Is it considered acceptable to have spearate Wikipedias for different
cultures and peoples rather than languages?
No.
Robin Patterson has asserted on mi: that rather than a Wikipedia in
the Maori language, it's intended as a Wikipedia for the Maori people, and thus extensive usage of the English language is OK or even good, since only 5% of Maori people are fluent in Maori.
Wrong. Maori means Maori language, not Maori people. "English Wikipedia" doesn't mean "Wikipedia for people living in England" but rather "Wikipedia written in English language".
Similarly, he wanted to add English content to the Samoan Wikipedia
because "tens of thousands" of Samoans speak English fluently.
Can somebody please explain to him how Wikipedia works? Or could I please add German content to the Chinese Wikipedia because I don't know Chinese and "tens of thousands" of Chinese speak German?
P.S. If there are no competent Maori or Samoan editors we'd better lock those Wikipedia before further damage is done.
Boris
Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com, wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org schrieb am 08.07.05 02:57:11:
Hi all,
I would like to ask for some clarification of Wikimedia policy.
Is it considered acceptable to have spearate Wikipedias for different cultures and peoples rather than languages? Are any existing Wikipedias considered in this capacity?
Robin Patterson has asserted on mi: that rather than a Wikipedia in the Maori language, it's intended as a Wikipedia for the Maori people, and thus extensive usage of the English language is OK or even good, since only 5% of Maori people are fluent in Maori.
Similarly, he wanted to add English content to the Samoan Wikipedia because "tens of thousands" of Samoans speak English fluently. It should be noted that neither of these languages are his native languages. Maori, he lists as a Babel template level of 1 (his French and German are better), yet he is the sole administrator at the Maori Wikipedia. He noted on his Samoan userpage that he knows only a handful of Samoan words, yet he tried to apply there for sysop anyways.
Mark _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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I have now been blocked by Robin Patterson for removing English-language content.
I had left him a message a few days ago, and he never answered it.
One of the diffs where he added back English-language content: http://mi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hau_K%C4%81inga&diff=7198&...
I do not think that somebody like this should be trusted with admin privelages, especially since according to him his fluency level is only mi-1.
I request immediate unbanning of myself, and immediate removal of his sysop privelages due to abuse (present and past).
Mark
On 09/07/05, Boris Lohnzweiger BorisLohnzweiger@web.de wrote:
Is it considered acceptable to have spearate Wikipedias for different
cultures and peoples rather than languages?
No.
Robin Patterson has asserted on mi: that rather than a Wikipedia in
the Maori language, it's intended as a Wikipedia for the Maori people, and thus extensive usage of the English language is OK or even good, since only 5% of Maori people are fluent in Maori.
Wrong. Maori means Maori language, not Maori people. "English Wikipedia" doesn't mean "Wikipedia for people living in England" but rather "Wikipedia written in English language".
Similarly, he wanted to add English content to the Samoan Wikipedia
because "tens of thousands" of Samoans speak English fluently.
Can somebody please explain to him how Wikipedia works? Or could I please add German content to the Chinese Wikipedia because I don't know Chinese and "tens of thousands" of Chinese speak German?
P.S. If there are no competent Maori or Samoan editors we'd better lock those Wikipedia before further damage is done.
Boris
Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com, wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org schrieb am 08.07.05 02:57:11:
Hi all,
I would like to ask for some clarification of Wikimedia policy.
Is it considered acceptable to have spearate Wikipedias for different cultures and peoples rather than languages? Are any existing Wikipedias considered in this capacity?
Robin Patterson has asserted on mi: that rather than a Wikipedia in the Maori language, it's intended as a Wikipedia for the Maori people, and thus extensive usage of the English language is OK or even good, since only 5% of Maori people are fluent in Maori.
Similarly, he wanted to add English content to the Samoan Wikipedia because "tens of thousands" of Samoans speak English fluently. It should be noted that neither of these languages are his native languages. Maori, he lists as a Babel template level of 1 (his French and German are better), yet he is the sole administrator at the Maori Wikipedia. He noted on his Samoan userpage that he knows only a handful of Samoan words, yet he tried to apply there for sysop anyways.
Mark _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Mit der Gruppen-SMS von WEB.DE FreeMail können Sie eine SMS an alle Freunde gleichzeitig schicken: http://freemail.web.de/features/?mc=021179
Hi everyone, hi Mark,
On Monday, 11. July 2005 11:06, Mark Williamson wrote:
I have now been blocked by Robin Patterson for removing English-language content.
