Dear all,
I am an administrator, bureaucrat and checkuser on the Romanian Wikipedia. I have contacted the current owner of domain wikipedia.ro asking him to consider donating the domain to Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (there is no local chapter in Romania). He's considering the option, but in the meanwhile he has offered to allow us use of the domain -- in other words, he asked for the appropriate nameserver IP addresses he should associate with that domain (obviously, that should lead to the content currently served at ro.wikipedia.org). Could that be arranged? If so, please provide the respective IP addresses so I can pass them on to him.
In a different train of thoughts, should he agree donating the domain altogether to WMF, can WMF to take ownership, or is that against any policy?
Best regards, Gutza
Gutza hett schreven:
Dear all,
I am an administrator, bureaucrat and checkuser on the Romanian Wikipedia. I have contacted the current owner of domain wikipedia.ro asking him to consider donating the domain to Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (there is no local chapter in Romania). He's considering the option, but in the meanwhile he has offered to allow us use of the domain -- in other words, he asked for the appropriate nameserver IP addresses he should associate with that domain (obviously, that should lead to the content currently served at ro.wikipedia.org). Could that be arranged? If so, please provide the respective IP addresses so I can pass them on to him.
In a different train of thoughts, should he agree donating the domain altogether to WMF, can WMF to take ownership, or is that against any policy?
Best regards, Gutza
Ideally it shouldn't be a redirect to ro.wikipedia.org, but a portal page that provides an entrance point to ro.wikipedia, hu.wikipedia, rmy.wikipedia, de.wikipedia, uk.wikipedia, tr.wikipedia, ru.wikipedia, tt.wikipedia, sr.wikipedia, sk.wikipedia, pl.wikipedia and cs.wikipedia. So, all the languages spoken in Romania. Our subdomains are language codes, but the top-level domains are country-specific.
See for example http://wikipedia.ch/ or http://wikipedia.de/.
Marcus Buck
Marcus Buck wrote:
Ideally it shouldn't be a redirect to ro.wikipedia.org, but a portal page that provides an entrance point to ro.wikipedia, hu.wikipedia, rmy.wikipedia, de.wikipedia, uk.wikipedia, tr.wikipedia, ru.wikipedia, tt.wikipedia, sr.wikipedia, sk.wikipedia, pl.wikipedia and cs.wikipedia. So, all the languages spoken in Romania. Our subdomains are language codes, but the top-level domains are country-specific.
See for example http://wikipedia.ch/ or http://wikipedia.de/.
On the other hand, http://wikipedia.fi/ seems to be a redirect to http://fi.wikipedia.org/, even though Finland is officially bilingual and has only slightly more Finnish-speakers (about 91%) than Romania has Romanian-speakers (about 89%).
On the third hand, the http://wikipedia.de/ page does look nice. I wouldn't mind seeing the design copied to other CCTLDs.
On the other hand, http://wikipedia.fi/ seems to be a redirect to http://fi.wikipedia.org/, even though Finland is officially bilingual and has only slightly more Finnish-speakers (about 91%) than Romania has Romanian-speakers (about 89%).
On the third hand, the http://wikipedia.de/ page does look nice. I wouldn't mind seeing the design copied to other CCTLDs.
as another alternative see wikipedia.ch
Switzerland has four official languages (German, French, Italian, Rumantsch) whereas Swiss-German is in fact a group of Alemannic Dialects.
Manuel Schneider wrote:
On the other hand, http://wikipedia.fi/ seems to be a redirect to http://fi.wikipedia.org/, even though Finland is officially bilingual and has only slightly more Finnish-speakers (about 91%) than Romania has Romanian-speakers (about 89%).
On the third hand, the http://wikipedia.de/ page does look nice. I wouldn't mind seeing the design copied to other CCTLDs.
as another alternative see wikipedia.ch
Switzerland has four official languages (German, French, Italian, Rumantsch) whereas Swiss-German is in fact a group of Alemannic Dialects.
That's true, and makes a portal page pretty much necessary.
It's pretty fugly compared to the .de page, though. IMHO. Which is why I didn't mention it in my previous post. :)
Ilmari Karonen hett schreven:
Manuel Schneider wrote:
On the other hand, http://wikipedia.fi/ seems to be a redirect to http://fi.wikipedia.org/, even though Finland is officially bilingual and has only slightly more Finnish-speakers (about 91%) than Romania has Romanian-speakers (about 89%).
On the third hand, the http://wikipedia.de/ page does look nice. I wouldn't mind seeing the design copied to other CCTLDs.
as another alternative see wikipedia.ch
Switzerland has four official languages (German, French, Italian, Rumantsch) whereas Swiss-German is in fact a group of Alemannic Dialects.
That's true, and makes a portal page pretty much necessary.
It's pretty fugly compared to the .de page, though. IMHO. Which is why I didn't mention it in my previous post. :)
I agree, that wikipedia.de looks quite fine. But on the other side it has its downsides too. When you are Danish (well, if the browser is set to Danish), the Danish Wikipedia will be preselected. Great! But the language still is German, which is, well, not very reasonable... But the German chapter, who hosts the portal, refuses to localize the portal. Technical reasons. You know, it's always technical reasons...
Yes, the Finnish domain should be a portal too. And there are many more country domains, which redirect instead of being a portal: wikipedia.it, wikipedia.no, wikipedia.se, wikipedia.us... And many others, which are unregistered or registered by persons not related to Wikipedia: wikipedia.ru, wikipedia.es, wikipedia.pt. What was most astounding to me: wikipedia.fr. France is well known for its refusal of the rights of minority languages. But wikipedia.fr indeed is a portal! But instead of presenting Catalan, Basque, Alsatian, Breton, Occitan etc. Wikipedias, it let's you choose between French Wikipedia and Commons. wtf? Well, to be fair: The Catalan, Basque, Alsatian, Breton, Occitan etc. Wikipedias _are_ presented. But hidden behind the link "Wikipédia dans d'autres langues".
