On Apr 4, 2004, at 21:26, Erik Moeller wrote: [snip]
I realize that Brion is a fan of languages, and since he sets up those wikis he pretty much decides what is acceptable. Shouldn't those languages undergo some basic public approval process first, though, so that we can determine whether there is really any value in creating them? In my opinion, Wikipedia should not be a promotional vehicle for other people's pet projects.
The value of a Wikipedia project wiki comes in several ways:
First, there's the long-term goal of being a useful informational resource for the public.
Second, there's the short-term enjoyment we Wikipedians get from working on the project.
Third, there's spill-over in getting people involved. Grabbing people's interest for one project can get them interested in another one, or more generally in the Free/Open Source ideals.
Certainly there are people who have derided the existence of the Esperanto-language Wikipedia, but having it has brought a number of people to Wikipedia in general, such as myself, who might not have been called to it otherwise. I started patching the old UseMod wiki to better support Esperanto and Unicode, and ended up pretty much maintaining the software and server config.
Will an Esperanto-language Wikipedia really educate lay readers in the future better? Maybe, maybe not. But as a recruiting tool it's certainly been a success, and I'd rather not begrudge that chance to others.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)