[Foundation-l] 1.3 billion of humans don't have Wikipedia in their native language

[Milos Rancic]

On 05/23/2011 12:58 PM, Milos Rancic wrote:
> Here is the article at Strategy wiki:
> http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Missing_Wikipedias
> 
> Some important ideas have been mentioned during this discussion. Feel
> free to add them there.
> 

Copied from [1]

I've started to categorize languages according to some principles [2].
(Task is presently far from being done.) Some of the are exact, some of
them are arbitrary categories:
* Does the language have any Wikimedia test project (usually at
Incubator) or not? If yes, that usually shows that there is interest in
creating that project. We should see how things are going there, do they
need our help and which kind of help they need.
* If literacy is low and there are no efforts to improve it, efforts
should go that way.
* Is it about the language without writing system? If yes, efforts
should go that way.
* Does the language have Wikimedia project in a "macrolanguage"? That
likely means that speakers would be happy to use their macrolanguage
project or that they are already using it. However, it doesn't
necessarily mean that and should be checked. We have a number of
macrolanguage editions which cover probably hundred of "individual"
languages.
* Special cases. Up to now, there are three categories (described inside
of that section):
** "Macrolanguage" is widely used. (Arabic languages, Mongolian languages.)
** Writing system gives de facto literacy in L1 if L2 is known. (Chinese
languages.)
** Language is spoken in well developed areas of the world by
non-endangered population. It is assumed that population want or doesn't
want Wikimedia projects because of their internal reasons. Examples are
Mainfränkisch and Albanian Gheg (with Incubator project) and Upper Saxon
(without Incubator project).
* Languages not inside of any of the category above should be the second
priority (after those with test projects). It is likely about languages
spoken by people without [good] Internet connection or some other
reasons. Every case should be analyzed separately. If it is about low
Internet penetration, then we should create alternative ways of reaching
that population and instructing them how to create and edit wiki
encyclopedia in their language.

Feel free to add your ideas here or at Strategy wiki.

[1]
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Missing_Wikipedias#Language_categorization_9389
[2] http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Missing_Wikipedias