Marcus Buck
Marcus Buck wrote:
Ideally it shouldn't be a redirect to ro.wikipedia.org, but a portal page that provides an entrance point to ro.wikipedia, hu.wikipedia, rmy.wikipedia, de.wikipedia, uk.wikipedia, tr.wikipedia, ru.wikipedia, tt.wikipedia, sr.wikipedia, sk.wikipedia, pl.wikipedia and cs.wikipedia. So, all the languages spoken in Romania. Our subdomains are language codes, but the top-level domains are country-specific.
See for example http://wikipedia.ch/ or http://wikipedia.de/.
Marcus Buck
Good point, I haven't thought of that distinction between TLDs representing countries and Wikipedia formalising languages. I for one agree with that view, regardless of what's happening in other countries. I'll go back to our domain benefactor and to the local Wikipedia community and see what kind of consensus we can reach.
Thank you all for the input, this was helpful.
Cheers, Gutza
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Gutza wrote:
I am an administrator, bureaucrat and checkuser on the Romanian Wikipedia. I have contacted the current owner of domain wikipedia.ro asking him to consider donating the domain to Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (there is no local chapter in Romania). He's considering the option, but in the meanwhile he has offered to allow us use of the domain -- in other words, he asked for the appropriate nameserver IP addresses he should associate with that domain (obviously, that should lead to the content currently served at ro.wikipedia.org). Could that be arranged? If so, please provide the respective IP addresses so I can pass them on to him.
In a different train of thoughts, should he agree donating the domain altogether to WMF, can WMF to take ownership, or is that against any policy?
We would certainly prefer it if he'd like to transfer ownership of the domain to the Wikimedia Foundation.
Just changing the name servers is a little risky, since it's easy to lose track of the various domain ownerships, and it might end up not getting renewed or transferred out from under the current owner -- and the next owner might not be as friendly.
As with most other country domains, we'd probably set up either a redirect or a portal page, depending on what seems the most appropriate for the linguistic situation.
- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
Brion Vibber wrote:
We would certainly prefer it if he'd like to transfer ownership of the domain to the Wikimedia Foundation.
Just changing the name servers is a little risky, since it's easy to lose track of the various domain ownerships, and it might end up not getting renewed or transferred out from under the current owner -- and the next owner might not be as friendly.
As with most other country domains, we'd probably set up either a redirect or a portal page, depending on what seems the most appropriate for the linguistic situation.
-- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
Noted, I have conveyed the message (I have already sent him an e-mail including the link to this thread in the archives, but I'm not sure how much time he has to dig into this conversation). I don't think that risk is significant, because there's no renewal for Romanian TLDs, but if WMF is willing (and apparently glad) to take ownership, that would certainly serve the project better than any individual could.
Cheers, Gutza
Brion Vibber hett schreven:
As with most other country domains, we'd probably set up either a redirect or a portal page, depending on what seems the most appropriate for the linguistic situation.
Monolingual countries are a real rarity. I went through the full list of countries with ccTLDs and here is what I found: Iceland: only autochthonous language is Icelandic North and South Korea: autochthonous language is Korean, there is a Chinese minority, but it is not autochthonous Cuba: autochthonous language is Spanish, according to the Wikipedia articles I consulted, there is no creole, all indigenous languages are extinct and there are no large groups of speakers of other languages Maldives: only autochthonous language is Dhivehi
That's it for the bigger countries.
There are several little monolingual territories: Ascension Island, Bouvet Island, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, St. Helena, French Southern and Antarctic Lands. Some small colonial dependencies with the colonial language being the only language spoken and some uninhabited dependencies. Anguilla and Saint Pierre and Miquelon according to Wikipedia have small groups of non-English/non French speakers. Liechtenstein is monolingual German, but the Alemannic dialect spoken there has its own Wikipedia. San Marino is monolingual Italian, but the Romagnol dialect spoken there is sufficiently distinct to be part of a future Gallo-Romance dialect Wikipedia some time. Last but not least we have some countries on the Arabic peninsula which are officially monolingual Arabic. Those are United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Yemen has some very distinct South Arabic varieties, which are classified as own languages. The Arabic dialects of the other countries could get their own Wikipedias too some day, just as the Egypt Arabic is getting its own project just at the moment. United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia have very big groups of foreign workers too, which make up up to 81% of the population in the case of the United Arab Emirates.
All other countries have multiple languages.
Marcus Buck
Brion Vibber wrote:
We would certainly prefer it if he'd like to transfer ownership of the domain to the Wikimedia Foundation.
The domain owner is not willing to transfer ownership to WMF, he prefers to wait until a local Wikimedia chapter is founded. However, as promised, the DNS records have been changed as to point to one of my servers, so we can build a portal or whatever the community decides (for better or worse, the Wikipedia in Romanian is the best representative Wikipedia community in Romania, although we do have the occasional Moldovan and Polish contributor). Currently the domain is a redirect to ro.wikipedia.org, à la http://www.wikipedia.cz/ or http://www.wikipedia.hu/, but we're discussing the issue.
In that context, I have a couple of questions for the list:
1. Can we use the Wikipedia trademark in the absence of a local chapter? We'd obviously abide by the same principles as Wikipedia (no ads, Wikipedia-centric content, collaborative management by the ro.wiki community), but I don't want to risk the odd legal trouble over such a minor issue.
2. Is there any framework available for collaborative development that we can use? We could probably open a Sourceforge project, but I'd rather keep things in house if possible (and I have no intention of setting up repositories and interfaces for this purpose on my own).
Thank you, Gutza
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org