia or wiki in general is to communicate information... then creating a wiki to serve a small group of people who are already fluent in other major languages does not serve the purpose.
Not quite that. Nearly every Sorabian speaks German, but the Sorabians do have a linguistic community that has activities. A Wikipedia in that case makes very much sense. - Don't forget that a language is more than a tool to communicate, it also deals with identity. Ziko van Dijk
Ziko van Dijk wrote:
2008/3/29, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com:
If the purpose of a Wikipedia or wiki in general is to communicate information... then creating a wiki to serve a small group of people who are already fluent in other major languages does not serve the purpose.
Not quite that. Nearly every Sorabian speaks German, but the Sorabians do have a linguistic community that has activities. A Wikipedia in that case makes very much sense. - Don't forget that a language is more than a tool to communicate, it also deals with identity.
That's the crux of the question, though---is supporting linguistic identity, even in cases where it doesn't serve to communicate information to a wider range of people, a goal of the Wikimedia foundation? Some interpretations of the mission statement have said no.
-Mark
You're right in that, identity is not enough. But to a Sorabian, his community is a part of his life. It would be inappropriate to tell him something like that he should not waste his time with that useless language but speak German only (or English only). Ziko van Dijk
That's the crux of the question, though---is supporting linguistic identity, even in cases where it doesn't serve to communicate information to a wider range of people, a goal of the Wikimedia foundation? Some interpretations of the mission statement have said no.
-Mark
Nathan schrieb:
If the purpose of a Wikipedia or wiki in general is to communicate information... then creating a wiki to serve a small group of people who are already fluent in other major languages does not serve the purpose. I wouldn't object to a wiki of a type "Wikilang" if the idea is only to save the crucial and various aspects of the language itself for historical purposes in a way not conducive to a Wikipedia article, but a full Wikipedia or other project seems unnecessary.
I think that depends on the project. A Wikipedia needs more people that actively support it (i.e. write articles) than a Wikinews project, which needs more people than a Wikisource project.
IMO, it does not make sense to create projects in languages that have too few speakers to make it viable. If a language has only 10000 speakers (native or second-language), there's no way they can produce a full encyclopaedia in that language. However, it only takes a few enthusiastic individuals to create a Wikinews project. A Wikisource project would only need a single person who archives free texts.
Claus
Hoi, You attempt to answer a question that is not asked. The question is about Wikis not about Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 1:39 PM, Claus Färber GMANE@faerber.muc.de wrote:
Nathan schrieb:
If the purpose of a Wikipedia or wiki in general is to communicate information... then creating a wiki to serve a small group of people who are already fluent in other major languages does not serve the purpose. I wouldn't object to a wiki of a type "Wikilang" if the idea is only to save the crucial and various aspects of the language itself for historical purposes in a way not conducive to a Wikipedia article, but a full Wikipedia or other project seems unnecessary.
I think that depends on the project. A Wikipedia needs more people that actively support it (i.e. write articles) than a Wikinews project, which needs more people than a Wikisource project.
IMO, it does not make sense to create projects in languages that have too few speakers to make it viable. If a language has only 10000 speakers (native or second-language), there's no way they can produce a full encyclopaedia in that language. However, it only takes a few enthusiastic individuals to create a Wikinews project. A Wikisource project would only need a single person who archives free texts.
Claus
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I personally don't know that there should be completely rigid rules on this, but I have some thoughts on Wikisources.
Most texts in extinct language can be hosted in a derivative language Wikisource or on the multi-lingual WS. When "creating a Wikisource in an extint language" is discussed; it really means "creating system messages in an extinct language". The texts are static and will not change based on the language used for navigation where they are hosted. In case anyone is unaware; en.WS has Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Scots texts.
Birgitte SB
--- Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You attempt to answer a question that is not asked. The question is about Wikis not about Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 1:39 PM, Claus Färber GMANE@faerber.muc.de wrote:
Nathan schrieb:
If the purpose of a Wikipedia or wiki in general
is to communicate
information... then creating a wiki to serve a
small group of people
who are already fluent in other major languages
does not serve the
purpose. I wouldn't object to a wiki of a type
"Wikilang" if the idea
is only to save the crucial and various aspects
of the language
itself for historical purposes in a way not
conducive to a Wikipedia
article, but a full Wikipedia or other project
seems unnecessary.
