Hi all, I have a few questions about our policy towards test Wikipedias.
1) Can there be a test Wikipedia without a specific request for the creation of a Wikipedia in that language? Examples: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/enm/ (Middle English), http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/Skandinavisk/Hovudside (Unified Scandinavian), http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/mis-ryu/ (South-Central Okinawan).
2) Should it become a requirement to have a test Wikipedia before a new Wikipedia can be created??
3) Once a Wikipedia is actually created, is there a policy to delete the test Wikipedia? For example with fiu-vro, I transferred all the articles and gave credit on talkpages; for sco: I transferred all articles. Clearly, having all these pages on meta now is just taking up space.
Mark
Hi all, I have a few questions about our policy towards test Wikipedias.
- Can there be a test Wikipedia without a specific request for the
creation of a Wikipedia in that language? Examples: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/enm/ (Middle English), http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/Skandinavisk/Hovudside (Unified Scandinavian), http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/mis-ryu/ (South-Central Okinawan).
- Should it become a requirement to have a test Wikipedia before a
new Wikipedia can be created??
- Once a Wikipedia is actually created, is there a policy to delete
the test Wikipedia? For example with fiu-vro, I transferred all the articles and gave credit on talkpages; for sco: I transferred all articles. Clearly, having all these pages on meta now is just taking up space.
Mark
Aren't test wikis your invention? Then you should tell us so. Imo, a test wiki is desirable, but should not be obligatory for the creation of a new Wikipedia. And while a test wiki in a language that has no request yet should not be deleted at once, I think someone willing to create a new Wikipedia should always request it properly, so if he/she makes a test wiki he should put a request on the page immediately. Finally, it seems to me nothing but logical that test wikis are removed when the real wikipedia has been created. The moderators should bother to transfer the articles.
Wouter
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On 6/28/05, Wouter Steenbeek musiqolog@hotmail.com wrote:
Imo, a test wiki is desirable, but should not be obligatory for the creation of a new Wikipedia. And while a test wiki in a language that has no request yet should not be deleted at once, I think someone willing to create a new Wikipedia should always request it properly, so if he/she makes a test wiki he should put a request on the page immediately. Finally, it seems to me nothing but logical that test wikis are removed when the real wikipedia has been created. The moderators should bother to transfer the articles.
I agree with Wouter. In addition, I think there should be some sort of policy on what is allowed a test wiki. It shouldn't be a place for wikis to start up in languages that have been completely rejected by the community. For example, if there's no consensus on Sindarin, it shouldn't be able to get around that decision by setting up on Meta. The test wiki area needs to be strictly for wikis which do have a real possibility of becoming Wikipedia languages. It also needs to be made clear that the test area is only for new languages, not for new wiki ideas, or we'll end up with content like http://scratchpad.wikicities.com/wiki/Bevelheads:Home and the other pages at Scratchpad all over Meta, which I don't think would be useful or appropriate.
Angela.
While I am in general against imposing restrictions on the creation of new Wikipedias, from what I have observed so far those with test Wikipedias seem to be more successful: Cebuano and Kapampangan are growing very very slowly (didn't have test Wikipedias), while Scots and Võro are growing very quickly. Though, to be fair, those requests were around longer as well and so had more of a chance to develop a wider support base.
Re artificial languages. While I agree that artificial languages (save international auxiliary languages with at least a minimal following, such as Esperanto, Interlingua, Ido, Interlingue [note the e; interlingua and interlinguE are different language]) have no place in Wikipedia, and that they shouldn't get test Wikipedias, the majority doesnt agree (cf http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Artificial_languages_equal_rights , where it was voted 30 to 17 that artificial languages should be treated equally by Wikimedia). I think that, in this regard, unless they have been explicitly denied, we really should allow them.
This is indeed a problem, that the board (not in an official opinion, but in individual comments from Angela, Jimbo, and Anthere) seems to feel that most artificial languages should not qualify for Wikimedia projects, while the community seems to disagree. I'm not sure about my feelings here because while I believe that we should mostly limit projects to natural languages, I also respect the democratic process.
