Tim Starling wrote:
People underestimate the cost involved in setting up a wiki.
Once again I'd like to point out that having a language-specific Wikipedia is not usually the best way to organize, promote, or develop a language.
It's probably much better for a group of interested people working on a small or endangered language to set up a general-purpose wiki that encompasses the Wikimedia ideas of a Wikipedia, Wiktionary, a language-learning Wikibook, and perhaps a few other community- or discussion-oriented purposes.
There are a _lot_ of free or low-cost PHP hosting services that can host a wiki. Mediawiki can be hard to set up on these services, since MySQL usually costs significantly more, but there are a number of other wiki engines* that work with flat files and don't require a database.
Anyways: I think the best strategy is to tell people who want to have a Wikipedia in their language to go start a wiki somewhere else. If they can show that they have a robust community that can support a Wikipedia, then they should get an xx.wikipedia.org domain (as well as other xx.wikisomething.org stuff).
~ESP
* I can hear it now: "Huh? There are other wiki engines? There are other wikis? I can set up my own? Huh?"
I find that horribly discriminatory.
And where do we draw the line? 3 speakers? 300? 3000? 30000? 300000? 3 million? 30 million?
--node
On Sun, 19 Sep 2004 02:15:30 -0400, Evan Prodromou evan@wikitravel.org wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
People underestimate the cost involved in setting up a wiki.
Once again I'd like to point out that having a language-specific Wikipedia is not usually the best way to organize, promote, or develop a language.
It's probably much better for a group of interested people working on a small or endangered language to set up a general-purpose wiki that encompasses the Wikimedia ideas of a Wikipedia, Wiktionary, a language-learning Wikibook, and perhaps a few other community- or discussion-oriented purposes.
There are a _lot_ of free or low-cost PHP hosting services that can host a wiki. Mediawiki can be hard to set up on these services, since MySQL usually costs significantly more, but there are a number of other wiki engines* that work with flat files and don't require a database.
Anyways: I think the best strategy is to tell people who want to have a Wikipedia in their language to go start a wiki somewhere else. If they can show that they have a robust community that can support a Wikipedia, then they should get an xx.wikipedia.org domain (as well as other xx.wikisomething.org stuff).
~ESP
- I can hear it now: "Huh? There are other wiki engines? There are other wikis?
I can set up my own? Huh?"
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hi,
Le Sunday 19 September 2004 08:54, Mark Williamson a écrit :
I find that horribly discriminatory.
And where do we draw the line? 3 speakers? 300? 3000? 30000? 300000? 3 million? 30 million?
Not at all. I find it very reasonable that any project show at least some support from a minimum of contributors. As an example, Wikitravel has a rule to get 5 contributors before staring a new language project.
I think a rule like this should be necessary to start any project within the WMF.
--node
Best wishes, Yann
On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 23:54:39 -0700 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I find that horribly discriminatory.
And where do we draw the line? 3 speakers? 300? 3000? 30000? 300000? 3 million? 30 million?
No hard line. The question is: Do we expect this to be a succesful project, and help Wikipedia's mission to spread information? There's no hard limit for that, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. If I make a language tomorrow, should it get a Wikipedia? If I work on it for a year? If I get 2 other people to speak it? 10 other people? 1000? A million? Half the world?
Andre Engels
I'm not referring to conlangs as they are more controversial and should be dealt with separately.
However I would ask you the following questions: 1. does anybody speak your conlang as their native language? 2. if not, does anybody use it in their daily life significantly more than any other language? 3. How many speakers does it have overall?
If your answer to 1 was "yes", I would definitely consider supporting it. If your answer to 2 was yes and your answer to 3 was over 1000 or so, I would consider supporting it. However, the majority of conlangs (especially newly-created ones) do not have very many speakers, and even those that do oftentimes have no native speakers or nobody who uses them more than any other language in their day-to-day life.
--node
On Sun, 19 Sep 2004 17:21:50 +0200, Andre Engels andrewiki@freemail.nl wrote:
On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 23:54:39 -0700 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I find that horribly discriminatory.
And where do we draw the line? 3 speakers? 300? 3000? 30000? 300000? 3 million? 30 million?
No hard line. The question is: Do we expect this to be a succesful project, and help Wikipedia's mission to spread information? There's no hard limit for that, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. If I make a language tomorrow, should it get a Wikipedia? If I work on it for a year? If I get 2 other people to speak it? 10 other people? 1000? A million? Half the world?
Andre Engels
EP> Anyways: I think the best strategy is to tell people who want to have a EP> Wikipedia in their language to go start a wiki somewhere else. If they can show EP> that they have a robust community that can support a Wikipedia, then they should EP> get an xx.wikipedia.org domain (as well as other xx.wikisomething.org stuff).
Actually, this is how Polish Wikipedia started - it was first on a different server, with a different domain, and then moved to pl.wikipedia.org.
Evan Prodromou wrote:
There are a _lot_ of free or low-cost PHP hosting services that can host a wiki. Mediawiki can be hard to set up on these services, since MySQL usually costs significantly more, but there are a number of other wiki engines* that work with flat files and don't require a database.
Yes, but MediaWiki is the best :) Besides, the annual fees that go into paying "low-cost" hosting services could well go to our developers. It's only a few hundred US dollars but not too stingy for an hour of setting-up.
