I agree, however apparently there is some reason (which I do not yet fully comprehend) that we must be very careful with Wikipedias in different languages. If you create one, I will be happy to add it to http://www.bloglines.com/public/inactivewikipedias until it has perhaps 100 articles which should prevent "squatting" (and I don't see why squatting is such a huge concern anyways, it's still a very rare occurance and should probably be treated as pure vandalism unless it's actually in a real language).
So apparently every single language or dialect has to go before the board and waste their time...
Anyhow I feel that this case is special as it does not have anything to do with creating a new Wikipedia, but entails the very real issue of sh.wikipedia, an already-existing Wikipedia with over 100 articles (though many are inappropriate) that has been locked which may or may not be appropriate for it at this time but needs further discussion, and I feel wikipedia-l is the best place for such a discussion because that way the international Wikipedia community has the chance to participate.
Mark
On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 01:04:35 +1100, Tim Starling t.starling@physics.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
Anthere wrote:
2 years and a half ago, I fought so that wikipedia-l stopped being the english wikipedia mailing list only and become a global mailing list. I fought so that all wikipedias could be on the same foot of equality and that decisions could be discussed together. 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?
-- Tim Starling
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