I also think that in some cases, the Board should make explicit decisions regarding creation of specific new Wikipedias to establish precedent. I would feel uncomfortable just removing an old request altogether, especially if it garnered support (ie Quenya), but at the same time I feel that it is unlikely to ever come to fruitition so long as those in power seem opposed to the existance of Wikipedias for "recreational languages". Thus, I think that in cases like Quenya and Sindarin, the board should vote about whether we can automatically deny these requests based on a specific set of criteria.
Also an issue are "play languages", cants, languages that aren't fully documented, and other requests. I think there needs to be a final decision to tell us for sure, finally, and forever that there will not be a Pig Latin Wikipedia, a Nadsat Wikipedia, or a Parseltongue Wikipedia (Pig Latin is a play language, Nadsat is on top of being a fictional language a sort of "cant" not suitable for more than the most basic communication, and all that has been said ever about Parseltongue is that the language consists, in written form, entirely of "ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss")
Mark
On 27/06/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/28/05, Wouter Steenbeek musiqolog@hotmail.com wrote:
Imo, a test wiki is desirable, but should not be obligatory for the creation of a new Wikipedia. And while a test wiki in a language that has no request yet should not be deleted at once, I think someone willing to create a new Wikipedia should always request it properly, so if he/she makes a test wiki he should put a request on the page immediately. Finally, it seems to me nothing but logical that test wikis are removed when the real wikipedia has been created. The moderators should bother to transfer the articles.
I agree with Wouter. In addition, I think there should be some sort of policy on what is allowed a test wiki. It shouldn't be a place for wikis to start up in languages that have been completely rejected by the community. For example, if there's no consensus on Sindarin, it shouldn't be able to get around that decision by setting up on Meta. The test wiki area needs to be strictly for wikis which do have a real possibility of becoming Wikipedia languages. It also needs to be made clear that the test area is only for new languages, not for new wiki ideas, or we'll end up with content like http://scratchpad.wikicities.com/wiki/Bevelheads:Home and the other pages at Scratchpad all over Meta, which I don't think would be useful or appropriate.
Angela. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 17:45 -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
While I am in general against imposing restrictions on the creation of new Wikipedias, from what I have observed so far those with test Wikipedias seem to be more successful: Cebuano and Kapampangan are growing very very slowly (didn't have test Wikipedias), while Scots and Võro are growing very quickly. Though, to be fair, those requests were around longer as well and so had more of a chance to develop a wider support base.
Võro and Scots are spoken in countries that have significantly a higher number of internet connections in general, and broadband connections specifically. And you only need one active native speaker with a broadband connection to have quick growth...
And, where people have more knowledge of the English language. For languages of the Philippines it would probably have been better to start with another language than English. I think it would be a good idea to wisely choose the "starting language" of new Wikipedias. If people can understand the interface they will be more tempted to add or change something...
Hi,
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Test-wp/Skandinavisk seems to be in "Skandinavisk". What is this language? I can't find information about it on either the English or the German or the Dutch Wikipedia. Is it an attempt to create a unified Scandinavian (Swedish-Danish-Norwegian, I assume?) language, thus artificial? Or is it a historical language? The test wiki doesn't seem to be very vivid.
I really like the idea of test wiki's. I think it should become an obligatory step in the process of creating a wiki. One should prove a wiki can be active.
regards, Gerrit.
I really like the idea of test wiki's. I think it should become an obligatory step in the process of creating a wiki. One should prove a wiki can be active.
It shouldn't be obligatory for _all_ languages. Languages with many speakers simply should be there. Even if the wiki is not active now. It makes it easier for people to get started. If I first had to do a test wiki for Bambara and Fulfulde, or if it had taken 4 months to set up these Wikipedias, there would still be nothing on ff.wp and bm.wp.
Fulfulde is spoken by millions of people. Though I don't think there are many speakers who can be expected to start adding and editing when it's more complicated than the normal process.
I just have to comment on what Guaka said.
Regarding the languages of the Philippines, there are only two actual choices at present for the starting language in new Wikipedias in Philippine languages: English and Tagalog, since the Cebuano and Kapampangan wikipedias are still in the initial stages of work and besides as will be discussed below, speakers of Philippine languages who access the Internet tend to be conversant in either or both English and Tagalog. As a native speaker of Waray-Waray (a.k.a. Waray or Samar-Leyte Visayan) one of the Philippine languages, and the one who made the proposal for a wiki in Waray-Waray in the "requests for new languages" section let me speak for myself why English is a lesser evil than Tagalog as a start-up language even though I understand and am able to use both. (A third possibility could be Spanish but even fewer Filipinos speak Spanish than those who speak English).