Anyways: I think the best strategy is to tell people who want to have a Wikipedia in their language to go start a wiki somewhere else. If they can show that they have a robust community that can support a Wikipedia, then they should get an xx.wikipedia.org domain (as well as other xx.wikisomething.org stuff).
So they go find an ad-supported PHP hosting service, run a non-MediaWiki installation, build up a small but active community, finally have a Wikipedia subdomain approved. And then have to start all over again? Won't migrating the database consume even more developer time? Or do the speakers of this language have to hire a developer to do that? Or just copy-and-paste and lose the history?
The Walon Wikipedia was fortunate to have received assistance in migrating its data into Wikipedia. The Minnan Wikipedia still has articles sitting out there. But knowing the developers' time is highly constrained, we have not complained nor do we see it as a "right" to receive such help. But I do want to point out some possible consequences.
~ESP
- I can hear it now: "Huh? There are other wiki engines? There are other
wikis? I can set up my own? Huh?"
That's an awful impression.
On Sep 19, 2004, at 11:34 PM, Henry H. Tan-Tenn wrote:
The Walon Wikipedia was fortunate to have received assistance in migrating its data into Wikipedia. The Minnan Wikipedia still has articles sitting out there. But knowing the developers' time is highly constrained, we have not complained nor do we see it as a "right" to receive such help.
If someone had *asked* we'd have been happy to help... I at least never heard any request to do this.
At this point it would be harder to merge two separate wikis that have undergone separate development, but we can probably arrange something if that's desired.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
On Sep 20, 2004, at 11:31 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
On Sep 19, 2004, at 11:34 PM, Henry H. Tan-Tenn wrote:
The Walon Wikipedia was fortunate to have received assistance in migrating its data into Wikipedia. The Minnan Wikipedia still has articles sitting out there. But knowing the developers' time is highly constrained, we have not complained nor do we see it as a "right" to receive such help.
If someone had *asked* we'd have been happy to help... I at least never heard any request to do this.
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2004-May/010194.html I have *asked* if anybody can help to transfer the articles from old holopedia to the newly created min-nan wikipedia but it seems that developers are too busy.
At this point it would be harder to merge two separate wikis that have undergone separate development, but we can probably arrange something if that's desired.
The dump is still out there http://tmjiang.dyndns.org/wikipedia/wikipedia-backup.sql Can we copy the old articles with history to the new min-nan wikipedia, to avoid conflict, we can try to add a tag to old article name to be xxxx_old or something like that. Once the xxxx_old articles are moved to the new min-nan wikipedia, we can do the merge or rename of the articles.
best pektiong
On Sep 20, 2004, at 9:09 AM, Tân PekTiong wrote:
On Sep 20, 2004, at 11:31 PM, Brion Vibber wrote:
On Sep 19, 2004, at 11:34 PM, Henry H. Tan-Tenn wrote:
The Walon Wikipedia was fortunate to have received assistance in migrating its data into Wikipedia. The Minnan Wikipedia still has articles sitting out there. But knowing the developers' time is highly constrained, we have not complained nor do we see it as a "right" to receive such help.
If someone had *asked* we'd have been happy to help... I at least never heard any request to do this.
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2004-May/010194.html I have *asked* if anybody can help to transfer the articles from old holopedia to the newly created min-nan wikipedia but it seems that developers are too busy.
Unfortunately it seems no one noticed this at the time...
At this point it would be harder to merge two separate wikis that have undergone separate development, but we can probably arrange something if that's desired.
The dump is still out there http://tmjiang.dyndns.org/wikipedia/wikipedia-backup.sql Can we copy the old articles with history to the new min-nan wikipedia, to avoid conflict, we can try to add a tag to old article name to be xxxx_old or something like that. Once the xxxx_old articles are moved to the new min-nan wikipedia, we can do the merge or rename of the articles.
Can someone take a look at this? I'll try to get to it later in the week if not (I'm at a conference right now with limited free time).
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion Vibber wrote:
On Sep 20, 2004, at 9:09 AM, Tân PekTiong wrote:
<snip>
The dump is still out there http://tmjiang.dyndns.org/wikipedia/wikipedia-backup.sql
I wgeted dump in /home/wikipedia/ in case the dyndns site come down :o)
So, in the interest of the Anglo-Saxon wikipedia, how do I, personally, set it up outside the wikimedia foundation, so that I can get it started?
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Evan Prodromou Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2004 2:16 AM To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Starting a new wiki
Tim Starling wrote:
People underestimate the cost involved in setting up a wiki.
Once again I'd like to point out that having a language-specific Wikipedia is not usually the best way to organize, promote, or develop a language.
It's probably much better for a group of interested people working on a small or endangered language to set up a general-purpose wiki that encompasses the Wikimedia ideas of a Wikipedia, Wiktionary, a language-learning Wikibook, and perhaps a few other community- or discussion-oriented purposes.
There are a _lot_ of free or low-cost PHP hosting services that can host a wiki. Mediawiki can be hard to set up on these services, since MySQL usually costs
significantly more, but there are a number of other wiki engines* that work with flat files and don't require a database.
Anyways: I think the best strategy is to tell people who want to have a Wikipedia in their language to go start a wiki somewhere else. If they can show that they have a robust community that can support a Wikipedia, then they should get an xx.wikipedia.org domain (as well as other xx.wikisomething.org stuff).
