The goal *is* to create content in Anglo-Saxon. Sorry if I wasn't clear.
James
-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces(a)Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Pablo Saratxaga
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 3:24 PM
To: wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: FW: Wikipedia for Old English
Kaixo!
On Thu, Aug 05, 2004 at 01:19:44PM -0400, James R. Johnson wrote:
OE is still active as a language, with new works
being written
even now, and translation projects going for the Bible, Shakespeare,
and other works of literature.
But consider that wikipedia goal is not to be a compialtion of litterary and
translation works (wikibook, on the other hand, is), but a medium to serve
information on all (or at least a wide range) of topics, in a given
language.
Transposed to classroom analogy, wikipedia is not a class given in English
about Anglosaxon culture, but it is mathematics, physics, biology etc
classes teached in Anglosaxon language.
You should ask if your main goal would be to create content *in* Anglosaxon,
or *about* Anglosaxon (that can be in the same langue too but that's not the
point).
In other words, do you plan to have at some points articles about computer
science, biology, space travel, modern history, etc. written in Anglosaxon,
or is your plan to focus on litterary/linguistic topics related with the
langue? In the second case, maybe wikibook with a small encyclopedia-like
section for those topics would be a better idea.
James R. Johnson wrote:
> May I ask why Klingon, and Esperanto have Wikis?
Esperanto is a living language that a lot of people use to communicate and
share knowledge on all sort of topics.
As far as I know Klingon and Anglosaxon are only used by a very small
community, and not for normal everyday communication, not to share knowledge
in all sort of topics, but rather to communicate and share knowledge on some
topics only, very related to the langue itself.
So, indeed, I think that, for exactly the same reasons as I exposed above,
Klingon should maybe have been on wikibook rather than on wikipedia.
wikibook and wikipedia are, technically, exactly the same (it's exactly the
same software used); however, on wikipedia you can expect to have some sort
of symetry between the languages, on the long time tending to a similar
content (detailed data on a majority of topics), only in different
languages.
As I doubt that languages not used for normal everyday communication nor
normal knowledge transmission would ever get very developped wikipedias,
those will look "incomplete" in comparaison with others.
On the other hand, a wikibook site is more or less independent of other
wikibooks, its content doesn't reflect nor has to reflect nor is expected to
reflect the content of wikibooks in other languages; and so can be shaped
and target the content and topics best suited to the culture vehiculated by
the language.
objection to your plan. Unless there's some
reason to think that it's
a bad idea (Klingon, for example, was and is controversial), then if
people want to do it, they should do it. "I would enjoy working on
it" is a perfectly valid reason.
But I think some people may request a wikipedia because they don't know ther
would be a possibility to have a similar functionality without the burden of
the requirement to build an encyclopedic general purpose content.
--
Ki ça vos våye bén,
Pablo Saratxaga
http://chanae.walon.org/pablo/ PGP Key available, key ID:
0xD9B85466
[you can write me in Walloon, Spanish, French, English, Catalan or
Esperanto] [min povas skribi en valona, esperanta, angla aux latinidaj
lingvoj]