I think that depends on the project. A Wikipedia
needs more people that
actively support it (i.e. write articles) than a
Wikinews project, which
needs more people than a Wikisource project.
IMO, it does not make sense to create projects in
languages that have
too few speakers to make it viable. If a language
has only 10000
speakers (native or second-language), there's no
way they can produce a
full encyclopaedia in that language. However, it
only takes a
few enthusiastic individuals to create a Wikinews
project. A Wikisource
project would only need a single person who
archives free texts.
Claus
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Hoi, When a Wikisoure is considered for an extinct language, I do want to waive the requirement for the localisation of the system messages. This cannot be done without the creation of neologisms. Thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 4:29 PM, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I personally don't know that there should be completely rigid rules on this, but I have some thoughts on Wikisources.
Most texts in extinct language can be hosted in a derivative language Wikisource or on the multi-lingual WS. When "creating a Wikisource in an extint language" is discussed; it really means "creating system messages in an extinct language". The texts are static and will not change based on the language used for navigation where they are hosted. In case anyone is unaware; en.WS has Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Scots texts.
Birgitte SB
--- Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You attempt to answer a question that is not asked. The question is about Wikis not about Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 1:39 PM, Claus Färber GMANE@faerber.muc.de wrote:
Nathan schrieb:
If the purpose of a Wikipedia or wiki in general
is to communicate
information... then creating a wiki to serve a
small group of people
who are already fluent in other major languages
does not serve the
purpose. I wouldn't object to a wiki of a type
"Wikilang" if the idea
is only to save the crucial and various aspects
of the language
itself for historical purposes in a way not
conducive to a Wikipedia
article, but a full Wikipedia or other project
seems unnecessary.
I think that depends on the project. A Wikipedia
needs more people that
actively support it (i.e. write articles) than a
Wikinews project, which
needs more people than a Wikisource project.
IMO, it does not make sense to create projects in
languages that have
too few speakers to make it viable. If a language
has only 10000
speakers (native or second-language), there's no
way they can produce a
full encyclopaedia in that language. However, it
only takes a
few enthusiastic individuals to create a Wikinews
project. A Wikisource
project would only need a single person who
archives free texts.
Claus
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do or do not want to waive the requirement?
Birgitte SB
--- Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When a Wikisoure is considered for an extinct language, I do want to waive the requirement for the localisation of the system messages. This cannot be done without the creation of neologisms. Thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 4:29 PM, Birgitte SB birgitte_sb@yahoo.com wrote:
I personally don't know that there should be completely rigid rules on this, but I have some thoughts on Wikisources.
Most texts in extinct language can be hosted in a derivative language Wikisource or on the
multi-lingual
WS. When "creating a Wikisource in an extint language" is discussed; it really means "creating system messages in an extinct language". The
texts
are static and will not change based on the
language
used for navigation where they are hosted. In
case
anyone is unaware; en.WS has Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, and Scots texts.
Birgitte SB
--- Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
wrote:
Hoi, You attempt to answer a question that is not
asked.
The question is about Wikis not about Wikipedia. Thanks, GerardM
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 1:39 PM, Claus Färber GMANE@faerber.muc.de wrote:
Nathan schrieb:
If the purpose of a Wikipedia or wiki in
general
is to communicate
information... then creating a wiki to serve
a
small group of people
who are already fluent in other major
languages
does not serve the
purpose. I wouldn't object to a wiki of a
type
"Wikilang" if the idea
is only to save the crucial and various
aspects
of the language
itself for historical purposes in a way not
conducive to a Wikipedia
article, but a full Wikipedia or other
project
seems unnecessary.
I think that depends on the project. A
Wikipedia
needs more people that
actively support it (i.e. write articles) than
a
Wikinews project, which
needs more people than a Wikisource project.
IMO, it does not make sense to create projects
in
languages that have
too few speakers to make it viable. If a
language
has only 10000
speakers (native or second-language), there's
no
way they can produce a
full encyclopaedia in that language. However,
it
only takes a
few enthusiastic individuals to create a
Wikinews
project. A Wikisource
project would only need a single person who
archives free texts.