~ESP
* I can hear it now: "Huh? There are other wiki engines? There are other wikis? I can set up my own? Huh?"
Well, you have a number of different options.
The first and probably best would be to go to Wikipedia forks such as Wikinfo and mcfly (ok, maybe not mcfly) and tell them how the folks at the Wikimedia organisation are... well, describe your plight. Some forks really hate the Wikimedia foundation and will feel very sorry for you and assist you with such a project, whereas others seem to be meant more to augment Wikipedia and their users still contribute to Wikipedia on a regular basis.
Another option would be to pay for private hosting and set up the MediaWiki software yourself, which I can tell you is not going to be very pleasant if you're not experienced in setting up server-side apps. You could probably also hire somebody to maintain the software for you (often hosting companies will offer such services), but that's just another additional cost.
The only other option I can think of at the moment is to use one of the free wiki hosts available on the internet. Let me tell you in advance, they all suck. Really, really suck. But obviously, they are free so you don't have to pay anybody as you would in the second scenario.
best, node
ps I thought the final decision was to go ahead and create ang:?
On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 16:36:25 -0400, James R. Johnson modean52@comcast.net wrote:
So, in the interest of the Anglo-Saxon wikipedia, how do I, personally, set it up outside the wikimedia foundation, so that I can get it started?
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Evan Prodromou Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2004 2:16 AM To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Starting a new wiki
Tim Starling wrote:
People underestimate the cost involved in setting up a wiki.
Once again I'd like to point out that having a language-specific Wikipedia is not usually the best way to organize, promote, or develop a language.
It's probably much better for a group of interested people working on a small or endangered language to set up a general-purpose wiki that encompasses the Wikimedia ideas of a Wikipedia, Wiktionary, a language-learning Wikibook, and perhaps a few other community- or discussion-oriented purposes.
There are a _lot_ of free or low-cost PHP hosting services that can host a wiki. Mediawiki can be hard to set up on these services, since MySQL usually costs
significantly more, but there are a number of other wiki engines* that work with flat files and don't require a database.
Anyways: I think the best strategy is to tell people who want to have a Wikipedia in their language to go start a wiki somewhere else. If they can show that they have a robust community that can support a Wikipedia, then they should get an xx.wikipedia.org domain (as well as other xx.wikisomething.org stuff).
~ESP
- I can hear it now: "Huh? There are other wiki engines? There are other
wikis? I can set up my own? Huh?"
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Oh, also there is the additional option of setting up shop at a Wikipedia that has had little or no action. This is *not* something I would encourage! Please exhaust all other options first. Depending on which language you choose though, it could take a very short time or a very long time for anybody to realise what you're doing. And if you can round up a good sized group of contributors, and you get up a sizable number of articles, when you *are* eventually found out there is a good chance the content will be kept, but moved to a different subdomain (most likely ang:).
As I said before though, that is the last thing you should try! Unlike the other options there is the inevitability of getting caught, and the fact that it's against the rules. So really I would not recommend this except as a last resort, and if you *do* do it, choose a language with low internet connectivity and a small speaker population overall.
--node
ps Seriously, don't do that.
On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 14:49:51 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Well, you have a number of different options.
The first and probably best would be to go to Wikipedia forks such as Wikinfo and mcfly (ok, maybe not mcfly) and tell them how the folks at the Wikimedia organisation are... well, describe your plight. Some forks really hate the Wikimedia foundation and will feel very sorry for you and assist you with such a project, whereas others seem to be meant more to augment Wikipedia and their users still contribute to Wikipedia on a regular basis.
Another option would be to pay for private hosting and set up the MediaWiki software yourself, which I can tell you is not going to be very pleasant if you're not experienced in setting up server-side apps. You could probably also hire somebody to maintain the software for you (often hosting companies will offer such services), but that's just another additional cost.
The only other option I can think of at the moment is to use one of the free wiki hosts available on the internet. Let me tell you in advance, they all suck. Really, really suck. But obviously, they are free so you don't have to pay anybody as you would in the second scenario.
best, node
ps I thought the final decision was to go ahead and create ang:?
On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 16:36:25 -0400, James R. Johnson modean52@comcast.net wrote:
So, in the interest of the Anglo-Saxon wikipedia, how do I, personally, set it up outside the wikimedia foundation, so that I can get it started?
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Evan Prodromou Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2004 2:16 AM To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Starting a new wiki
Tim Starling wrote:
People underestimate the cost involved in setting up a wiki.
Once again I'd like to point out that having a language-specific Wikipedia is not usually the best way to organize, promote, or develop a language.
It's probably much better for a group of interested people working on a small or endangered language to set up a general-purpose wiki that encompasses the Wikimedia ideas of a Wikipedia, Wiktionary, a language-learning Wikibook, and perhaps a few other community- or discussion-oriented purposes.
There are a _lot_ of free or low-cost PHP hosting services that can host a wiki. Mediawiki can be hard to set up on these services, since MySQL usually costs
significantly more, but there are a number of other wiki engines* that work with flat files and don't require a database.
Anyways: I think the best strategy is to tell people who want to have a Wikipedia in their language to go start a wiki somewhere else. If they can show that they have a robust community that can support a Wikipedia, then they should get an xx.wikipedia.org domain (as well as other xx.wikisomething.org stuff).