Now this is interesting. A few days ago mi.wikipedia.org and nds.wikipedia.org were going on fine. Now Mark comes along, doing as he pleases, not caring about existing communities and their rules, changing things the way he thinks best, in the case of Maori without even knowing the language. His changes get reverted. He does not care, his changes get revertet again, he does the same thing again and gets a one-week ban in mi, and he is close to getting one in nds, too.
If such things happen in two unrelated wikipedias, whose fault might this be? Marks or mi/nds's?
I had left him a message a few days ago, and he never answered it.
One of the diffs where he added back English-language content: http://mi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hau_K%C4%81inga&diff=7198&... 192
This is not correct. It is an explanation in English to point users who know English better than Maori (which is a basic problem for Maori people!) to a good place to start.
I do not think that somebody like this should be trusted with admin privelages, especially since according to him his fluency level is only mi-1.
I have had a look at Robin's edits. I think that he is doing a great job. I see that he is careful which sentences he translate (when he is confident about his language skills) and which he so far does not (because at the moment it is beyond his language skills). I like that. It is not up to you, Mark (you are not a Maori speaker) to decide that. If other people from within the Maori community come and elect other Admins, it is fine, but it is none of your business. Within 24 hours you have demanded the removal of two admins (Robin in mi and me in nds). That, I find, is highly unusual and tells a lot more about you than about us.
I request immediate unbanning of myself, and immediate removal of his sysop privelages due to abuse (present and past).
You got banned in mi, because you just went on with your changes, even though you were explicitly asked not to do that. You just came out of nowhere, decided that you had a licence to kill all English content in [:mi] and went on. The main point about this is that you did not check this with the mi community. I think that some of these English passages were there on purpose as a preparation to be translated into English later. The mi wikipedia explicitly states on http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_Portal "This is intended to be an encyclopedia (mātāpunenga) in which every article is written entirely in the Māori language", so you should not worry, over time those English passages will be translated, and it is *none of your business* to interfere with a community that does not want your "help".
Again, as you seem to be slow to understand:
Robin Patterson has asserted on mi: that rather than a Wikipedia in
the Maori language, it's intended as a Wikipedia for the Maori people, and thus extensive usage of the English language is OK or even good, since only 5% of Maori people are fluent in Maori.
Wrong. Maori means Maori language, not Maori people. "English Wikipedia" doesn't mean "Wikipedia for people living in England" but rather "Wikipedia written in English language".
Most of the Maori people are fluent in English, but only some of them are fluent in Maori. For a certain time English aids in this wikipedia might be important as stepping stones towards an all-Maori encyclopedia, and it is up to the community to decide when to do that, and not yours.
Mark, please have a closer look at one of your edits: http://mi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hau_K%C4%81inga&diff=prev&...
1) you deleted an explanation for English-language users, where to go within this wikipedia in order to participate 2) you deleted content in Maori. You did that three times. And the irony is that you got your blocking for removal of this *Maori*content.
I think, Mark, that it might be a good idea for you to mediate about your share of the blame and I think that a writing ban in mi might provide you with some time that you should use for this meditation.
In summary: I fully support Robin's decision.
Kind regards,
Heiko Evermann (Admin in nds.wikipedia.org)
Actually, Robin isn't a speaker of Maori.
At least, he claims his Maori is mi-1 -- lower than your claim for French (fr-2) or Esperanto (eo-2).
In fact, I would dare to say that my German is de-1... and you've seen my Hochdeutsch... how would you feel about me being responsible for writing most of the Hochdeutsch Wikipedia, if it were in the same situation?
My command of Navajo is nv-1. I am an admin at the Navajo Wikipedia. Yet, instead of creating heaps of content in English and poor Navajo, I created only about 56 pages, did my best to translate parts of the interface, and left the rest to somebody more capable.
Mark
On 11/07/05, Heiko Evermann heiko.evermann@gmx.de wrote:
Hi everyone, hi Mark,
On Monday, 11. July 2005 11:06, Mark Williamson wrote:
I have now been blocked by Robin Patterson for removing English-language content.
Now this is interesting. A few days ago mi.wikipedia.org and nds.wikipedia.org were going on fine. Now Mark comes along, doing as he pleases, not caring about existing communities and their rules, changing things the way he thinks best, in the case of Maori without even knowing the language. His changes get reverted. He does not care, his changes get revertet again, he does the same thing again and gets a one-week ban in mi, and he is close to getting one in nds, too.
