How exactly am I telling others how they should be spending their time?
Chances are I would spend more time getting people situated at the Friulian Wikipedia than anybody on this list would.
Oh, wait, I just found this quote: "You guys should all do hard labour for the benifit of Wikipedia, while I sit home and veg out on the couch!"
Oh wait, that's not a real quote.
I have worked hard to get small and new Wikipedias up and running.
I have sent e-mails, helped people every step of the way in some cases, made logos, watched for vandalism, and have requested new Wikipedias for people, scn: having been (so far) a success.
If you think I go around selecting random languages to request new Wikipedias for, then you are very very very wrong. Before I do anything like that, I make sure there is at least one potential contributor, and preferrably more or some community involvement.
Regarding forks: you may have dealt with forks and the threat of forks before, but have you ever dealt with the threat of new policy which completely goes against what you think Wikipedia stands for? Whatever it is you like about Wikipedia, if all of a sudden that was taken and totally reversed, I think there's a very good chance you would start a fork or defect to an already-existing one.
Even if I can find no people to help with a fork, I can do it myself. It may not be as easy that way, but when drastic changes to policy are threatened, sometimes drastic measures have to be taken to ensure a continued healthy multilingual environment.
mark
On Mon, 01 Nov 2004 21:47:02 -0800, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
If any of these measures get passed, the fork which I previously mentioned and was serious about pursuing but not too enthusiastic about will really become a priority and I will put lots of time and effort into it, and it may well attract other Wikipedians shocked at new linguistically-opressive policies.
Probably the right thing for you to do anyway, so that you're putting in some real effort of your own, instead of telling everybody else how they should be spending their time. Speaking as someone who's dealt with forks and the threat of forks in the past, I think you'll find that it's a lot of trouble; if you can't find five people to work on language WPs, you're not going to find the resources to keep a fork going either. But some people need to learn by doing, and the creation of the fork will be a valuable learning experience for you.
Stan