[Foundation-l] Following the conventions: seperating Wikisource

[GerardM]

Hoi,
When Wikisource is having content in languages that did not pass the process
for recognition for a new language for MediaWiki and for a Wikimedia
Foundation project, and when this content is restricted to
http://wikisource.org, there seems to be at first glance not much that the
language committee has to deal with. The problem however is that a code that
is used for such a language has to exist. There is also a need that the meta
data uses the right code. This allows for the information to be recognised
for the language that it is.

Also when a request is made for a language in Wikisource, it is can not be
separated from the status that a language has in the wider Wikimedia world.
An example are the two Belarusian languages that do not find it possible to
collaborate. The only reason why there are two wikipedias is because the
be-x-old data existed before the new policies came into effect. This would
not have been accepted as a separate project on its own merits.

Thanks,
     GerardM

On 6/6/07, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Sabine Cretella a écrit :
> > Hi Yann,
> >
> > I suppose that there is something that is not understood well: normally
> > a new language is started with Wikipedia and therefore what comes later
> > is quite easy to achieve since the UI is already there etc.
> >
> > When a new language is introduced by a different project, let's say
> > Wiktionary, Wikisource or whatever project the same rules as for a new
> > Wikipedia (in a new language) apply, because it starts a "new language".
> >
> > We are not controlling anything - we are just making sure that projects
> > have the best possible start.
>
> There is something special in Wikisource, at least for some languages,
> is that there is no need to have a lot of content nor many contributors
> to have something useful. This is specially true for dead languages.
>
> I think Wikipedia or Wikibooks in a dead language are not useful,
> although it could be fun. Wiktionary could be useful, but you need at
> least some basic vocabulary to be useful. But for Wikisource, even only
> a single old work could be very interesting and useful. For some
> languages, there will never enough content nor contributors to create a
> separate subdomain, but still we need a place to host these works. IMO,
> this is the "raison d'être" of the multilingual Wikisource.
>
> So I think that, at least for these dead languages, the whole procedure
> of a new language through the Incubator is out of place.
>
> And actually I think that this procedure is also quite good for living
> languages, at least for Wikisource. The rules are easy and the same for
> every language: public domain and already "published", be it on paper,
> hard stone or papyrus...
>
> > Best wishes from Italy,
> >
> > Sabine
>
> Best regards,
>
> Yann
> --
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