If such things happen in two unrelated wikipedias, whose fault might this be? Marks or mi/nds's?
I had left him a message a few days ago, and he never answered it.
One of the diffs where he added back English-language content: http://mi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hau_K%C4%81inga&diff=7198&... 192
This is not correct. It is an explanation in English to point users who know English better than Maori (which is a basic problem for Maori people!) to a good place to start.
I do not think that somebody like this should be trusted with admin privelages, especially since according to him his fluency level is only mi-1.
I have had a look at Robin's edits. I think that he is doing a great job. I see that he is careful which sentences he translate (when he is confident about his language skills) and which he so far does not (because at the moment it is beyond his language skills). I like that. It is not up to you, Mark (you are not a Maori speaker) to decide that. If other people from within the Maori community come and elect other Admins, it is fine, but it is none of your business. Within 24 hours you have demanded the removal of two admins (Robin in mi and me in nds). That, I find, is highly unusual and tells a lot more about you than about us.
I request immediate unbanning of myself, and immediate removal of his sysop privelages due to abuse (present and past).
You got banned in mi, because you just went on with your changes, even though you were explicitly asked not to do that. You just came out of nowhere, decided that you had a licence to kill all English content in [:mi] and went on. The main point about this is that you did not check this with the mi community. I think that some of these English passages were there on purpose as a preparation to be translated into English later. The mi wikipedia explicitly states on http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_Portal "This is intended to be an encyclopedia (mātāpunenga) in which every article is written entirely in the Māori language", so you should not worry, over time those English passages will be translated, and it is *none of your business* to interfere with a community that does not want your "help".
Again, as you seem to be slow to understand:
Robin Patterson has asserted on mi: that rather than a Wikipedia in
the Maori language, it's intended as a Wikipedia for the Maori people, and thus extensive usage of the English language is OK or even good, since only 5% of Maori people are fluent in Maori.
Wrong. Maori means Maori language, not Maori people. "English Wikipedia" doesn't mean "Wikipedia for people living in England" but rather "Wikipedia written in English language".
Most of the Maori people are fluent in English, but only some of them are fluent in Maori. For a certain time English aids in this wikipedia might be important as stepping stones towards an all-Maori encyclopedia, and it is up to the community to decide when to do that, and not yours.
Mark, please have a closer look at one of your edits: http://mi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hau_K%C4%81inga&diff=prev&...
- you deleted an explanation for English-language users, where to go within
this wikipedia in order to participate 2) you deleted content in Maori. You did that three times. And the irony is that you got your blocking for removal of this *Maori*content.
I think, Mark, that it might be a good idea for you to mediate about your share of the blame and I think that a writing ban in mi might provide you with some time that you should use for this meditation.
In summary: I fully support Robin's decision.
Kind regards,
Heiko Evermann (Admin in nds.wikipedia.org)
Mark Williamson wrote:
Is it considered acceptable to have spearate Wikipedias for different cultures and peoples rather than languages?
No it isn't. I agree with what Jimmy, Anthere, and others have already written in reply to this.
Robin Patterson has asserted on mi: that rather than a Wikipedia in the Maori language, it's intended as a Wikipedia for the Maori people, and thus extensive usage of the English language is OK or even good
Where has he said this? The top of http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_Portal states very clearly that every article should be written in Māori.
Guaka wrote:
When applying for Bambara Wikipedia administratorship I explicitely mentioned that I'll drop my administratorship as soon as there are some native speaking folks active as administrator. I think that should be a general policy for administrators who have only a very small knowledge of a language.
I think that's fine. I see no need to prevent people from being admins because they don't speak the language when there are no active users that do speak the language.
Mark Williamson wrote:
I have now been blocked by Robin Patterson for removing English-language content.
Really? The block log claims he blocked you for removing Māori content.
I had left him a message a few days ago, and he never answered it.
Perhaps you could have waited a bit longer for a reply before contining to revert the main page.
I do not think that somebody like this should be trusted with admin privelages, especially since according to him his fluency level is only mi-1.
I disagree. Since this is the only case I am aware of where there has been any suggestion of a problem, desysopping seems too extreme a reaction.
Heiko Evermann wrote:
I have had a look at Robin's edits. I think that he is doing a great job.
I agree. He has also made efforts to attract a wider community of Māori speakers to the wiki.
Anthere wrote:
Something which was not clear in your message : Is Robin admin there, or has he tried to apply for adminship ?