Claus
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Hoi, Ancient languages, languages that used to be spoken by people that are dead cannot be used to discuss the modern concepts; they just lack the words. When you insist on reviving a language, it is not the language it used to be. Stating that it is indeed old greek or whatever when new words have to be invented all the time makes it a language that is not what it is said to be, it is not what is defined in the ISO-639 standard.
This is in marked contrast to constructed languages. Constructed languages ARE modern languages, they DO allow for the creation of new words when the words are lacking in that language. The whole notion that constructed languages should not have new projects is something I have always objected against. It is wrong and the stance is in my opinion dogmatic.
The issue is typically very much one of labelling. When Latin is considered an ancient language, it is so because there is no people who speak the language. However, it has been continuously spoken and new words have been continuously added. This in my opinion is why there is no problem with having a Latin Wikipedia. It is also the reason why we have a committee and not a blind process that deals with requests for new languages.
When people want to write in a particular language, a language that allows for new terminology, they can as far as I am concerned have a project as long as it has its ISO-639 code. An ISO-639 code because it codifies what language we are talking about. A ISO-639 code because it prevents disasters like the one we suffered with "Siberian".
When people learn about subjects, a different presentation can make a difference in learning and understanding. It is for this reason that I welcome all living languages including constructed languages. Thanks, GerardM
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 11:10 PM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) < pathoschild@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation mission to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to make it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native users, allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead, a wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 6:10 PM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
If you plan to keep the Volapük Wikipedia the answer should be yes.
Hoi, Nobody ever categorised Volapuk as an extinct language... Also there is NOTHING being discussed about existing projects. What is discussed are new projects. Thanks, GerardM
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:36 AM, Fajro faigos@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Mar 29, 2008 at 6:10 PM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) pathoschild@gmail.com wrote:
Hello,
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
If you plan to keep the Volapük Wikipedia the answer should be yes.
-- △ ℱajro △ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Wed, Apr 2, 2008 at 8:26 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Nobody ever categorised Volapuk as an extinct language... Also there is
Maybe "undead language" would be a better category fot it.
NOTHING being discussed about existing projects. What is discussed are new projects. Thanks, GerardM
So... you are voting "yes" too.
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 12:10 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) < pathoschild@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation mission to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to make it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native users, allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead, a wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
If there are people willing to develop and administer the language edition of the encyclopedia, sure. At worst it is their time to waste. Such users should be willing to operate the wiki as in take care of vandalism and etc.
If the wiki somehow successfully resurrects a dead language, no harm done. It would be great publicity too. I see this as a no risk endeavored we should take.
The role of the language subcommittee in my view should be to determine weather or not there is enough of a community to launch a new language edition of a project.
This is essentially my position.
However, there is a line to be crossed - when we are writing a language based on existing materials, and when we are writing in a language that we have made up. A Gothic or Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia could possibly stay on the proper side of this line, but a Sumerian Wikipedia probably could not and a Carian Wikipedia definitely could not.
Mark
On 02/04/2008, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 12:10 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) < pathoschild@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation mission to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to make it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native users, allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead, a wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
If there are people willing to develop and administer the language edition of the encyclopedia, sure. At worst it is their time to waste. Such users should be willing to operate the wiki as in take care of vandalism and etc.
If the wiki somehow successfully resurrects a dead language, no harm done. It would be great publicity too. I see this as a no risk endeavored we should take.
The role of the language subcommittee in my view should be to determine weather or not there is enough of a community to launch a new language edition of a project.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hoi, When Gothic was never written in the Latin script, the line is crossed when it is written in the Latin script. When a encyclopaedia cannot be written in a language because there is not enough vocabulary and consequently neologisms have to be created to write the text or when words are given a meaning that they did not originally have the line is crossed.
Certainly Gothic and probably Anglo-Saxon language have crossed the line already.
Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 9:50 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
This is essentially my position.
However, there is a line to be crossed - when we are writing a language based on existing materials, and when we are writing in a language that we have made up. A Gothic or Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia could possibly stay on the proper side of this line, but a Sumerian Wikipedia probably could not and a Carian Wikipedia definitely could not.
Mark
On 02/04/2008, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 12:10 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) < pathoschild@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation
mission
to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to
make
it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native
users,
allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead,
a
wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
If there are people willing to develop and administer the language
edition
of the encyclopedia, sure. At worst it is their time to waste. Such
users
should be willing to operate the wiki as in take care of vandalism and
etc.
