[Wikipedia-l] Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokmå l?

Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se> wrote: I truly wish it was that simple! The main problem with the (otherwise very nice) proposed solution is the proposed use of "no:" exclusively for the bokmål form, something most nynorsk users will never accept. Therefore, it is the existing solution which is the compromise, and the proposed "compromise" is no compromise at all, but will probably be regarded by many as the bokmål users "stealing" the common "no:" code for their own use, thus igniting a real conflict. It is misleading to say "Bokmål stays at no:", because "no:" was never a pure bokmål Wikipedia. "no:" has so far been the *common Norwegian* Wikipedia. However, since "nb:" exists only as a link to "no:", and since nynorsk now has its own Wikipedia at "nn:", almost all new articles in "no:" are in bokmål. But that still does not change the meaning of the ISO code "no:". The first two reasons are simply false, as long as we do not remove all existing articles from "no:" when creating "nb:". If we do move an article away from "no:", we should leave a link to its new home in "nb:" or "nn:", or to both if it exists in both. No problem, and no dead links! The third reason is a pretty far-fetched analogue to a different kind of umbrella address. If there were only two Wikipedia languages in the world, and they both had the same official status, I think that www.wikipedia.org would point to both, not just to the bigger one. (For your information, only 63 of the world's approximately 6,700 living languages have more native speakers than that, so Swedish is in the top 1% if we're talking size. There is hardly any standard by which you can call Swedish a "small" language.) As languages go, nynorsk actually has a rather big and active user base, and most nynorsk users are also very conscious (some would say "sensitive") about language issues, having always been overshadowed by its "bigger brother", bokmål. In many contexts, nynorsk users resent very strongly the use of the word "Norwegian" (or "norsk") when what is meant is "bokmål". I predict that by promoting such inaccurate use of the code for "Norwegian", the proposed solution would make a lot of people very upset. This was yet another (unspoken) reason why my original proposal did not opt for any kind of renaming or moving of existing Wikipedias, just the creation of a new one ("nb:") in addition to the existing ones. I still think that is the best way to go. Ulf Lunde Some references: Languages of the world ordered by number of users: http://bertilow.com/lanlin/lingvoj.html Languages of the world ordered by language family: http://geography.about.com/msub83.htm