Yes, he's been an admin since Perl/Aplank made him one in April 2004.
Angela.
Mark Williamson wrote:
Is it considered acceptable to have spearate Wikipedias for different cultures and peoples rather than languages?
No it isn't. I agree with what Jimmy, Anthere, and others have already written in reply to this.
Robin Patterson has asserted on mi: that rather than a Wikipedia in the Maori language, it's intended as a Wikipedia for the Maori people, and thus extensive usage of the English language is OK or even good
Where has he said this? The top of http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_Portal states very clearly that every article should be written in Māori.
Yes, yet he states at http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:24.251.198.251 (and various places on sm:) that since "English is the first language of at least 80% of people of Maori descent", that English content should and will be kept.
Guaka wrote:
When applying for Bambara Wikipedia administratorship I explicitely mentioned that I'll drop my administratorship as soon as there are some native speaking folks active as administrator. I think that should be a general policy for administrators who have only a very small knowledge of a language.
I think that's fine. I see no need to prevent people from being admins because they don't speak the language when there are no active users that do speak the language.
Mark Williamson wrote:
I have now been blocked by Robin Patterson for removing English-language content.
Really? The block log claims he blocked you for removing Māori content.
Obviously, all block reasons are always truthful and make complete sense... The first time he threatened to ban me was at http://mi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%C5%8Ctepoti&diff=7200&old..., where I removed the single link "Whakanui!" because the image can already be enlarged by clicking on it and thus an external image link to en.wikipedia is not nessecary. He labelled this as "removing maori-language content", and rather than assuming good faith, told me that I would be banned if I did it again.
The diff for which I was banned is http://mi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hau_K%C4%81inga&diff=7217&... .
You can see that primarily what I removed was the "If your first language is English...", being at the top of the page.
I did also remove the list of "sample articles", but gave a good reason in an earlier edit summary: They take up space, and many (even most) of them can already be accessed by using the table of contents below.
I had left him a message a few days ago, and he never answered it.
Perhaps you could have waited a bit longer for a reply before contining to revert the main page.
I left him a message on the 9th, the revert for which he banned me was on the 11th. Since he had to be logged in to block me, he had to have seen the orange "new messages" notice.
I do not think that somebody like this should be trusted with admin privelages, especially since according to him his fluency level is only mi-1.
I disagree. Since this is the only case I am aware of where there has been any suggestion of a problem, desysopping seems too extreme a reaction.
1) His fluency level is mi-1. 2) His behaviour at sm: indicates that his attitudes re use of English on non-English Wikipedias are not in line with what the local population is likely to think (many Maori speakers would be upset or at least disgusted that an encyclopedia that is supposed to be in Maori is largely in English) 3) In the past, and even in the present, he has used mi.wiki to promote a site he is affiliated with, "Zeal". Most recently it was as an external link from [[Aotearoa]]. His site is 1) in English, and 2) basically just like DMOZ, except less widely known and with less links. 4) I have a Maori friend (native speaker) whom I encouraged to edit the Maori Wikipedia a while back. He made a couple of changes but said that he didn't really want to edit because it seemed more like a mix of Maori and English. When I told this to Robin Patterson, he just told me that he was removing English content (the site notice still features very prominent English text, in fact it is larger than the Maori parts of the site notice) to make it more inviting, yet I can't find any evidence of that. The mi.wikipedia page on the 20th century was once at "20th century". I moved it, if I recall correctly, to the proper Maori title. Many of the other pages he creates are fully or partially in English.
Heiko Evermann wrote:
I have had a look at Robin's edits. I think that he is doing a great job.
I agree. He has also made efforts to attract a wider community of Māori speakers to the wiki.
Yes, but the reason none of them have contributed, despite his numerous efforts (even placing an ad in a newspaper), is the high volume of English-language content. He knows this very well yet he is not willing to do anything about it.
Similarly, he tried to add English-language content to the Samoan Wikipedia.
Mark
Mark, the details are not even important.
Just remember three words - respect the community.
-User:Fuzheado
And if the community is composed basically of just one person who doesn't really speak the language...?
On 11/07/05, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
Mark, the details are not even important.
Just remember three words - respect the community.
-User:Fuzheado
On 7/12/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/07/05, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
Just remember three words - respect the community.
And if the community is composed basically of just one person who doesn't really speak the language...?
