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

[M. Williamson]

Having a test project doesn't necessarily mean community interest;
having a test project with dozens of articles might indicate that. In
many cases, users with no relation to the language (in particular,
User:Jose77) have started test wikis with text all in English for
hundreds of languages. So the fact that we have an Adangme Test-wp
http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/ada/Main_Page created by Jose77
means absolutely nothing about community interest or access.

2011/5/26 Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com>:
> 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
>
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