[Foundation-l] UNIQUE AND WORKABLE CRITERION

[Pharos]

On Fri, Apr 18, 2008 at 9:08 AM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
<pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:
> Pharos <pharosofalexandria at gmail.com> wrote:
>  >  OK I think now's the time to trot out again my proposal based directly
>  >  on the notability of the modern literature in a language, and the
>  >  specific criterion of whether or not a Featured Article could be
>  >  written on e.g. [[Modern Latin literature]] in the English or another
>  >  major-language Wikipedia.  I know it's weird, but I'd like to hear
>  >  what's wrong with this idea -beside- its being weird..
>  >
>
>  Featuring an article is
>  a commendation of the quality of its writing, not an objective
>  approval of its subject. I think your suggestion is to depend on the
>  "major" Wikipedias' concept of notability, since a non-notable article
>  presumably wouldn't be featured.

Absolutely.  This is based purely on the idea that a Featured Article
would face a high level of scrutiny, and that a non-notable article
wouldn't be featured.

>  However, I don't think the notability
>  of a language is at issue; every language with native users is
>  welcome, regardless of how "notable" particular volunteer
>  encyclopedists consider it to be.

I agree entirely.  -Every- language with native users should be
welcome.  And it is relatively easy to determine whether languages
have native speakers, because this is evaluated by standards
organizations.

This is proposed -only- as a requirement for written-only languages.
Because currently, no standards organizations differentiates between a
language like Latin (which has an active modern literature) and
languages like Anglo-Saxon or even Sumerian (which do not).

I see this as a way of sparing the Language subcommittee the endless
research and argument that might otherwise go into differentiating
between Latin and Sumerian.  And to do so by relying on the most
respected processes in all of Wikimedia, doing the ordinary course of
their work.

Now, -if- you thought it was a useful idea to distinguish between
Latin and Sumerian, wouldn't this be a good way to do that in these
cases?

Thanks,
Pharos