~ESP
- I can hear it now: "Huh? There are other wiki engines? There are other
wikis? I can set up my own? Huh?"
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Mark Williamson wrote:
Oh, also there is the additional option of setting up shop at a Wikipedia that has had little or no action. This is *not* something I would encourage! Please exhaust all other options first. Depending on which language you choose though, it could take a very short time or a very long time for anybody to realise what you're doing. And if you can round up a good sized group of contributors, and you get up a sizable number of articles, when you *are* eventually found out there is a good chance the content will be kept, but moved to a different subdomain (most likely ang:).
I don't mind if people squat on empty wikis, since their secrecy means that they won't be able to request help writing language files, or to ask for help in making interlanguage links. In fact, I'll happily create any wiki if the potential contributors agree in advance to use a language file which is already mature, and that you refrain from requesting interface customisations which require developer attention.
If that seems like a bizarre rule, then maybe you should re-read my posts, where I have repeatedly attempted to explain my objection.
James R. Johnson wrote:
I thought it would be created also...there was quite a bit of support when I originally proposed the idea, and then everyone started talking about Chinese and Gothic. The only reason I heard against it is that someone didn't feel like it. But, what about all the wikis with less than 10 articles? Looks like they don't feel like it either.
Same goes for you, unless you can convince one of the other developers to set this up. I find it hard to believe that I'm in this situation, that I'm the only one willing to even talk about setting up these wikis. It puts me in a situation of power that I'm not asking for. But if that's how it has to be, then I guess we have to talk about a compromise.
-- Tim Starling
On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 15:44:39 +1000, Tim Starling ts4294967296@hotmail.com wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
Oh, also there is the additional option of setting up shop at a Wikipedia that has had little or no action. This is *not* something I would encourage! Please exhaust all other options first. Depending on which language you choose though, it could take a very short time or a very long time for anybody to realise what you're doing. And if you can round up a good sized group of contributors, and you get up a sizable number of articles, when you *are* eventually found out there is a good chance the content will be kept, but moved to a different subdomain (most likely ang:).
I don't mind if people squat on empty wikis, since their secrecy means that they won't be able to request help writing language files, or to ask for help in making interlanguage links. In fact, I'll happily create any wiki if the potential contributors agree in advance to use a language file which is already mature, and that you refrain from requesting interface customisations which require developer attention.
Not nessecarily. I think it's quite possible somebody could take advantage of the system and request help writing language files; do they have to actually tell the developer that it's not for the right language? For some languages ie bo:, I can see that the fact it wasn't written in the right script would be a dead giveaway, but if somebody used some sort of conlang phonotactically similar to Tahitian on ty:, I can't imagine anybody could easily pick up on it.
Anyhow I would be quite happy to help people with language files. Interface customisations I'm afraid I can't help with, but I can help people with language files if they/you want.
Also, what you said about creating any wiki where the contributors agree to (your terms)... does that extend to *all* languages, or only languages that have already been discussed on the ML? While I personally do not see the existance of say got: doing much harm to anybody, others obviously have objections to its creation. Would you "happily create" a wikipedia for a language in this situation? What if the original requester had asked you before the ML?
Also, I'm curious as to why there was only one serious objector to ang:, but got: seems to have turned into a hot topic...
--node
On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 15:44:39 +1000, Tim Starling ts4294967296@hotmail.com wrote:
In fact, I'll happily create any wiki if the potential contributors agree in advance to use a language file which is already mature, and that you refrain from requesting interface customisations which require developer attention.
This seems like a reasonable suggestion for most of the languages under debate. The tiny langs with no articles in them often have the default english interface and logo, which doesn't keep people from starting to develop content...
Tim Starling wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
Oh, also there is the additional option of setting up shop at a Wikipedia that has had little or no action. This is *not* something I would encourage! Please exhaust all other options first. Depending on which language you choose though, it could take a very short time or a very long time for anybody to realise what you're doing. And if you can round up a good sized group of contributors, and you get up a sizable number of articles, when you *are* eventually found out there is a good chance the content will be kept, but moved to a different subdomain (most likely ang:).
I don't mind if people squat on empty wikis, since their secrecy means that they won't be able to request help writing language files, or to ask for help in making interlanguage links. In fact, I'll happily create any wiki if the potential contributors agree in advance to use a language file which is already mature, and that you refrain from requesting interface customisations which require developer attention.
If that seems like a bizarre rule, then maybe you should re-read my posts, where I have repeatedly attempted to explain my objection.
Actually, it appears that is *exactly* what is being done at http://na.wikipedia.org/
I have investigated and na.wikipedia as well as na.wiktionary appear to be totally fraudulent. I'm not sure what language they *are* in, but it sure as hell isn't Nauruan - the dead giveaway is "el welcomi gua wikipedia gua nauruoese" - a number of hints in that one sentence: 1 "welcomi" is *not* a Nauruan word, teh Nauruan word for "welcome" is "talofa" 2 The Nauruan language for itself is not "nauruoese" but rather "nauri".
