Hi,
I think the recent discussion here shows a very worrying recent trend in Wikipedia: growing intolerance towards the diversity of the community and a growing distancing of Wikipedia's original community structure: a free community that was known for doing things differently.
Ever since I came here, one of the reason why I loved the Wikimedia community was because it was tolerant and it was very inclusive and respectful of minority rights. The support for endangered and minority languages is very important, and must be maintained.
While not being the primary aim, supporting endangered languages is one way through which Wikipedia is contributing to human knowledge... it's preserving a very important element of human culture. As soon as we stray away from that goal, Wikipedia loses its special status, by becoming yet another encyclopedia.
Raphael Wiegand said, "We are (or better we want to be) a project trying to set up an encyclopedia everyone can access and understand and nothing else."
This is wrong, in my opinion. While writing an encyclopedia is the primary aim, I think we can also achieve the secondary aim of protection for minority languages, all of which contribute to Wikipedia's breadth of knowledge. Having a complete encyclopedia in 40 languages is a good thing. Having an encyclopedia in 250 languages is an excellent one.
The other thing that makes me worried is the growing pressure on new language contributors. We must remember that Wikipedians are *volunteers* and most, except vandals, are always adding knowledge to the community. Pressuring them into reaching a certain guideline for their language is abuse, in my opinion. If only because we're abusing their love for their language - their desire to promote it - by forcing them to meet ever more stringent guidelines for setting up Wikipedias in new languages. New contributors must be encouraged, not discouraged. I think making a subdomain a privelege is nonsensical. Wikipedia is not like free web hosting - it's not the one giving away free stuff. The contributors are giving away their time and knolwedge freely for Wikipedia!
Which is why I propose that we take a second to look into the problem with a bit of perspective, and realise the depth that minority languages have added to Wikipedia. As I said before, it's one thing to say you've got an encyclopedia in German, and another to say you've got one in Samogitian, or in Voro, or in Aromanian.
For a new language to be formed, I think the present policy is good enough. A community should be demonstrated, and a test wiki should be founded, but nothing more than that. Otherwise, we risk discouraging new contributors who are insipring people that are full of enthusiasm. Otherwise Wikipedia becomes elitist (or is that word too controversial to use in the Wikipedia context!?!)
Thanks,
Ronline
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