On Sat, 30 Oct 2004 00:11:02 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I propose we adopt Wikitravel's policy of requiring at least five potential contributors before starting a new language. See http://www.wikitravel.org/en/article/Wikitravel:Language_version_policy
Hmm, how many of the Wikipedias with currently over 100 articles started out with more than 5 contributors? From personal experience alone, I can guarantee you that lb: (with currently over 1000 articles) and kw: (with currently over 200 articles) did not, and I'm sure many or even most other Wikipedias are in the same situation.
Looking at the statistics (http://nl.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediansContributors.htm), I find only 6 Wikipedia languages with 5 contributors in the first month of their 'real' existence: en, he, fa, ast, be and tokipona. In the second month this was reached by de, pl, fi, bg, ro, uk, ur. For all other Wikipedias there was more difference between the time of their first and their fifth user, although in reality there may be some more because there might be non-registered users as well.
My own opinion is that a non-dead natural language with an ISO 639 code would in principle be okay for Wikipedia. There can of course be exceptions, but to me at that moment the burden of proof lies with those who disagree.
Andre Engels