In addition the names of articles can be used as an example. "Langue" is not Nauruan for language, the Nauruan word would be "ekakairu" or "edorer". "Nasion" is not Nauruan for nation, the Nauruan word would be "ename" or "eponname". "Xiao" is not Nauruan for city, the Nauruan word would be "tekawa". Of course since "Suaong" has no interwiki link I cannot tell what it's supposed to mean, but suffice to say the word does not appear in any Nauruan dictionary.
Also notable is this language's usage of an -s suffix to indicate plurals, as in English and many Romance languages. A Polynesian language such as Nauruan would not indicate plurals with a suffix like that, and even if it *did*, it would be an extreme coincidence if it was the same as in English.
It also appears that this language has noun cases - "xiao" (city) because "xiae" (not sure what case either of these are, but I think the former might be nominative and the latter accusative). This is a feature that most definitely DOES NOT appear in Polynesian languages (I would say it doesn't occur in Austronesian languages at all, but I don't know that for sure).
Also suspect is the fact that a huge portion of the words they use are cognate to English words - this would not be the case for a real text in Nauruan.
--node
On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 18:20:42 -0700 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, it appears that is *exactly* what is being done at http://na.wikipedia.org/
I have investigated and na.wikipedia as well as na.wiktionary appear to be totally fraudulent. I'm not sure what language they *are* in, but it sure as hell isn't Nauruan - the dead giveaway is "el welcomi gua wikipedia gua nauruoese" - a number of hints in that one sentence: 1 "welcomi" is *not* a Nauruan word, teh Nauruan word for "welcome" is "talofa" 2 The Nauruan language for itself is not "nauruoese" but rather "nauri".
na.wiktionary does not really exist, so how can it be fraudulent?
In addition the names of articles can be used as an example. "Langue" is not Nauruan for language, the Nauruan word would be "ekakairu" or "edorer". "Nasion" is not Nauruan for nation, the Nauruan word would be "ename" or "eponname". "Xiao" is not Nauruan for city, the Nauruan word would be "tekawa". Of course since "Suaong" has no interwiki link I cannot tell what it's supposed to mean, but suffice to say the word does not appear in any Nauruan dictionary.
I have done a look, and haven't been able to recognize the language.
[[Nauru Bwiema]] seems to be real Nauruan, but other parts have indeed another feel, more like a Romanic language; Spanish seems to be closest, but I know too little to say that with any certainty. But then "Liao gu Xiao" sounds more like Chinese (although going from Spanish we could perhaps etymologize Xiao=Ciudad).
Andre Engels
On Tue, 28 Sep 2004 14:24:05 +0200, Andre Engels andrewiki@freemail.nl wrote:
On Mon, 27 Sep 2004 18:20:42 -0700 Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, it appears that is *exactly* what is being done at http://na.wikipedia.org/
I have investigated and na.wikipedia as well as na.wiktionary appear to be totally fraudulent. I'm not sure what language they *are* in, but it sure as hell isn't Nauruan - the dead giveaway is "el welcomi gua wikipedia gua nauruoese" - a number of hints in that one sentence: 1 "welcomi" is *not* a Nauruan word, teh Nauruan word for "welcome" is "talofa" 2 The Nauruan language for itself is not "nauruoese" but rather "nauri".
na.wiktionary does not really exist, so how can it be fraudulent?
http://na.wiktionary.org/wiki/Main_Page
Sure, it may have 0 articles, but at least the text of the mainpage isn't real Nauruan.
In addition the names of articles can be used as an example. "Langue" is not Nauruan for language, the Nauruan word would be "ekakairu" or "edorer". "Nasion" is not Nauruan for nation, the Nauruan word would be "ename" or "eponname". "Xiao" is not Nauruan for city, the Nauruan word would be "tekawa". Of course since "Suaong" has no interwiki link I cannot tell what it's supposed to mean, but suffice to say the word does not appear in any Nauruan dictionary.
I have done a look, and haven't been able to recognize the language.
[[Nauru Bwiema]] seems to be real Nauruan, but other parts have indeed another feel, more like a Romanic language; Spanish seems to be closest, but I know too little to say that with any certainty. But then "Liao gu Xiao" sounds more like Chinese (although going from Spanish we could perhaps etymologize Xiao=Ciudad).
Yes, I think Nauru Bwiema was copied from the actual text of the Nauruan national anthem.
As for the real language, it seems more to me like Occitan than Spanish.
--node
I thought it would be created also...there was quite a bit of support when I originally proposed the idea, and then everyone started talking about Chinese and Gothic. The only reason I heard against it is that someone didn't feel like it. But, what about all the wikis with less than 10 articles? Looks like they don't feel like it either.
I looked, and the Afar, Armenian, Assamese, Aymara, Bashkir, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bislama, Burmese, Dzongkha, Fijian, Georgian, Greenlandic, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Kazakh, Khmer, Kyrgiz, Lao, Lojban, Quechua, Manx, Nepali, Oriya, Oromo, Panjabi, Pashtu, Rumansh, Sardinian, Setswana, Somali, Sindhi, Sotho, Tajik, Telugu, Tibetan, Tongan, Tsonga, Turkmen, Twi, Uighur, and Xhosa have 10 or fewer articles. Are those who thought little of Gothic or Anglo-Saxon going to look again at those wikis?
Just a thought.
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mark Williamson Sent: Monday, September 20, 2004 5:50 PM To: wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Starting a new wiki
Well, you have a number of different options.
