[Foundation-l] Arabic, a non native language

[Nathan]

There is already an Arabic Wikipedia - I'm assuming its in Standard Arabic.
I think Crazy Lover's point was that the native speaking audience
requirement
was flawed, because few people speak Standard Arabic as a native language.

I think that falls under the "exceptions can be made" rule of common sense,
and the language policy itself is, I think, flexible enough to make use of a
major language even if the number of native speakers is small.

This was discussed previously, but can anyone point me to the thread where
GerardM and others discussed what proportion of the world's population
did not have a Wikimedia project in a language they speak, and also what
proportion is unrepresented with a native language project? It seems like
the
focus ought to be on recruiting people who speak the languages of the
projects
we already have, rather than tweaking our policies to get the maximum number
of empty projects.

Stupid question, perhaps - I know Wikimedia projects don't accept
advertising,
but do we advertise ourselves? Main page banners of popular projects asking
for native speakers to contribute in other projects, banners on websites of
local
or national popularity in areas where the number of our contributors are
small,
etc.? I'm thinking of the CIA's banner ads, like the one with an Arabic
phrase
and then an English one that says "If you can read this, and you're an
American
citizen, you could work for the CIA."

Nathan

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 11:15 AM, Andrew Whitworth <wknight8111 at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> Arabic, if there are a large number of speakers and if it can be used for
> efficient communication between speakers of divergent dialects, would
> seem like a great choice for a new language project. If the language
> is classified as "dead" or "ancient" or if it has no "primary
> speakers", those factors can be taken into account, but the language
> needs to be evaluated from a holistic standpoint to see that it is
> indeed worthy of having a project.
>
> --Andrew Whitworth
>
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