As Angela wrote: "Have you discussed this with any of the people who have edited this Wikipedia? There are 75 registered users and 8 admins. I'm not aware of any of them having a problem with Robin's approach, which as far as I can tell simply involves adding explanations in English to some pages in the Wikipedia namespace, and a pointer to that explanation from the main page and site notice."
-User:Fuzheado
On 7/12/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Where has he said this? The top of http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_Portal states very clearly that every article should be written in Māori.
Yes, yet he states at http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:24.251.198.251 (and various places on sm:) that since "English is the first language of at least 80% of people of Maori descent", that English content should and will be kept.
Isn't he referring to content in the Wikipedia namespace there, not articles? Where has Robin added English content to articles?
Have you discussed this with any of the people who have edited this Wikipedia? There are 75 registered users and 8 admins. I'm not aware of any of them having a problem with Robin's approach, which as far as I can tell simply involves adding explanations in English to some pages in the Wikipedia namespace, and a pointer to that explanation from the main page and site notice.
Māori is certainly not the only Wikipedia doing this. http://kn.wikipedia.org/ also has English in its site notice and that project has many native speakers of Kannada and is about to reach 1000 articles. http://gu.wikipedia.org and others do the same. The Arabic village pump contains an English introduction, and the early discussion in the project was mostly English (http://ar.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Project:%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86/%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B4%D9%8A%D9%81&oldid=10984).
Angela
Where has he said this? The top of http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Community_Portal states very clearly that every article should be written in Māori.
Yes, yet he states at http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:24.251.198.251 (and various places on sm:) that since "English is the first language of at least 80% of people of Maori descent", that English content should and will be kept.
Isn't he referring to content in the Wikipedia namespace there, not articles? Where has Robin added English content to articles?
Have you discussed this with any of the people who have edited this Wikipedia? There are 75 registered users and 8 admins. I'm not aware of any of them having a problem with Robin's approach, which as far as I can tell simply involves adding explanations in English to some pages in the Wikipedia namespace, and a pointer to that explanation from the main page and site notice.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wikistats/EN/TablesWikipediaMI.htm
In the last 30 days, only 3 people have been very active: Robin Patterson with 62 edits to the article namespace in the past month, Rocastelo with 72 edits to the article namespace in the past month, and Vardion with 12 in the last month.
Robin Patterson is, as you know, the most prolific contributor. He is not of Maori heritage, and his level of Maori is (self-admitted) mi-1.
Rocastelo is from the Galician Wikipedia. Nearly all of his edits consist of adding interwiki links and, more recently, images from commons.
Vardion used to be a bit more active on the website. As far as I know, he is in a similar position to Robin Patterson (non-Maori), although I think he's more fluent (not sure).
Māori is certainly not the only Wikipedia doing this. http://kn.wikipedia.org/ also has English in its site notice and that project has many native speakers of Kannada and is about to reach 1000 articles. http://gu.wikipedia.org and others do the same. The Arabic village pump contains an English introduction, and the early discussion in the project was mostly English
Discussion in English is not an issue. Discussion may take place in any language on any Wikipedia. The issue is content outside of the Talk:, User talk:, Wikipedia talk:, etc. namespaces.
Kannada, Gujarati, and other Indian languages only have English in the site notice for one reason: because many peoples' browsers cannot display the languages, so it is nessecary to give installation instructions in English. It is likely that these will not be removed in the near future, as disemination of Indian language font technology is relatively slow-paced.
With Maori, however, there is no such issue. Well, some people do have troubles displaying letters with macrons. Yet, the site notice doesn't mention that.
As Anthere mentioned here and Snowdog mentioned on my talkpage on the Tibetan Wikipedia, increased or exclusive use of the appropriate language in a Wikipedia is ideal, and in fact it usually attracts contributors (Georgian, Armenian, Haitian, Limburgish, and others only became active after I did a rough translation of the Table of Contents).
Anyhow, I cannot emphasise enough the attitude of my Maori friend, and the fact that most Maori speakers will be less likely to contribute to a "Maori-language encyclopedia" if it has so much of its content in English.
Particularly upsetting is the fact that the first words -- the very first words -- on the mainpage are English, followed by Maori, rather than vice-versa. This is not an atmosphere indicative to a newcomer of an encyclopedia which aims to be in the Maori language.
Examples of him promoting English on content pages: http://mi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taurepo&diff=7155&oldid=71... http://mi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TTA&diff=6106&oldid=3415 (ip is anonymous version of him, I think) http://mi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aotearoa&diff=7157&oldid=7... (not promoting english, but rather a site he is affiliated with... the links were later re-removed by another anon) http://mi.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Stub&diff=1788&ol... (not promoting english, but here he notes that his maori is not fluent)
Mark
On 7/12/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote: ...