The first and probably best would be to go to Wikipedia forks such as Wikinfo and mcfly (ok, maybe not mcfly) and tell them how the folks at the Wikimedia organisation are... well, describe your plight. Some forks really hate the Wikimedia foundation and will feel very sorry for you and assist you with such a project, whereas others seem to be meant more to augment Wikipedia and their users still contribute to Wikipedia on a regular basis.
Another option would be to pay for private hosting and set up the MediaWiki software yourself, which I can tell you is not going to be very pleasant if you're not experienced in setting up server-side apps. You could probably also hire somebody to maintain the software for you (often hosting companies will offer such services), but that's just another additional cost.
The only other option I can think of at the moment is to use one of the free wiki hosts available on the internet. Let me tell you in advance, they all suck. Really, really suck. But obviously, they are free so you don't have to pay anybody as you would in the second scenario.
best, node
ps I thought the final decision was to go ahead and create ang:?
On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 16:36:25 -0400, James R. Johnson modean52@comcast.net wrote:
So, in the interest of the Anglo-Saxon wikipedia, how do I, personally,
set
it up outside the wikimedia foundation, so that I can get it started?
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Evan Prodromou Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2004 2:16 AM To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Starting a new wiki
Tim Starling wrote:
People underestimate the cost involved in setting up a wiki.
Once again I'd like to point out that having a language-specific Wikipedia is not usually the best way to organize, promote, or develop a language.
It's probably much better for a group of interested people working on a small or endangered language to set up a general-purpose wiki that encompasses the Wikimedia ideas of a Wikipedia, Wiktionary, a language-learning Wikibook, and perhaps a few other community- or discussion-oriented purposes.
There are a _lot_ of free or low-cost PHP hosting services that can host a wiki. Mediawiki can be hard to set up on these services, since MySQL usually
costs
significantly more, but there are a number of other wiki engines* that
work
with flat files and don't require a database.
Anyways: I think the best strategy is to tell people who want to have a Wikipedia in their language to go start a wiki somewhere else. If they can show that they have a robust community that can support a Wikipedia, then they should get an xx.wikipedia.org domain (as well as other xx.wikisomething.org stuff).
~ESP
- I can hear it now: "Huh? There are other wiki engines? There are other
wikis? I can set up my own? Huh?"
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Hi,
Le Tuesday 21 September 2004 05:38, James R. Johnson a écrit :
I looked, and the Afar, Armenian, Assamese, Aymara, Bashkir, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bislama, Burmese, Dzongkha, Fijian, Georgian, Greenlandic, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Kazakh, Khmer, Kyrgiz, Lao, Lojban, Quechua, Manx, Nepali, Oriya, Oromo, Panjabi, Pashtu, Rumansh, Sardinian, Setswana, Somali, Sindhi, Sotho, Tajik, Telugu, Tibetan, Tongan, Tsonga, Turkmen, Twi, Uighur, and Xhosa have 10 or fewer articles. Are those who thought little of Gothic or Anglo-Saxon going to look again at those wikis?
It's surprising that Bengali Wikipedia didn't start yet. There are probably more than 200 millions people speaking Bengali, although I don't how many among these have Bengali as their monther tongue (190M according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language, 207M according to other sources). And Bengali people have also a strong reputation for cultural awareness, and the Bengali language has a long tradition of poetry and literature.
Each of Assamese, Burmese, Gujarati, Kannada, Khmer, Nepalese, Oriya, Panjabi, Pashtu, Sindhi, and Telugu have more than 10 millions speakers. However most of these speakers have a poor Internet connectivity at the best. So it just a matter of time when Internet connections become easily available in these parts of the world.
Just a thought.
James
Regards, Yann
Yann Forget wrote:
Hi,
It's surprising that Bengali Wikipedia didn't start yet. There are probably more than 200 millions people speaking Bengali, although I don't how many among these have Bengali as their monther tongue (190M according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language, 207M according to other sources). And Bengali people have also a strong reputation for cultural awareness, and the Bengali language has a long tradition of poetry and literature.
The Nobel Prize (1913) winner Tagore wrote in Bengali, though probably mostly for those works that were available in English at the time. I understand that there far more of his works that have never been translated. Tagore died in 1941, so his works are essentially all in the public domain based on the life plus 60 law that prevails for India.
Each of Assamese, Burmese, Gujarati, Kannada, Khmer, Nepalese, Oriya, Panjabi, Pashtu, Sindhi, and Telugu have more than 10 millions speakers. However most of these speakers have a poor Internet connectivity at the best. So it just a matter of time when Internet connections become easily available in these parts of the world.
These are probably langiages that we would really like to serve. Gujarati, Punjabi and Pashtu all have significant diasporas where there are people that are in a better position to take the initiative. Here in the Vancouver area the Punjabi Sikhs are one of the largest immigrant communities. Maybe I should enter into promotional discussions with some of them..
Another advantage that is available for the Asian languages is an established written language. This is not the case for most African or native American languages. It's just a matter of time before the Asians get it together.
Ec
Hi,
Le Tuesday 21 September 2004 19:08, Ray Saintonge a écrit :
translated. Tagore died in 1941, so his works are essentially all in the public domain based on the life plus 60 law that prevails for India.
I am not sure. Does this apply worldwide? If yes, I have some texts available for Wikisource.
