[Foundation-l] Allow new wikis in extinct languages?

[White Cat]

On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 12:10 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) <
pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello,
>
> The language subcommittee only allows languages that have a living
> native community (except Wikisource, due to its archivist nature).
> This is based on an interpretation of the Wikimedia Foundation mission
> to "provide the sum of human knowledge to every human being". Thus,
> the overriding purpose of allowing a wiki in a new language is to make
> it accessible to more human beings. If a language has no native users,
> allowing a wiki in that language does not fit our mission because it
> does not make that project accessible to more human beings. Instead, a
> wiki in their native languages should be requested if it doesn't
> already exist.
>
> Typically, the users requesting a wiki in an extinct language don't
> want to provide educational material to more people at all, but only
> want to promote or revive the language. While these are noble goals,
> they are not those of the Wikimedia Foundation, so that a wiki should
> not be created simply to fulfill them.
>
> But that is my opinion. What do you think; should wikis be allowed in
> every extinct language?
>
> --
> Yours cordially,
> Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
>
>
If there are people willing to develop and administer the language edition
of the encyclopedia, sure. At worst it is their time to waste. Such users
should be willing to operate the wiki as in take care of vandalism and etc.

If the wiki somehow successfully resurrects a dead language, no harm done.
It would be great publicity too. I see this as a no risk endeavored we
should take.

The role of the language subcommittee in my view should be to determine
weather or not there is enough of a community to launch a new language
edition of a project.