Mark Williamson said:
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).
I find that horribly discriminatory.
I find it appropriately discriminatory. As a project, the Wikimedia Foundation has to apply some judgement about where to devote its physical resources and the time and effort of its volunteers. If we waste the time and energy of those volunteers for unimportant tasks, they won't come back.
You very well may disagree about what choices the Foundation makes. I'm just saying that it's a really big Internet, and that if you want to create a wiki that no one else wants, you can do that. You don't have to have the Wikimedia Foundation's machines and volunteers to do it.
~ESP
On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 01:34:59PM -0400, Evan Prodromou wrote:
Mark Williamson said:
I find that horribly discriminatory.
I find it appropriately discriminatory. As a project, the Wikimedia Foundation has to apply some judgement about where to devote its physical resources and the time and effort of its volunteers. If we waste the time and energy of those volunteers for unimportant tasks, they won't come back.
You very well may disagree about what choices the Foundation makes. I'm just saying that it's a really big Internet, and that if you want to create a wiki that no one else wants, you can do that. You don't have to have the Wikimedia Foundation's machines and volunteers to do it.
I'm sure this discussion wasted a lot more machine resources and volunteers' time than establishing those few Wikipedias.
Indeed.
If I recall correctly Jimbo once said something along the lines of Wikipedias for small, threatened, and endangered languages fit in well with the mission of the Foundation (though I may well be wrong, this may've been someone else, if that is the case please let me know), and I agree there.
I think Wikipedia could play a very significant role in bridging the gap between the "have"s and the "have not"s in many parts of the world. (ie acc'd to Hemanshu, in India there is a widespread belief that you have to know English to use a computer; perhaps this would change if there was a huge online encyclopedia in local languages; many people in many regions of the world could use the internet if they wanted but don't because they can't understand a single word of the content currently available)
For languages like Maori and Hawai'ian, an encyclopedic resource written entirely in them would undoubtedly provide a much-needed resource for their language nest movements (maori -> kohanga reo, hawai'ian -> punana leo). As of right now there is no Hawai'ian wikipedia but I'm sure it would be very easy to solicit Punana Leo educators (as well as educators from Hawai'ian-language primary and secondary schools) to come and build a wikipedia, and I bet they'd do it quickly too with that kind of motivation (as it is, they have nights where parents come in and translate textbooks paragraph by paragraph, pasting Hawai'ian translations on over the English paragraphs; imagine if a similar effort were applied to Wikipedia except in addition rather than on top of)
Similarly with a Gothic Wikipedia, the 400 or so children that are currently being raised in Gothic (some of whom may well not be children anymore, I'm not sure) as well as those to come in the future would have an encyclopedic resource which could be of tremendous help to them. Objections on the grounds that Gothic died too long ago are baseless unless you are also agaisnt the Cornish wikipedia because Gothic, although it died a really long time ago in Western Europe, persisted until maybe even into the industrial age in the Crimea, as long or maybe even longer than Cornish. And the Cornish wikipedia already has over 120 articles over a couple of weeks with only two active contributors and only one really active contributor. And Gothic, unlike Cornish, does not have the multiple varieties and the infighting.
--node
On Sun, 19 Sep 2004 20:02:19 +0200, Tomasz Wegrzanowski taw@users.sf.net wrote:
On Sun, Sep 19, 2004 at 01:34:59PM -0400, Evan Prodromou wrote:
Mark Williamson said:
I find that horribly discriminatory.
I find it appropriately discriminatory. As a project, the Wikimedia Foundation has to apply some judgement about where to devote its physical resources and the time and effort of its volunteers. If we waste the time and energy of those volunteers for unimportant tasks, they won't come back.
You very well may disagree about what choices the Foundation makes. I'm just saying that it's a really big Internet, and that if you want to create a wiki that no one else wants, you can do that. You don't have to have the Wikimedia Foundation's machines and volunteers to do it.