If the wiki somehow successfully resurrects a dead language, no harm
done.
It would be great publicity too. I see this as a no risk endeavored we should take.
The role of the language subcommittee in my view should be to determine weather or not there is enough of a community to launch a new language edition of a project.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
What are these neologisms you are talking about? Please give multiple examples. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just skeptical of your claims.
As far as Gothic goes, that is a project I was involved with closer to the beginning and I advocated for the use of Gothic script. However, people became lazy and resorted to using Latin script. It is really not as difficult to use the Gothic script as they make it seem... and in the future I hope we can overcome this nasty anachronism. Script alone is not an argument enough to say that they are departing from the corpus, however.
Mark
On 03/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When Gothic was never written in the Latin script, the line is crossed when it is written in the Latin script. When a encyclopaedia cannot be written in a language because there is not enough vocabulary and consequently neologisms have to be created to write the text or when words are given a meaning that they did not originally have the line is crossed.
Certainly Gothic and probably Anglo-Saxon language have crossed the line already.
Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 9:50 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
This is essentially my position.
However, there is a line to be crossed - when we are writing a language based on existing materials, and when we are writing in a language that we have made up. A Gothic or Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia could possibly stay on the proper side of this line, but a Sumerian Wikipedia probably could not and a Carian Wikipedia definitely could not.
Mark
On 02/04/2008, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 12:10 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) < pathoschild@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation
mission
to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to
make
it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native
users,
allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead,
a
wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
If there are people willing to develop and administer the language
edition
of the encyclopedia, sure. At worst it is their time to waste. Such
users
should be willing to operate the wiki as in take care of vandalism and
etc.
If the wiki somehow successfully resurrects a dead language, no harm
done.
It would be great publicity too. I see this as a no risk endeavored we should take.
The role of the language subcommittee in my view should be to determine weather or not there is enough of a community to launch a new language edition of a project.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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Note also that most pages are available in the Gothic alphabet... the main page is almost exclusively in Gothic, and the main interface messages (though not all of them) are written in Wulfilas' alphabet again.
Mark
On 03/04/2008, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
What are these neologisms you are talking about? Please give multiple examples. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just skeptical of your claims.
As far as Gothic goes, that is a project I was involved with closer to the beginning and I advocated for the use of Gothic script. However, people became lazy and resorted to using Latin script. It is really not as difficult to use the Gothic script as they make it seem... and in the future I hope we can overcome this nasty anachronism. Script alone is not an argument enough to say that they are departing from the corpus, however.
Mark
On 03/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When Gothic was never written in the Latin script, the line is crossed when it is written in the Latin script. When a encyclopaedia cannot be written in a language because there is not enough vocabulary and consequently neologisms have to be created to write the text or when words are given a meaning that they did not originally have the line is crossed.
Certainly Gothic and probably Anglo-Saxon language have crossed the line already.
Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 9:50 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
This is essentially my position.
However, there is a line to be crossed - when we are writing a language based on existing materials, and when we are writing in a language that we have made up. A Gothic or Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia could possibly stay on the proper side of this line, but a Sumerian Wikipedia probably could not and a Carian Wikipedia definitely could not.
Mark
On 02/04/2008, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 12:10 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) < pathoschild@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation
mission
to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to
make
it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native
users,
allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead,
a
wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
If there are people willing to develop and administer the language
edition
of the encyclopedia, sure. At worst it is their time to waste. Such
users
should be willing to operate the wiki as in take care of vandalism and
etc.
If the wiki somehow successfully resurrects a dead language, no harm
done.
It would be great publicity too. I see this as a no risk endeavored we should take.
The role of the language subcommittee in my view should be to determine weather or not there is enough of a community to launch a new language edition of a project.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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Hoi, When you learn a language, the language should be learned warts and all. I disagree with you that writing in the Latin script should be qualified as acceptable at all. A WMF project is written for the benefit of the READERS of that project Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 10:04 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
What are these neologisms you are talking about? Please give multiple examples. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just skeptical of your claims.
As far as Gothic goes, that is a project I was involved with closer to the beginning and I advocated for the use of Gothic script. However, people became lazy and resorted to using Latin script. It is really not as difficult to use the Gothic script as they make it seem... and in the future I hope we can overcome this nasty anachronism. Script alone is not an argument enough to say that they are departing from the corpus, however.
