On 10/16/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
Milos has been working on software tools to allow for
full support in
*one* Wikipedia of all 4 major ways of writing this language.
Actually, four variants are only for Serbian standards :) There would
be more variants if we include Croatian and Bosnian standards and
sub-standards. Bosniaks have two more standards (just Latin and
Cyrillic) and two more sub-standards (they have Ikavian sub-standard
written in both alphabets) and Croats have one more sub-standard
(Ikavian, too; written in Latin alphabet only).
(As well as we should have three more Wikipedias in the (far) future:
so called "dialects" Chakavian, Kaykavian and Torlakian are language
systems with more difference between each other and between Shtokavian
dialect (and all standards which are based on Shtokavian dialect) then
all standards are different between each other. But, this is
completely another story.)
But, we have to finish Serbian version, first. BTW, if some person
responsible for WMF/Mediawiki reads this, may (s)he introduce me how
can we implement finished work on Serbian Wikipedia; i.e., what is the
formal process? We finished the first part of the work and that work
may be implemented on sr:.
I have an idea how not to waste three/four times more time on a lot of
articles AND how not to hurt anyone's feelings (or feelings of the
great majority of Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian Wikipedians). But, one
of the important element of this idea is that we need to work a lot on
software and communication before we start to talk about "the final
solution".