I'm sure this discussion wasted a lot more machine resources and volunteers' time than establishing those few Wikipedias.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Discriminatory indeed. I strongly disagree.
If we (luxembourgish wiki, around 10 regulars so far, working on it :) had to go that way to get our own wiki, I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten it, since noone would have found us etc. Now at least we have a chance to create something original in our language (for those who aren't that familiar with lux, we're only about 250.000 native speakers :)).
Caroline aka Briséis.
On Sun, 19 Sep 2004 13:34:59 -0400, Evan Prodromou wrote
Mark Williamson said:
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). > > I find that horribly discriminatory.
I find it appropriately discriminatory. As a project, the Wikimedia Foundation has to apply some judgement about where to devote its physical resources and the time and effort of its volunteers. If we waste the time and energy of those volunteers for unimportant tasks, they won't come back.
You very well may disagree about what choices the Foundation makes. I'm just saying that it's a really big Internet, and that if you want to create a wiki that no one else wants, you can do that. You don't have to have the Wikimedia Foundation's machines and volunteers to do it.
~ESP
-- Open WebMail Project (http://openwebmail.org)
Caroline,
congrats on your first 1000 articles in lb:!
--node
On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 01:06:07 +0200, Ewen Caroline caroline@www.web.lu wrote:
Discriminatory indeed. I strongly disagree.
If we (luxembourgish wiki, around 10 regulars so far, working on it :) had to go that way to get our own wiki, I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten it, since noone would have found us etc. Now at least we have a chance to create something original in our language (for those who aren't that familiar with lux, we're only about 250.000 native speakers :)).
Caroline aka Briséis.
On Sun, 19 Sep 2004 13:34:59 -0400, Evan Prodromou wrote
Mark Williamson said:
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). > > I find that horribly discriminatory.
I find it appropriately discriminatory. As a project, the Wikimedia Foundation has to apply some judgement about where to devote its physical resources and the time and effort of its volunteers. If we waste the time and energy of those volunteers for unimportant tasks, they won't come back.
You very well may disagree about what choices the Foundation makes. I'm just saying that it's a really big Internet, and that if you want to create a wiki that no one else wants, you can do that. You don't have to have the Wikimedia Foundation's machines and volunteers to do it.
~ESP
-- Open WebMail Project (http://openwebmail.org)
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Ewen Caroline wrote:
If we (luxembourgish wiki, around 10 regulars so far, working on it :) had to go that way to get our own wiki, I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten it, since noone would have found us etc. Now at least we have a chance to create something original in our language (for those who aren't that familiar with lux, we're only about 250.000 native speakers :)).
There would be no question about setting up a wikipedia when there are 250,000 native speakers. There would be no question, in fact, for much smaller language communities than that.
Node tends to engage in invalid FUD. It's a very different thing to contemplate a population of 250,000 native speakers who actually use a language, versus an academic exercise.
The question is more about dead languages and conlangs which are spoken only by very small numbers of people, and especially when those speakers primarily from the perspective of language preservation, academic interest, or just as a fun subculture. For those types of communities, it is certainly in line with our educational mission to assist them, but it is fairly clear to me that setting up an encyclopedia project is not likely to be the best way to help.
It is my opinion that we should revisit some of our existing wikipedia projects for which no community has developed or seems likely to develop, and see if we might not better serve those communities (and the goals of Wikimedia more broadly) by encouraging wikibooks and wiktionaries first.
--Jimbo
On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 06:21:16 -0700, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Ewen Caroline wrote:
If we (luxembourgish wiki, around 10 regulars so far, working on it :) had to go that way to get our own wiki, I'm sure we wouldn't have gotten it, since noone would have found us etc. Now at least we have a chance to create something original in our language (for those who aren't that familiar with lux, we're only about 250.000 native speakers :)).
There would be no question about setting up a wikipedia when there are 250,000 native speakers. There would be no question, in fact, for much smaller language communities than that.
Node tends to engage in invalid FUD. It's a very different thing to contemplate a population of 250,000 native speakers who actually use a language, versus an academic exercise.