Mark
On 03/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When Gothic was never written in the Latin script, the line is crossed
when
it is written in the Latin script. When a encyclopaedia cannot be
written in
a language because there is not enough vocabulary and consequently neologisms have to be created to write the text or when words are given
a
meaning that they did not originally have the line is crossed.
Certainly Gothic and probably Anglo-Saxon language have crossed the
line
already.
Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 9:50 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com
wrote:
This is essentially my position.
However, there is a line to be crossed - when we are writing a language based on existing materials, and when we are writing in a language that we have made up. A Gothic or Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia
could
possibly stay on the proper side of this line, but a Sumerian Wikipedia probably could not and a Carian Wikipedia definitely could not.
Mark
On 02/04/2008, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 12:10 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) < pathoschild@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a
living
native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist
nature).
This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation
mission
to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being".
Thus,
the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is
to
make
it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native
users,
allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission
because it
does not make that project accessible to more human beings.
Instead,
a
wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language
don't
want to provide educational material to more people at all, but
only
want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble
goals,
they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki
should
not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be
allowed in
every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
If there are people willing to develop and administer the language
edition
of the encyclopedia, sure. At worst it is their time to waste.
Such
users
should be willing to operate the wiki as in take care of vandalism
and
etc.
If the wiki somehow successfully resurrects a dead language, no
harm
done.
It would be great publicity too. I see this as a no risk
endeavored we
should take.
The role of the language subcommittee in my view should be to
determine
weather or not there is enough of a community to launch a new
language
edition of a project.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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I never said it is acceptable. I said I have been one of the prime advocates within that project for using Wulfilas' alphabet.
However, I do not think that using the Latin alphabet (which it doesn't even do on all pages... just some of them) means it departs from the corpus.
Mark
On 03/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When you learn a language, the language should be learned warts and all. I disagree with you that writing in the Latin script should be qualified as acceptable at all. A WMF project is written for the benefit of the READERS of that project Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 10:04 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
What are these neologisms you are talking about? Please give multiple examples. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just skeptical of your claims.
As far as Gothic goes, that is a project I was involved with closer to the beginning and I advocated for the use of Gothic script. However, people became lazy and resorted to using Latin script. It is really not as difficult to use the Gothic script as they make it seem... and in the future I hope we can overcome this nasty anachronism. Script alone is not an argument enough to say that they are departing from the corpus, however.
Mark
On 03/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When Gothic was never written in the Latin script, the line is crossed
when
it is written in the Latin script. When a encyclopaedia cannot be
written in
a language because there is not enough vocabulary and consequently neologisms have to be created to write the text or when words are given
a
meaning that they did not originally have the line is crossed.
Certainly Gothic and probably Anglo-Saxon language have crossed the
line
already.
Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 9:50 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com
wrote:
This is essentially my position.
However, there is a line to be crossed - when we are writing a language based on existing materials, and when we are writing in a language that we have made up. A Gothic or Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia
could
possibly stay on the proper side of this line, but a Sumerian Wikipedia probably could not and a Carian Wikipedia definitely could not.
Mark
On 02/04/2008, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 12:10 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) < pathoschild@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a
living
native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist
nature).
This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation
mission
to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being".
Thus,
the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is
to
make
it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native
users,
allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission
because it
does not make that project accessible to more human beings.
Instead,
a
wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language
don't
want to provide educational material to more people at all, but
only
want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble
goals,
they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki
should
not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be
allowed in
every extinct language?
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
If there are people willing to develop and administer the language
edition
of the encyclopedia, sure. At worst it is their time to waste.
Such
users
should be willing to operate the wiki as in take care of vandalism
and
etc.
If the wiki somehow successfully resurrects a dead language, no
harm
done.
It would be great publicity too. I see this as a no risk
endeavored we
should take.
The role of the language subcommittee in my view should be to
determine
weather or not there is enough of a community to launch a new
language
edition of a project.
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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You know some of this is offtopic (regarding this thread) :)
- White Cat
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 11:32 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I never said it is acceptable. I said I have been one of the prime advocates within that project for using Wulfilas' alphabet.
