Tim Starling wrote:
Anthere wrote:
I wish that we do not go backward and isolate minor projects and minor languages. It is very important that we discuss these topics globally. Minorities also are welcome on wikipedia and they need attention. Not the darkness of an intl-l list again. We do not need more lists. The issue of whether we want wikipedia to become only a list of 20 major languages, or if we want wikipedia to be also a resource in many minor languages, and in that case what we should do for all languages which are currently non active, is a global issue. It needs to be here.
Does it have to be discussed here case-by-case? We've made no progress whatsoever towards useful principles, and there's been no consensus on anything. The Board has been silent on this despite repeated requests for a decision. All we need is some sort of decent decision-making process -- for example a committee or a vote of those concerned. I've previously suggested that major dialects as listed by SIL could be automatically accepted.
There's tens of thousands of dialects in the world, do we have to have a flame war about each one?
I sympathize with Tim on this. For anything other than a conlang, all that should be needed to get a pedia going is one hard-working individual who is able to work in the language in question. One hard worker is worth far more than a dozen individuals who merely support that pedia without any personal familiarity with the language. If one serious individual is there let's give him the chance. He can be started with a major language interface of his choice that he can translate at his leisure. If that project is getting nowhere, or appears abandoned it can be harmlessly frozen until someone else comes along with enough interest. We all want these projects to succeed, and that can't happen if a proponent needs to be flame-war tested before he can start anything.
Ec