It's one thing to say that sort of thing in a private e-mail or even to everybody *but* me, but when you say it so I can read it, that's asking for a fight, I think, though I'm not really wanting to fight.
Anyhow there are several things here - 1. Caroline's e-mail was in response to an e-mail talking about paying money and such to get a Wikipedia hosted. 2. An academic excersise? http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_3_110/ai_73064217/pg_1 <- Gothic was last heard in the Crimea by outsiders between the 1780s and 1790s, according to the page (and if travellers passing through still heard it in the 1780s, it probably survived in remote areas until the 1800s or 1810s). As is normal with language death, descendants of the last native speakers undoubtedly knew some of the language, less with each generation, until perhaps the 1850s or 1870s (though it could hardly be declared fluency most likely), and I would not be surprised if there are still a couple of hundred Gothic words in use by their descendants today in Tatar/Ukrainian/Russian/whatever language it is they speak now.
Also it is not difficult to find pages on the internet (most of them with some reference to Matthew Carver) speaking of a Gothic revival of sorts (the 400 native speakers was my mistake, it turned out to be from a conworld page which looks confusingly real, declaring there are 2 million Gothic speakers in the Crimea).
Also there is the fact that there are plenty of interested people - most of Gothic-L would probably be willing to contribute or at least help in some way.
Of course if you still don't think it's a good idea, you're entitled to your opinion.
The question is more about dead languages and conlangs which are spoken only by very small numbers of people, and especially when those speakers primarily from the perspective of language preservation, academic interest, or just as a fun subculture. For those types of communities, it is certainly in line with our educational mission to assist them, but it is fairly clear to me that setting up an encyclopedia project is not likely to be the best way to help.
It is my opinion that we should revisit some of our existing wikipedia projects for which no community has developed or seems likely to develop, and see if we might not better serve those communities (and the goals of Wikimedia more broadly) by encouraging wikibooks and wiktionaries first.
I hope you are speaking only of conlangs here (I don't think we have any deadlangs with dead wikis), it would be a shame to delete some of our small-but-seemingly-dead wikis in small natural languages.
But if you are speaking only of conlangs, then I entirely agree. the Klingon wikipedia might be moved to KLI webspace, and the Toki Pona wikipedia might be moved to the Toki Pona website, especially since Toki Pona itself is copyrighted (Klingon may be too, I'm not sure). The Lojban wikipedia is a bit questionable in my mind but it seems that in the minds of others it is on a level with tokipona: and tlh:, so perhaps it could be moved to the Lojban website?
best, node
Mark Williamson wrote:
- An academic excersise?
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_3_110/ai_73064217/pg_1 <- Gothic was last heard in the Crimea by outsiders between the 1780s and 1790s, according to the page (and if travellers passing through still heard it in the 1780s, it probably survived in remote areas until the 1800s or 1810s). As is normal with language death, descendants of the last native speakers undoubtedly knew some of the language, less with each generation, until perhaps the 1850s or 1870s (though it could hardly be declared fluency most likely), and I would not be surprised if there are still a couple of hundred Gothic words in use by their descendants today in Tatar/Ukrainian/Russian/whatever language it is they speak now.
I can't speak for everyone here (obviously), but IMO there's nothing wrong with promoting a Gothic revival of course, just a concern that a Gothic Wikipedia is not currently the best way to do it. It seems it is not actually spoken by anyone fluently, or used in day-to-day communication, which is the sort of thing Wikipedias are for (for looking up encyclopedia-type facts). It is apparently an interesting language, with some amount of information available and a community of people interested in it, which would make it a good candidate for hosting the extant historical texts in wikisource, and developing a working dictionary of the language in a Gothic Wiktionary. If that were done, and if people started to use the language, then the case for a Gothic Wikipedia would be much stronger. It's just odd for there to be an encyclopedia for a language in which there is apparently no contemporary writing and no good dictionary.
