[Foundation-l] A dangerous precedent

[Andre Engels]

2007/12/27, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com>:
> I think that preserving a language is a good goal, but it is one that
> Wikipedia is not well suited for and is not intended to fulfill.

I agree. If preservation of a language is the main goal, within the
foundation Wikisource or Wiktionary would seem more valid candidates.
For Wikipedia it would at best be a by-product, and even as such it
would seem doubtful - if the language really is dying, whether there
should be a Wikipedia at all is a valid question in my opinion. Where
Wikipedia COULD be useful is for languages that are not threatened
where number of speakers is concerned, but is in general not used in
writing.

> If the point is to aggregate knowledge in a way that is accessible to as
> many people as possible, how does a Wikipedia in a constructed
> language (a code, really) serve that point?

It depends. If the constructed language has a large number of
speakers, like Esperanto, there is definitely a use for it: There will
be probably people who speak Esperanto, but are less fluent in any of
the larger Wikipedia languages. Having the information in Esperanto is
then a plus compared to having it only in the 'large' languages, and
less work than making it available in all the various vernaculars.


-- 
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels