[Foundation-l] How to dismantle a language committee

[Marcus Buck]

Muhammad Alsebaey hett schreven:
>> The mission of the foundation is an educational one. So it would be
>> better to ask the uneducated masses of Egypt, whether they feel a gain
>> from a Wikipedia in their language or whether they stick with the
>> "Latin" Wikipedia.
>>
>> Marcus Buck
>>
>>
>>     
> It is interesting to me to see that Masri condones writing in a Latinized
> alphabet, I didnt know that until I saw Mohamed's email, so I went looking
> and they say you can write in both Arabic and 'latinized' characters. I said
> earlier that I am against deleting any project already opened with an active
> user base, still I fail to see how articles like the following are of any
> use to anybody but an elite few who would like to see their language more
> westernized, and are using Wikipedia to give ground to such
> experimentation... Do people actually think that the illiterate masses are
> willing to learn a totally new alphabet that is of no use to them in daily
> life just to read some information on Wikipedia? anyone else seeing this
> premise as kind of nonsensical?
>
> http://arz.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%86%D8%B8%D8%A7%D9%85_%D9%83%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A8%D8%AA%D9%88%D9%83%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%8A_(%D9%83%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A8%D8%AA%D9%88%D9%83%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%8A%D8%A9)
>
> http://arz.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%83%D9%88%D8%AA%D8%A7
>
>   
I don't know, how widespread knowledge of Latin letters is, but I'm 
quite sure, that you are right. Latin letters shouldn't be encouraged. I 
did some "random article" and in 36 random articles (that's a 10% sample 
of arz.Wikipedia) I found no article written in Latin letters. So I 
guess, articles in Latin letters are a very limited number. Both 
examples given by you were created by Dudi on the Incubator. It seems 
Dudi isn't active anymore, no edits since November. The account wasn't 
even recreated after the move from the Incubator to the wiki (but 
perhaps he chose another username). It seems, the problem is very limited.

Marcus Buck