However, I do not think that using the Latin alphabet (which it doesn't even do on all pages... just some of them) means it departs from the corpus.
Mark
On 03/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When you learn a language, the language should be learned warts and
all. I
disagree with you that writing in the Latin script should be qualified
as
acceptable at all. A WMF project is written for the benefit of the
READERS
of that project Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 10:04 PM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com
wrote:
What are these neologisms you are talking about? Please give multiple examples. I'm not saying they don't exist, I'm just skeptical of your claims.
As far as Gothic goes, that is a project I was involved with closer
to
the beginning and I advocated for the use of Gothic script. However, people became lazy and resorted to using Latin script. It is really not as difficult to use the Gothic script as they make it seem... and in the future I hope we can overcome this nasty anachronism. Script alone is not an argument enough to say that they are departing from the corpus, however.
Mark
On 03/04/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When Gothic was never written in the Latin script, the line is
crossed
when
it is written in the Latin script. When a encyclopaedia cannot be
written in
a language because there is not enough vocabulary and consequently neologisms have to be created to write the text or when words are
given
a
meaning that they did not originally have the line is crossed.
Certainly Gothic and probably Anglo-Saxon language have crossed
the
line
already.
Thanks, GerardM
On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 9:50 PM, Mark Williamson <node.ue@gmail.com
wrote:
This is essentially my position.
However, there is a line to be crossed - when we are writing a language based on existing materials, and when we are writing in
a
language that we have made up. A Gothic or Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia
could
possibly stay on the proper side of this line, but a Sumerian Wikipedia probably could not and a Carian Wikipedia definitely
could
not.
Mark
On 02/04/2008, White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com
wrote:
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 12:10 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) < pathoschild@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello, > > The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a
living
> native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist
nature).
> This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia
Foundation
mission
> to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human
being".
Thus,
> the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language
is
to
make
> it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no
native
users,
> allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission
because it
> does not make that project accessible to more human beings.
Instead,
a
> wiki in their native languages should be requested if it
doesn't
> already exist. > > Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct
language
don't
> want to provide educational material to more people at all,
but
only
> want to promote or revive the language. While these are
noble
goals,
> they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a
wiki
should
> not be created simply to fulfill them. > > But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be
allowed in
> every extinct language? > > -- > Yours cordially, > Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild) > >
If there are people willing to develop and administer the
language
edition
of the encyclopedia, sure. At worst it is their time to
waste.
Such
users
should be willing to operate the wiki as in take care of
vandalism
and
etc.
If the wiki somehow successfully resurrects a dead language,
no
harm
done.
It would be great publicity too. I see this as a no risk
endeavored we
should take.
The role of the language subcommittee in my view should be to
determine
weather or not there is enough of a community to launch a new
language
edition of a project.
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Jesse Martin (Pathoschild <pathoschild@...> writes:
Hello,
The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature). This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation mission to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus, the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to make it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native users, allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead, a wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't already exist.
Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals, they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should not be created simply to fulfill them.
But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in every extinct language?
Hi, sorry to but in late on. I am LeighvsOptimvsMaximvs and was one of the main advocates for the Ancient Greek wikipedia and contributed to the test project and interface translation. I have a few comments to add to this thread.
Firstly, I agree with some of the posters here that the mission of the Foundation to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being" does fit with the creation of wikipedias in ancient languages. "Providing knowledge" is quite a broad concept; I think that creating a wikipedia in a language that is widely studied, that does not have a modern encyclopaedia, but that can be used to make one, does aid the provision of knowledge to some human beings. In any case, even if it only help to provide knowledge of the language itself, it surely does more to help with the aims of the project than to hinder them.
Secondly, it does not follow that if we take the mission statement to mean that a new project should only be allowed if it makes the project accessible to more human beings we should ask whether there are any first-language speakers; instead we should ask whether there is anyone who can only understand that language: there are many living languages whose speakers are all able to read in another language. It may be true that everyone who can speak an ancient language can understand another language, but if we take that to mean that an Ancient Greek wikipedia does not fit with the project's aims then one could also argue that most of the wikipedias are unnecessary. If we had always forbade languages whose speakers can all speak another language we might not have any Celtic language wikipedias, we certainly would not have any of the wikipedias in dialects of Dutch or German whose speakers can all understand the standard written dialect and we might even have only one wikipedia in a Scandinavian language. If you would reject the argument that we should not have a Gaelic language wikipedia because all the speakers of that language understand written English and that such a project would only serve to promote the language, then you should think carefully about whether we should reject Greek wikipedia on those grounds. Obviously here is a difference insofar as the languages I have mentioned do have native speakers, but the mission statement does not have anything to do with native speakers: whether a language is someone's first, second or third is irrelevant when we are talking only about imparting knowledge (one could say that standard written English is just a learned dialect for most English speakers).
