Jay, by "unfortunately", I meant that I would like as much as you would to see a Wikipedia in Ladino and Chinook Jargon.
The same, however, cannot be said for everybody -- most people here believe in a strict system of checks and balances to make sure that we don't create new Wikipedias excessively.
There is no specific policy. Theoretically - and this is theoretically -- you could request a constructed language spoken by only one person, with no supporters for its creation, and even a statement that "Oh I just want it to exist, I'll never actually use it", and it would still be possible (in an alternate reality where the developers are entirely devoid of the proper decision-making skills, of course) for it to be created. It would not, technically, be against policy.
It would also not be against policy to have a request for a Wikipedia denied, where it had 3000 signatures in support of its creation, no opposition, an ISO code, millions of speakers, and a couple of hundred people committed to working on it.
However, keep in mind that these are both extremes, and neither is likely to ever actually happen. What they are there to demonstrate is that right now there __are no regulations__. If somebody told you there is a policy of 5 supporters, they are wrong. It is a *proposed* policy.
There are no concrete requirements. It seems to be entirely at the discretion of developers. And they, in turn, seem to be swayed by whether or not it is controversial, how much support it enjoys, and how likely it is that it will be active.
Tim Starling has proposed that it be a decision of the board, but so far it doesn't seem to be a real problem -- we haven't not created Wikipedias where people were nearly banging our doors down (Scots, Kapampangan, Cebuano, and Võro are possible examples), and we haven't created any Wikipedias that aren't active (note that this applies only from the period of the creation of the Friulian Wikipedia, forward; the previous round of creation saw Sicilian, Anglo-Saxon, and Gothic; though the former two are quite active, and the latter has quite a bit of Gothic text, the Gothic Wikipedia is essentially inactive, although it occasionally grows in fits and starts).
I hate to say it, but Ladino is simply not a case of people banging our doors down, which seems to be the standard now. No native speaker has requested it. You are the only one to have manifested on the mailinglist. Only one article exists on the test Wikipedia. None of the additional votes of support were from within the Wikimedia community, and it certainly can't be verified whether they're real people.
Again, I would like to iterate: I want the Ladino Wikipedia to be created this very instant. I would not mind whether it was active or not, or how many supporters there were, or whether there were any native speakers. This sort of stuff doesn't worry me. But, it worries others, and they are the majority, and the majority is, in some way or another, in control here.
You have judged, based on the fact that you joined amid my posts about the Low Saxon Wikipedia, that I am an enemy of new Wikipedias, that I do not want them to be created.
In fact, I am despised for my annoying persistance for just the opposite. Among the languages for which I have (often incessantly) advocated are, Gothic, Old English, Võro, Amis, Old Greek, Old Norse, Cantonese, Shanghainese, a separate Traditional Chinese Wikipedia, and Wikipedias in a huge list of other languages. This is appreciated by some, but by far the reaction is one of just the opinion I described above.
This community has set the bar very high. The reason appears to be that it used to be much lower -- subdomains were created at anybody's request, on a whim. And we ended up with aa: (Afar), kk: (Kazakh), tg: (Tajik), and scores of other Wikipedias which are at best inactive and at worst completely empty. The Nauruan Wikipedia was in a mysterious conlang for a while. This was remedied -- sort of. Since there are still no Nauruans, it is now maintained by a group of people who are interested in Nauruan but don't actually know the language -- their entire knowledge is based on flipping back and forth in an outdated grammar book, using an old orthography, although they will assure you it is entirely up-to-date and correct. How many of them have been to Nauru? 0. Most are Europeans, including "Cars en Travel", aka "Belgian man", aka a number of other things, and "Cvddawguiasdmpss" (not sure of his exact username, but it looks a bit like that and probably starts with a C and ends with an S), the former of whom is, no surprise, Belgian, and the latter who is a Swissman with a German background, apparently of the city of Basel.
And, since we still have no Nauruans, they continue this. But now that it is in a semi-real Nauruan, there's not much anybody can do (when it was in a Romance conlang rather than even pseudo, semi-Nauruan, people were outraged, but they were calmed largely by the so-called "fixing").
The Dzongkha Wikipedia used to be in a false language. The mainpage was moved to "Gilst Ooli", which as far as I can tell means nothing in any language. Perhaps it's similar to the content I wrote at Test-wiki about Hilary Clinton, Ben Affleck, and others, in a humourous (if you look close enough, that is), pseudo-language that was really just keyboard smashing with the occasional planned insertion of content intended to make it hilarious to a small subset of the population of the world. Sadly, I am not able to retrieve it now, but I wish for the world that I were. But that is off-topic. The Dzongkha Wikipedia mainpage had text in some bizzare text, probably a pseudo-language of structured, careful construction but with no actual meaning attached to words (like mine at test-wiki).
This, too, shocked the public. I wish I'd never reported it -- that seems to be what sparked a great deal of the fire beneath the collective ass of the community.
You are welcome to search the archives of this mailinglist for the original discussions regarding this.
Also, having come in în the middle of the Low Saxon discussion/argument/fight/war, you would probably be surprised to hear: Netherlands Low Saxon is the first Wikipedia in a natural language I have explicitly opposed, since forever. When much of the rest of the community doubted, I enthusiastically supported new Wikipedias in Cantonese, Shanghainese, Old English, Gothic, Sicilian, Friulian, and droves of others.
Mark
On 13/07/05, ilooy ilooy.gaon@gmail.com wrote:
2005/7/13, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
Jay, unfortunately chances are there will be no Ladino or Chinook Jargon Wikipedias until such time as they reach a level of support similar to that enjoyed by the Scots Wikipedia proposal or the Cebuano Wikipedia proposal.
Ah, I can see, Mark, that you said "unfortunately", and this I take to mean that fortunately we have an established procedure according to the page on meta which states that if there are five people that plan to support the wiki then it should be set up. Especially if the language is a natural tongue and it has an ISO tag. Well, both cases are good to go on Ladino. So fortunately it seems the case for foot-dragging would be moot concerning Ladino.
It should have its sub-domain and it should enjoy a good presence among the other languages in Wikisphere if we are to set up guidelines and these are to be followed, "que no"?
With regards always, Jay B. en:User:ILVI ilooy.gaon@gmail.com