Firstly, many Filipino nationals and citizens (as opposed to a "native speaker of the 'Filipino' language" which is really Tagalog initially renamed as "Pilipino" and later repackaged as "Filipino" for the purposes of making it easier to force it on the non-Tagalog ethnic groups of the Philippines) are competent in both English and Tagalog, and most of those who have access to the Internet are fairly conversant in their use of English. Besides most software in use in the Philippines is in English, not Tagalog. As a practical matter, for computer users who are native speakers in Philippine languages other than Tagalog, it is of little consequence whether the start-up language is English or Tagalog. Which leads me to the second consideration.
The next consideration is that citizens/nationals of the Philippines use Tagalog because of the pervasive and pernicious myth that one can't be a Filipino unless one uses Tagalog. In other words, they use it because they have been brainwashed to believe that to be Filipino is synonymous with being Tagalog. As one who was born in the Philippines I can attest that this belief is pervasive. To use Tagalog as a start-up language in new wikipedias for other Philippine languages would be a tacit statement of approval of this policy. This in good conscience I cannot do, and I know that neither Bentong (who proposed the Cebuano Wikipedia) nor Edwin (the proposer for the Kapampangan Wikipedia) accepts this.
While I agree in principle with Guaka that it is a good idea to choose the "starting languages" of new Wikipedias, I would rather that the person or persons making the proposal/proposals choose the "starting languages".
Regarding the paucity of articles in the Cebuano and Kapampangan wikipedias, I'll leave it to the native speakers to explain that. I can only speak for myself. For political reasons, I prefer English as the start-up language if my request for a wiki in Waray-Waray is approved because I can easily translate the English into my native language and also because I am firmly opposed to the current national language policy of the Philippines which is to promote Tagalog at the expense of the other equally worthy indigenous languages of the archipelago.
Regards,
--Harvey Fiji [en:Harvzsf] [es:Harvzsf]
Guaka guaka@no-log.org wrote: On Mon, 2005-06-27 at 17:45 -0700, Mark Williamson wrote:
While I am in general against imposing restrictions on the creation of new Wikipedias, from what I have observed so far those with test Wikipedias seem to be more successful: Cebuano and Kapampangan are growing very very slowly (didn't have test Wikipedias), while Scots and Võro are growing very quickly. Though, to be fair, those requests were around longer as well and so had more of a chance to develop a wider support base.
Võro and Scots are spoken in countries that have significantly a higher number of internet connections in general, and broadband connections specifically. And you only need one active native speaker with a broadband connection to have quick growth...
And, where people have more knowledge of the English language. For languages of the Philippines it would probably have been better to start with another language than English. I think it would be a good idea to wisely choose the "starting language" of new Wikipedias. If people can understand the interface they will be more tempted to add or change something...
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On 6/27/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
I agree with Wouter. In addition, I think there should be some sort of policy on what is allowed a test wiki. It shouldn't be a place for wikis to start up in languages that have been completely rejected by the community. For example, if there's no consensus on Sindarin, it shouldn't be able to get around that decision by setting up on Meta.
Meta is its own project; it isn't clear to me that other Wikipedias need to tell it how to handle its own deletion policy. Sindarin couldn't set up an encyclopedia worth of pages on Meta, because the normal RfD process would get rid of them. But it could have an effective page demonstrating what a Sindarin Main Page would look like -- such a page would inevitably have a discussion about Sindarin WP (and its lack of consensus) on its discussion page.
The test wiki area needs to be strictly for wikis which do have a real possibility of becoming Wikipedia languages.
Why not open that space to test wikis of all varieties? Anything which might become its own project, or which does not clearly belong in any one existing project, could have a text space to help clarify what its goals would be, and to inform discussion about it.
For instance, http://scratchpad.wikicities.com/wiki/Bevelheads:Home is too specific to be a separate project, but looks as though it would have much excellent, specific information for Wikipedia. Some of it might be too detailed for "Wikipedia as of 2005", but I imagine that Wikipedia as of 2010 will have found elegant ways to handle that level of detail on every subject.
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