Robin Patterson is, as you know, the most prolific contributor. He is not of Maori heritage, and his level of Maori is (self-admitted) mi-1.
...
How precise is this level mearurement? One person's mi-1 may be better than another person's mi-2, if the two persons have different views of language abilities. Not that I know anything about Robin's (or anyone else's) Maori, but you cannot really use the language skill measurement like that.
This is true.
However, there is also a practical way to measure things. One can assume that things he has written in English which appear that he didn't know how to translate them, rather than that he wanted to leave them for people whose English is better, are indicative of his level.
Most of the pages he writes in Maori are very short. See, for example, http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiringa-%C4%81-nuku
Also, while one would expect the page on New Zealand and on Maori people and Maori language to be of a considerable length in a Maori-language Wikipedia, they're all very short.
See: http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aotearoa (new zealand) http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ori (this is longer than most pages he has written; in one of the edit summaries he said he added some text to it from a book, so this is probably why) http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Te_reo_M%C4%81ori (maori language)
Compare with: http://ch.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%C3%A5h%C3%A5n (Chamorro page about Guam; Chamorro Wikipedia's only real Chamorro-language content) http://nv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Din%C3%A9tah (Navajo page about Navajo ancestral homeland; one of the longest of the 50 or so pages in the Navajo Wikipedia) http://xh.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMzantsi_Afrika (Xhosa page about South Africa, one of only 18 pages on the Xhosa Wikipedia) http://sc.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardinna (Sardinian page on Sardinia, one of the largest of 36 articles in the language) http://zu.wikipedia.org/wiki/IsiZulu (Zulu article on the Zulu language, one of only 5 or so articles on the Zulu Wikipedia, second-largest after the article about pottery)
It is extremely unnatural for a language to have such a large number of pages (over 300 now) but such short pages about the nation (in this case New Zealand) and language (in this case Maori). The only other Wikipedia I can think of in a similar situation is the Nauruan Wiki, which is in a similar situation -- written entirely by language enthusiasts who aren't fluent in the language, with over 100 articles in poorly-written Nauruan.
Besides that, I used a Maori grammar book to construct a more appropriate stub notice on the Maori Wikipedia. That's right, the one that's there now is of my creation. Robin Patterson's had about 4 Maori words, basically "This piece is stump - you expand it?", followed by a 10 or so word long English sentence inviting people to expand a stub.
Mark
On 11/07/05, Ole Andersen palnatoke@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/12/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote: ...
Robin Patterson is, as you know, the most prolific contributor. He is not of Maori heritage, and his level of Maori is (self-admitted) mi-1.
...
How precise is this level mearurement? One person's mi-1 may be better than another person's mi-2, if the two persons have different views of language abilities. Not that I know anything about Robin's (or anyone else's) Maori, but you cannot really use the language skill measurement like that.
-- http://palnatoke.org * Ole Andersen, Copenhagen, DK CV: http://palnatoke.org/CV.doc ICQ: 86989486 phone: +45 22 34 72 92
On 7/11/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
Māori is certainly not the only Wikipedia doing this. http://kn.wikipedia.org/ also has English in its site notice and that project has many native speakers of Kannada and is about to reach 1000 articles. http://gu.wikipedia.org and others do the same. The Arabic village pump contains an English introduction, and the early discussion in the project was mostly English (http://ar.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Project:%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86/%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B4%D9%8A%D9%81&oldid=10984).
Thank you for pointing this out. The Nahuatl wikipedia likewise has a good bit of both Spanish and English. (you can see the 100th "article" here, just a Spanish stub: http://nah.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlaloc ; I imagine node would argue for deleting or blanking it, but I only added interlanguage links to highlight the existence of much better Spanish content. Eventually a "needs translation" tag should be devised. [when was the first such tag used on en?] )
Every small project grows and finds initial contributors in its own way; I'm not sure it would be wise to impose some universal rules on how new languages should go about this.
This debate about whether non-local (english, french, spanish) content should be allowed to help seed new articles feels a lot like the debates about whether or not to allow substubs to exist. I find both types of seed content useful for small projects.
Yes, but the mainpage on the Nahuatl Wikipedia has Nahuatl at the very top, you have to scroll to see Spanish content.
