Hi Ronline!
The other thing that makes me worried is the growing pressure on new language contributors. We must remember that Wikipedians are *volunteers* and most, except vandals, are always adding knowledge to the community. Pressuring them into reaching a certain guideline for their language is abuse, in my opinion.
It would be a pity if those guidelines were primarily perceived as "pressure". They should of course never be abused as an instrument to exclude people or groups but only serve everybody participating at Wikimedia projects (old and new members) by helping to assure the success of those projects.
Sadly, it's a fact that roughly half of all Wikipedias are clinically dead at present. Being enthusiastically pro-multilingualism here, I believe that we must do the best we can in order to add more productive, useful editions in the coming years but at the same time try hard to prevent any further stillbirths. My personal opinion is that establishing a few standards will be more beneficial here than a total laissez-faire. But I do understand your concern, too.
New contributors must be encouraged, not discouraged.
Right. The attitude of the established community towards potential new members must always be a cooperative, constructive, helpful and friendly one. But maybe part of the encouragement can also be something like: "Look, we've been around here for a while and we've seen what works and what doesn't. We recommend that you first find a couple more like-minded people _before_ you start because it's probably more work than you can imagine now."
Best,
Arbeo
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On 10/11/05, Arbeo M arbeo_m@yahoo.de wrote:
Sadly, it's a fact that roughly half of all Wikipedias are clinically dead at present. Being enthusiastically
And I do think that right now, our _top_ priority should be to find ways to populate these barren WPs.
Some ideas:
- Find language activists, or people who have a website about the language - Find people on ICQ who claim to speak the language, and let them know about that WP - Let governmental or other official or authoritative organisations know about that WP - Get grant money to initially pay people to write good articles / translate articles, especially in countries with a low per-capita income (sub-saharan Africa, for example), and when a sizable article base has been established, it will be much easier to attract new editors. This includes having people write articles offline, and then typing it up yourself. - Depending on the size of the WP and the narrowness of its reader base, you can put a sitenotice up at one WP that another WP exists -- the Romanian WP did something similar for a proposal for a Vlax Romany WP, and it was relatively successful.
These are all things that have worked in the past. There are obviously many more possibilities.
Mark
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
hello
I'm onw of these who can't get wp for 4-5 monthes (since the middle of June) :( Couse we are small community (about 0.5 mln) my plan is: when wp will be created I will give report about it to Samogitian Cultural Society. I think I will have some conversations with young people and government of Samogitian Cultural Society and here I hope I will find big help (about 80%). in the begining this wp would be for samogitian subjects (culture and like that) That's it. The domain is "bat-smg" or if You like only local domains - 'qsm". Interface could be Lithuanian at thirst. There is only one little problem about one letter which isn't in other languages (but it doesn't change the facts - Samogitian wp have to be created).
respectfully Arns Udovičė icq-194843258
2005/11/11, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com:
On 10/11/05, Arbeo M arbeo_m@yahoo.de wrote:
Sadly, it's a fact that roughly half of all Wikipedias are clinically dead at present. Being enthusiastically
And I do think that right now, our _top_ priority should be to find ways to populate these barren WPs.
Some ideas:
- Find language activists, or people who have a website about the language
- Find people on ICQ who claim to speak the language, and let them
know about that WP
- Let governmental or other official or authoritative organisations
know about that WP
- Get grant money to initially pay people to write good articles /
translate articles, especially in countries with a low per-capita income (sub-saharan Africa, for example), and when a sizable article base has been established, it will be much easier to attract new editors. This includes having people write articles offline, and then typing it up yourself.
- Depending on the size of the WP and the narrowness of its reader
base, you can put a sitenotice up at one WP that another WP exists -- the Romanian WP did something similar for a proposal for a Vlax Romany WP, and it was relatively successful.
These are all things that have worked in the past. There are obviously many more possibilities.
Mark
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- Ok^ ek^ besla ikv Olmok Vzauep^evk :)
2005/11/11, Zordsdavini iz Litvy zordsdavini@gmail.com:
The domain is "bat-smg" or if You like only local domains - 'qsm". Interface could be Lithuanian at thirst. There is only one little problem about one letter which isn't in other languages (but it doesn't change the facts - Samogitian wp have to be created).
A letter that does not exist in other languages is no problem, as long as this letter has a UTF-8 code. We have languages that have a whole alphabet for themselves.
-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
this letter couls be written: 0116 0305 and 0117 0305. And looks like: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDemaitiu_ra%C5%A1%C4%ABba But UTF-8 on some browsers doesn't looks so nice
Arns
2005/11/11, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com:
2005/11/11, Zordsdavini iz Litvy zordsdavini@gmail.com:
The domain is "bat-smg" or if You like only local domains - 'qsm". Interface could be Lithuanian at thirst. There is only one little problem about one letter which isn't in other languages (but it doesn't change the facts - Samogitian wp have to be created).
A letter that does not exist in other languages is no problem, as long as this letter has a UTF-8 code. We have languages that have a whole alphabet for themselves.
-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- Ok^ ek^ besla ikv Olmok Vzauep^evk :)
"Zordsdavini iz Litvy" zordsdavini@gmail.com wrote in message news:3dab1f080511102344s25ab96dbr@mail.gmail.com...
this letter couls be written: 0116 0305 and 0117 0305. And looks like: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDemaitiu_ra%C5%A1%C4%ABba But UTF-8 on some browsers doesn't looks so nice
Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Macron#Dot_and_Macron_for_Samogitian
Does that look OK?
Depends on browser. It looks quite OK in Opera (macron of the cap E is still a bit too low), but it doesn't appear correctly in Internet Explorer nor Avant Browser.
Võrok
16.11.2005 17:26:53, "Phil Boswell" phil.boswell@gmail.com kirot':
"Zordsdavini iz Litvy" zordsdavini@gmail.com wrote in message news:3dab1f080511102344s25ab96dbr@mail.gmail.com...
this letter couls be written: 0116 0305 and 0117 0305. And looks like: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDemaitiu_ra%C5%A1%C4%ABba But UTF-8 on some browsers doesn't looks so nice
Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Macron#Dot_and_Macron_for_Samogitian
Does that look OK?
Phil [[en:User:Phil Boswell]]
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
"Jüvä Sullõv" juvasul@ut.ee wrote in message news:VR4YWTEAFC42FA1ZMK72D8NI64QMGEKF.437b571d@SUVALINE...
16.11.2005 17:26:53, "Phil Boswell" phil.boswell@gmail.com kirot':
"Zordsdavini iz Litvy" zordsdavini@gmail.com wrote in message news:3dab1f080511102344s25ab96dbr@mail.gmail.com...
this letter couls be written: 0116 0305 and 0117 0305. And looks like: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/%C5%BDemaitiu_ra%C5%A1%C4%ABba But UTF-8 on some browsers doesn't looks so nice
Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Macron#Dot_and_Macron_for_Samogitian
Does that look OK?
Depends on browser. It looks quite OK in Opera (macron of the cap E is still a bit too low), but it doesn't appear correctly in Internet Explorer nor Avant Browser.
Depends heavily on what fonts you have installed.
I performed the operation using IE, so it's not a matter of "IE can't hack it".
On a happy note, I have no non-free fonts installed on this machine, so it's not impossible for anyone with access to the font-installation subsystem to replicate my situation.
I strongly suspect that "Code2000" is responsible for my viewing pleasure in this instance...Google for it to find your best download source.
HTH HAND
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