Ec
Yann
Hmm...
If it does, I can help with typing them in (if they're not already typed).
--node
On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 19:25:23 +0200, Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net wrote:
Hi,
Le Tuesday 21 September 2004 19:08, Ray Saintonge a écrit :
translated. Tagore died in 1941, so his works are essentially all in the public domain based on the life plus 60 law that prevails for India.
I am not sure. Does this apply worldwide? If yes, I have some texts available for Wikisource.
Ec
Yann
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclopédie libre http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Yann Forget wrote:
Hi,
Le Tuesday 21 September 2004 19:08, Ray Saintonge a écrit :
translated. Tagore died in 1941, so his works are essentially all in the public domain based on the life plus 60 law that prevails for India.
I am not sure. Does this apply worldwide? If yes, I have some texts available for Wikisource.
For the relevant Indian law see http://www.naukri.com/lls/copyright/section5.htm#22
For the relationship to US law see [[Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc.]] in Wikipedia.
Ec
Hi,
Le Tuesday 21 September 2004 22:25, Ray Saintonge a écrit :
translated. Tagore died in 1941, so his works are essentially all in the public domain based on the life plus 60 law that prevails for India.
I am not sure. Does this apply worldwide? If yes, I have some texts available for Wikisource.
For the relevant Indian law see http://www.naukri.com/lls/copyright/section5.htm#22
For the relationship to US law see [[Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc.]] in Wikipedia.
For me, this looks like a dead old language. Doesn't even deserve a wiki. ;o)
Ec
Le Tuesday 21 September 2004 19:46, Mark Williamson a écrit :
Hmm...
If it does, I can help with typing them in (if they're not already typed).
For a start, I have already 8 volumes from Mahadev Desai who was the personal secretary of M. K. Gandhi and died in 1942. These are his dairy during the 25 years he worked with Gandhi.
See http://r2d2.homeunix.org/mahadev_desai/day-to-day/ (600 to 850 KB of plain English text each) cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahadev_Desai
I created the base but there is a lot of work, especially because each volume has an index, which would be nice to have it working. cf. http://wikisource.org/wiki/Day_to_Day_with_Gandhi
--node
Regards, Yann
Yann Forget wrote:
See http://r2d2.homeunix.org/mahadev_desai/day-to-day/ (600 to 850 KB of plain English text each) cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahadev_Desai
I created the base but there is a lot of work, especially because each volume has an index, which would be nice to have it working. cf. http://wikisource.org/wiki/Day_to_Day_with_Gandhi
This raises an interesting issue. How to handle indexes. Typically these make references to specific page numbers in paper books, but we usually ignore the original pagination when we upload a book. Maybe an index could have the page numbers stripped out and link to some kind of search function. As Spock would say, "Fascinating!"
Ec
On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 16:38:30 -0700, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
This raises an interesting issue. How to handle indexes. Typically these make references to specific page numbers in paper books, but we usually ignore the original pagination when we upload a book. Maybe an index could have the page numbers stripped out and link to some kind of search function. As Spock would say, "Fascinating!"
You could add an anchor tag at each original page-break, and leave the original index with its page numbers.
+sj+
Le Saturday 25 September 2004 01:38, Ray Saintonge a écrit :
Yann Forget wrote:
See http://r2d2.homeunix.org/mahadev_desai/day-to-day/ (600 to 850 KB of plain English text each) cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahadev_Desai
I created the base but there is a lot of work, especially because each volume has an index, which would be nice to have it working. cf. http://wikisource.org/wiki/Day_to_Day_with_Gandhi
This raises an interesting issue. How to handle indexes. Typically these make references to specific page numbers in paper books, but we usually ignore the original pagination when we upload a book. Maybe an index could have the page numbers stripped out and link to some kind of search function. As Spock would say, "Fascinating!"
There are other features which are much needed for Wikisource. One is footnote. There are also plenty of foonotes in this book, and I don't know what to do with them.
Ec
Yann
YF> There are other features which are much needed for Wikisource. YF> One is footnote. There are also plenty of foonotes in this book, and I don't YF> know what to do with them. YF> Yann
[[#something]] wikilinks?
Yann Forget wrote:
It's surprising that Bengali Wikipedia didn't start yet. There are probably more than 200 millions people speaking Bengali, although I don't how many among these have Bengali as their monther tongue (190M according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language, 207M according to other sources). And Bengali people have also a strong reputation for cultural awareness, and the Bengali language has a long tradition of poetry and literature.
Apparently Windows just got around to supporting Unicode Bengali with their SP2 release this year (see http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/bengali.html). So I'd _guess_ the Internet-using elite is still largely using a legacy encoding (assuming Windows dominance in Bengali computing). I've certainly run into Indic sites that render text with graphics files (as is still occasionally done with Chinese characters).
Actually Minnan has the same issue: transitioning from legacy encoding to Unicode. Community growth is to an extend limited by the will to switch, i.e. how desperately people need Wikipedia ;)
Each of Assamese, Burmese, Gujarati, Kannada, Khmer, Nepalese, Oriya, Panjabi, Pashtu, Sindhi, and Telugu have more than 10 millions speakers. However most of these speakers have a poor Internet connectivity at the best. So it just a matter of time when Internet connections become easily available in these parts of the world.