I would not encourage the addition of non-Nahuatl content to the Nahuatl Wikipedia, especially by a prominent user such as yourself, but I don't think it needs to be deleted unless it's 1) a long page or 2) one of many.
Also, the Nahuatl Wikipedia is written mostly in Nahuatl -- no obnoxious notes at the beginning and end of all pages, no commented translations (well, very few; I removed many months back since a Nahuatl version existed), instead of having a sentence in Nahuatl and then 3 or 4 sentences in English, most articles are Nahuatl-only stubs.
The sentences are so short that the quality of the Nahuatl is virtually guaranteed.
However, none of this is true with the Maori Wikipedia.
If you show me a Wikipedia that has a site notice in the "wrong language" for a purpose other than correcting display problems (see many Indian languages), I will be very surprised (this of course excludes mi.wiki).
The most recent Wikis to become active -- Armenian, Georgian, Maltese, Friulian... all became active ONLY after *I* /translated the TOC/. This attracts people better than a website only in English that says "Add something here", or something that has an English-language sentence as the first sentence of a page and places English very prominently.
In the past, of course, languages have surely become active with prior text in the "right" language, but I think it takes a more motivated person. There are no recent examples of this; I think most of the larger Wikipedias probably had this though.
Yet, the fact that only Wikipedias for which I translated the ToCs have become active recently is, I think, a testament to the importance of native-language content presence. Surely, the Navajo Wikipedia, with its medium-quality Navajo used thruought, will be more appreciated than the Maori Wikipedia, with its medium-quality Maori mixed frequently with English.
I would like to close this letter by reminding you --and everybody else -- that Maori is not Robin Patterson's first language, __AND HE HIMSELF CLAIMS TO *NOT* BE FLUENT__.
Yet, this is my situation with Navajo, and that Wikipedia is mostly the fruit of my labour (as with mi.wiki, Rocastelo is a primary contributor, however he has mostly added interwikis and images rather than actual Navajo-language content), yet I have written none of it in English (granted, I did not translate the entire interface, but much of it is translated, and there is no English on the pages).
Robin Patterson has not deleted entire pages added by others in English, and in most cases he has not made an attempt to translate them. I also don't see why the note has to be *at the top of the mainpage* in English, and *in the site notice* -- Robin Patterson's reason is that 80% of all Maori speak English, and similar reasons. This points to a Wikipedia for a peoples or a culture rather than a language --- why is it a concern what percent of Maori _people_ speak English, if it's a Wikipedia for the Maori _language_?
Would a Maori speaker who is a primary speaker of English agree with the primary postition of English on the Maori Wikipedia? No, Maori is the language in all contexts where it would be expected: Te marae, te iwi... even people who don't speak Maori will try in the marae.
Mark
On 13/07/05, SJ 2.718281828@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/11/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
Māori is certainly not the only Wikipedia doing this. http://kn.wikipedia.org/ also has English in its site notice and that project has many native speakers of Kannada and is about to reach 1000 articles. http://gu.wikipedia.org and others do the same. The Arabic village pump contains an English introduction, and the early discussion in the project was mostly English (http://ar.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Project:%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86/%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B4%D9%8A%D9%81&oldid=10984).
Thank you for pointing this out. The Nahuatl wikipedia likewise has a good bit of both Spanish and English. (you can see the 100th "article" here, just a Spanish stub: http://nah.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlaloc ; I imagine node would argue for deleting or blanking it, but I only added interlanguage links to highlight the existence of much better Spanish content. Eventually a "needs translation" tag should be devised. [when was the first such tag used on en?] )
Every small project grows and finds initial contributors in its own way; I'm not sure it would be wise to impose some universal rules on how new languages should go about this.
This debate about whether non-local (english, french, spanish) content should be allowed to help seed new articles feels a lot like the debates about whether or not to allow substubs to exist. I find both types of seed content useful for small projects.
-- ++SJ
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
In addition, Robin Patterson recently made 3 new sysops and 1 new bureaucrat without any vote.
New sysops were: Gangleri, Prevert, Rocastelo; the new bureaucrat was Vardion.
According to http://mi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Administrators , Rocastelo and Prevert are both in Galicia, which is in Spain, far removed from New Zealand. It appears that the changes they make are almost exclusively wikifying, adding categories, images, templates, and other things that would imply they do not know _any_ Maori.
The same page says that Robin Patterson can recognise only "a couple of hundred Maori words" and "can create short sentences" -- I can list 16 Maori words myself, and recognise quite a bit more (probably between 50 and 100).