-Mark
- An academic excersise?
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1134/is_3_110/ai_73064217/pg_1 <- Gothic was last heard in the Crimea by outsiders between the 1780s and 1790s, according to the page (and if travellers passing through still heard it in the 1780s, it probably survived in remote areas until the 1800s or 1810s). As is normal with language death, descendants of the last native speakers undoubtedly knew some of the language, less with each generation, until perhaps the 1850s or 1870s (though it could hardly be declared fluency most likely), and I would not be surprised if there are still a couple of hundred Gothic words in use by their descendants today in Tatar/Ukrainian/Russian/whatever language it is they speak now.
I can't speak for everyone here (obviously), but IMO there's nothing wrong with promoting a Gothic revival of course, just a concern that a Gothic Wikipedia is not currently the best way to do it. It seems it is not actually spoken by anyone fluently, or used in day-to-day communication, which is the sort of thing Wikipedias are for (for looking up encyclopedia-type facts).
Actually there are fluent speakers (though no native speakers). I'm not sure about communication on a day-to-day basis, but I do know that I have seen entire e-mail conversations on lists as well as entire webpages in Gothic.
It is apparently an interesting language, with some amount of information available and a community of people interested in it, which would make it a good candidate for hosting the extant historical texts in wikisource, and developing a working dictionary of the language in a Gothic Wiktionary.
Actually there are already people who are fluent in Gothic, and their internet connectivity percentage is probably much higher than for other such populations because the core of that community is academians (though there are plenty of general enthusiasts who are fluent).
There's probably not much of a point of hosting the extant historical texts in WikiSource as a major project as they're already available online for free (under what license, I am not sure).
If that were done, and if people started to use the language, then the case for a Gothic Wikipedia would be much stronger. It's just odd for there to be an encyclopedia for a language in which there is apparently no contemporary writing and no good dictionary.
No good dictionary? What? There are quite a few good Gothic dictionaries, a couple of them available on the Internet. There *is* contemporary writing, i.e. e-mails, webpages, and a small collection of short poetry. In fact there are even neologisms for things like "computer", "e-mail", and even "electric bill" (of course these are recent inventions, but they were derived similar to the way neologisms in Icelandic or in formal Arabic have been derived, ie using existing words in the language rather than borrowing).
--node
Mark Williamson wrote:
But if you are speaking only of conlangs, then I entirely agree. the Klingon wikipedia might be moved to KLI webspace, and the Toki Pona wikipedia might be moved to the Toki Pona website, especially since Toki Pona itself is copyrighted (Klingon may be too, I'm not sure). The Lojban wikipedia is a bit questionable in my mind but it seems that in the minds of others it is on a level with tokipona: and tlh:, so perhaps it could be moved to the Lojban website?
Well, I think we should seriously consider a process for generating consensus on these questions and then we should make some changes.
What is really needed, but complex to generate, is a consensus policy to guide future decision making. I feel that it is not necessary for such a consensus policy to be 100% consistent with past practice, i.e. we can continue to support some projects that we would not agree to start today.
--Jimbo
Well,
one main problem is that Toki Pona is copyrighted, and I believe KLI and Lojban may be too.
--node
On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 16:03:10 -0700, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
But if you are speaking only of conlangs, then I entirely agree. the Klingon wikipedia might be moved to KLI webspace, and the Toki Pona wikipedia might be moved to the Toki Pona website, especially since Toki Pona itself is copyrighted (Klingon may be too, I'm not sure). The Lojban wikipedia is a bit questionable in my mind but it seems that in the minds of others it is on a level with tokipona: and tlh:, so perhaps it could be moved to the Lojban website?
Well, I think we should seriously consider a process for generating consensus on these questions and then we should make some changes.
What is really needed, but complex to generate, is a consensus policy to guide future decision making. I feel that it is not necessary for such a consensus policy to be 100% consistent with past practice, i.e. we can continue to support some projects that we would not agree to start today.
--Jimbo
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