Thirdly, wikipedias can still be created in artificial languages. All of the above arguments apply here, and I really can not see why a wikipedia in an artificial language which is not used by anyone as a native language and whose speakers all speak another language is deemed to fit with the goals of the Foundation, but a wikipedia in an ancient language which is still used often by thousands of people but which is not used by anyone as a native language and whose speakers all speak another language is deemed to not fit with them.
If the mission statement had been to "do what is absolutely necessary to provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being and nothing else" then we would have to forbid languagres with no native speakers (I refuse to call Ancient Greek dead: it is just in a persistent vegetative state. Latin" just smells funny" ;)). But it doesn't so we don't.
On another point, a few people have stated that some ancient languages can not be used to write about the modern world. This might only have been an argument against the wikipedias in certain ancient languages such as Akkadian and Egyptian, but I would still like to show that one can not say this about Ancient Greek. Because there is a great deal of literature written in ancient Greek about science, mathematics and philosophy, because Ancient Greek can, did and still does create new compound words and because Ancient Greek authors were able to use understandable circumlocutions when writing about things alien to their society, Greek would probably better than any other ancient language for writing an encyclopaedia. I do no foresee any major problems writing about telephones and triskaidekaphobia. If Vicipaedia can cope with the modern world, Οὐκιπαιδεια will be able to as well. In fact there is evidence of Ancient Greek being used to write about the modern world: look at the Greek Harry Potter and the "Akropolis world news" website which discusses nuclear weapons and football; at my university it is not unusual for examiners to set prose composition exams to second year undergraduates which require us to write about the modern world, so it is not something which only professions can do.
Now, I appreciate that some members of the language subcommittee are reluctant to allow the creation of language which do not have a valid ISO-639 code lest people take advantage of the precedent that would be set, but I think that there should be some flexibility, especially as the request was made before this rule was introduced. The fact that rules are applied retrospectively seems very unfair. We could prevent people from citing precedent by pointing out that, if a Greek wikipedia (which was conditionally approved) were finally approved, it would have been approved according to the rules as they were when the request was made. The new rules would only apply to projects proposed after they were made.
Thank you,
LeighvsOptimvsMaximvs
the discussion continue in the following threads:
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/28501
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/28246
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/28241
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/28228
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/28672
Adam S.
Wikimedia Foundation mission to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being".
Sometimes people ask me how many languages I know, because they hear me using several. My answer is that I can say "hello, please and thank you" in many languages, but can only speak English properly. I then add that I can *read* many more languages than I can speak, but most of these are dead languages.
So, I am better at *listening* to dead people than *speaking* to living ones.
But why is this so? Why do I spend so much time listening to dead people?
It is because I want *knowledge*, that only they can tell me.
But my point is this.
AnCiEnT LaNgUaGeS ArE NoT DeAd.
They are not *spoken* any more, but many of them are READ every day. They are read for the sake of knowledge -- unique perspectives on human life. And believe me, much is lost in translation. These languages have their own subtle ways of saying things -- it's awesome!
If Wiki, as I hope, relaxes its stance on exclusively WRITTEN languages, indeed these will be demonstrably living entities, written and read every day, with an edit history to prove it!
It is precisely because many written (not dead) languages are still alive, still understood, still bearing information, that people want to join with others in using them. If this language community is small, it is still volunteering its own services, what does it cost Wiki? Why discriminate against a minority group on the grounds they do not speak their language?
End prejudice! End censorship!
Give WRITTEN languages their voice!
No more discriminatory speaker-ism! No more rude words like "dead" languages!
Aiding the growth of knowledge of written languages _by their use_ is a very progressive project, and Wiki an ideal medium for it.
This decision is even more profound than transcribing reliable sources, to aid human knowledge.
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