It also says that A Pakeha, another admin, "[does] not speak, or read Maori"; Gangleri is as many will know a German born in Romania, he does not make any claim as to his ability but he is much more active on the German, Romanian, Esperanto, and English Wikipedias.
Perl, as some will know, got all the Maori he knew from a dictionary (or so it is said). The other sysops, Vardion and Steven Cope, don't make any claims either way.
Mark
On 13/07/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but the mainpage on the Nahuatl Wikipedia has Nahuatl at the very top, you have to scroll to see Spanish content.
I would not encourage the addition of non-Nahuatl content to the Nahuatl Wikipedia, especially by a prominent user such as yourself, but I don't think it needs to be deleted unless it's 1) a long page or 2) one of many.
Also, the Nahuatl Wikipedia is written mostly in Nahuatl -- no obnoxious notes at the beginning and end of all pages, no commented translations (well, very few; I removed many months back since a Nahuatl version existed), instead of having a sentence in Nahuatl and then 3 or 4 sentences in English, most articles are Nahuatl-only stubs.
The sentences are so short that the quality of the Nahuatl is virtually guaranteed.
However, none of this is true with the Maori Wikipedia.
If you show me a Wikipedia that has a site notice in the "wrong language" for a purpose other than correcting display problems (see many Indian languages), I will be very surprised (this of course excludes mi.wiki).
The most recent Wikis to become active -- Armenian, Georgian, Maltese, Friulian... all became active ONLY after *I* /translated the TOC/. This attracts people better than a website only in English that says "Add something here", or something that has an English-language sentence as the first sentence of a page and places English very prominently.
In the past, of course, languages have surely become active with prior text in the "right" language, but I think it takes a more motivated person. There are no recent examples of this; I think most of the larger Wikipedias probably had this though.
Yet, the fact that only Wikipedias for which I translated the ToCs have become active recently is, I think, a testament to the importance of native-language content presence. Surely, the Navajo Wikipedia, with its medium-quality Navajo used thruought, will be more appreciated than the Maori Wikipedia, with its medium-quality Maori mixed frequently with English.
I would like to close this letter by reminding you --and everybody else -- that Maori is not Robin Patterson's first language, __AND HE HIMSELF CLAIMS TO *NOT* BE FLUENT__.
Yet, this is my situation with Navajo, and that Wikipedia is mostly the fruit of my labour (as with mi.wiki, Rocastelo is a primary contributor, however he has mostly added interwikis and images rather than actual Navajo-language content), yet I have written none of it in English (granted, I did not translate the entire interface, but much of it is translated, and there is no English on the pages).
Robin Patterson has not deleted entire pages added by others in English, and in most cases he has not made an attempt to translate them. I also don't see why the note has to be *at the top of the mainpage* in English, and *in the site notice* -- Robin Patterson's reason is that 80% of all Maori speak English, and similar reasons. This points to a Wikipedia for a peoples or a culture rather than a language --- why is it a concern what percent of Maori _people_ speak English, if it's a Wikipedia for the Maori _language_?
Would a Maori speaker who is a primary speaker of English agree with the primary postition of English on the Maori Wikipedia? No, Maori is the language in all contexts where it would be expected: Te marae, te iwi... even people who don't speak Maori will try in the marae.
Mark
On 13/07/05, SJ 2.718281828@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/11/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
Māori is certainly not the only Wikipedia doing this. http://kn.wikipedia.org/ also has English in its site notice and that project has many native speakers of Kannada and is about to reach 1000 articles. http://gu.wikipedia.org and others do the same. The Arabic village pump contains an English introduction, and the early discussion in the project was mostly English (http://ar.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Project:%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D9%8A%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86/%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%B4%D9%8A%D9%81&oldid=10984).
Thank you for pointing this out. The Nahuatl wikipedia likewise has a good bit of both Spanish and English. (you can see the 100th "article" here, just a Spanish stub: http://nah.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlaloc ; I imagine node would argue for deleting or blanking it, but I only added interlanguage links to highlight the existence of much better Spanish content. Eventually a "needs translation" tag should be devised. [when was the first such tag used on en?] )
Every small project grows and finds initial contributors in its own way; I'm not sure it would be wise to impose some universal rules on how new languages should go about this.
This debate about whether non-local (english, french, spanish) content should be allowed to help seed new articles feels a lot like the debates about whether or not to allow substubs to exist. I find both types of seed content useful for small projects.
-- ++SJ
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