So it would seem that connectivity is necessary but insufficient for accessing less-well supported/unsupported Unicode standards.
Hi,
Le Wednesday 22 September 2004 11:28, Henry H. Tan-Tenn a écrit :
Yann Forget wrote:
It's surprising that Bengali Wikipedia didn't start yet. There are probably more than 200 millions people speaking Bengali, although I don't how many among these have Bengali as their monther tongue (190M according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language, 207M according to other sources). And Bengali people have also a strong reputation for cultural awareness, and the Bengali language has a long tradition of poetry and literature.
Apparently Windows just got around to supporting Unicode Bengali with their SP2 release this year (see http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/bengali.html). So I'd _guess_ the Internet-using elite is still largely using a legacy encoding (assuming Windows dominance in Bengali computing). I've certainly run into Indic sites that render text with graphics files (as is still occasionally done with Chinese characters).
Actually Minnan has the same issue: transitioning from legacy encoding to Unicode. Community growth is to an extend limited by the will to switch, i.e. how desperately people need Wikipedia ;)
Each of Assamese, Burmese, Gujarati, Kannada, Khmer, Nepalese, Oriya, Panjabi, Pashtu, Sindhi, and Telugu have more than 10 millions speakers. However most of these speakers have a poor Internet connectivity at the best. So it just a matter of time when Internet connections become easily available in these parts of the world.
So it would seem that connectivity is necessary but insufficient for accessing less-well supported/unsupported Unicode standards.
Yes, localization of computers is one of the necessary steps before people could contribute.
Literacy is another one. As an example, in Gujarat, about 30 % of the population is illetrate, but that figure is a poor indication of the capacity to contribute to an encyclopedia.
I have a friend who is graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, a school with a worldwide reputation (teachers come from Havard, etc.), but can't read or write Gujarati, her mother tongue.
Today in India, it is fashionable to send children to English medium schools, which are usually more expensive and of higher quality than local languages schools. So educated people are perfectly fluent in English, but illetrate in their mother tongue.
Regards, Yann
Yann Forget wrote:
Yes, localization of computers is one of the necessary steps before people could contribute.
Literacy is another one. As an example, in Gujarat, about 30 % of the population is illetrate, but that figure is a poor indication of the capacity to contribute to an encyclopedia.
It'd be interesting if committed Wikipedians could experiment with a program where they partner with non-literate speakers to jointly create articles. The latter would narrate articles on whatever missing topic there is, while the former would transcribe it into text (possibly posted with the narrator's account or a special joint-account).
I imagine this could potentially fill in a large gap on ethno-culturally significant topics that are nevertheless rarely described in text, though they need not be limited to such. The role of NPOV would need to be considered. For Wikipedia, the narratives would need to strive to be encyclopedia-like (to minimize re-writing later on). Simple re-telling of myths, folktales and such might go to Wikisource (I imagine).
The non-literate speaker here could also be one who is visually incapacited and for whose language no computer interface is currently available for reading and/or writing. (For example, I know of someone who's able to participate in the Net just like anyone else, but only in Mandarin Chinese. Though a fluent speaker, he lacks a PC interface for converting the Minnan Wikipedia to Taiwanese Braille.)
The non-literate speaker could also well be somone who simply can't get on the Net (or don't have a computer or can't type or another non-linguistic reason).
I imagine oral traditions are also, arguably, wiki processes.
I have a friend who is graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, a school with a worldwide reputation (teachers come from Havard, etc.), but can't read or write Gujarati, her mother tongue.
Today in India, it is fashionable to send children to English medium schools, which are usually more expensive and of higher quality than local languages schools. So educated people are perfectly fluent in English, but illetrate in their mother tongue.
This happens a lot, worldwide. If it's not English, then it's another LWC (language of wider communications).
On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 23:38:56 -0400 "James R. Johnson" modean52@comcast.net wrote:
I thought it would be created also...there was quite a bit of support when I originally proposed the idea, and then everyone started talking about Chinese and Gothic. The only reason I heard against it is that someone didn't feel like it. But, what about all the wikis with less than 10 articles? Looks like they don't feel like it either.
I looked, and the Afar, Armenian, Assamese, Aymara, Bashkir, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bislama, Burmese, Dzongkha, Fijian, Georgian, Greenlandic, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Kazakh, Khmer, Kyrgiz, Lao, Lojban, Quechua, Manx, Nepali, Oriya, Oromo, Panjabi, Pashtu, Rumansh, Sardinian, Setswana, Somali, Sindhi, Sotho, Tajik, Telugu, Tibetan, Tongan, Tsonga, Turkmen, Twi, Uighur, and Xhosa have 10 or fewer articles. Are those who thought little of Gothic or Anglo-Saxon going to look again at those wikis?
Just a thought.
No, I don't see these cases as similar at all. All these languages, perhaps with a few exceptions, are for some people their preferred language of communication. Thus, there is a *potential* for a blooming Wikipedia in those; it happens to be the case that we haven't attracted any Wikipedians working on them yet, but chances are high that at some point there will be people interested in reading and writing them.
On the other hand, for Anglo-Saxon or Gothic, there are people who are able to read and write it, but I have not been convinced yet that there are people who prefer to read their encyclopedia in those languages, nor that people would write them in an attempt to spread information rather than for novelty value.
Andre Engels
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