I believe there has to be some principles in minor language Wikipedias.
Setting up an encyclopedia is not just about self expression, it has to
serve public good. Moreover, proposals and actual performances have to
stand some very basic prima facie scrutiny.
If a language has 1000 speakers. Only 100 can read (most of them use
another mainstream language). And only 10 of them can write (the writing
system could be difficult, e.g. Egyptian hieroglyph). And only 5 of them
sre active contributors. The five of them would become the de facto
knowledge controllers.
If each user of that language uses a mainstream language Wikipedia, it
will be good. However, to those who consult that minor Wikipedia, he or
she could be mislead by inaccurate information (e.g. bias, mistake,
outdated materials ...). Because that minor Wikipedia is written most by
a handful of people (possibly friends of similar backgrounds), it
becomes much more unlikely that a mistake could be corrected.
Even if that user knows there's a mistake, he or she may not be able to
correct it. Many minor languages users are not fluent speakers. Some may
not know how to type that particular script.
And the limited active contributors also may have a very restricted
knowledge base. The five of them may not know much about astronomy for
example. They may translate. They could make mistakes. They could also
selectively translate less important parts of an article because they
may not know much about the mathematics, physics, chemistry, history ...
about that subject. Unless they can ask others to join, their works may
not be trusted.
In case the user knows how to double check, it may not be a problem.
However, if a user still has to consult a mainstream language source, it
makes that minor Wikipedia less relevant. And if the user cannot read
another language and failed to find another minor language source, the
bug-ridden Wikipedia could do more harm than good. An encyclopedia has
to serve a public good to justify its existence.
It is a bad idea to setup encyclopedias in so many languages. I don't
mind if anyone wants to start a Wiki in Pig Latin or Nadsat. You can
easily auto translate English into these two artificial languages. But
for many minor languages, it may be not feasible. The few articles could
be untrustworthy. Wikipedia is not a language conservation project. The
reason why people trust English Wikipedia is because of the number of
contributors and fact checkers. We don't want this site to become the
largest source of rumor.
I think it will be good if they contribute to the Wiktionary.
Besides the number of active regular contributors, they may need sources
of reference materials and public domain sources. In English, you have
the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, Project Gutenberg, CIA Fact Book and
many other online materials. It is easy to build many pages without much
efforts and mistakes in most major languages. They have so many printed
reference materials. To many minor languages, they have very few books
other than a language textbook, the Bible or an out-of-print dictionary.
It is really not a very good idea that they start an encyclopedia
project at this moment.
Jiaqing Bao