[WikiEN-l] Unnecessary Wikipedia languages

Ian A Holton poeloq at gmail.com
Fri Jan 18 04:24:11 UTC 2008


I'm not sure this is the right list for this, but I've been thinking
about this for awhile now. Surely, some languages that Wikipedia is
offered in are unnecessary and obsolete. For example Gothic and
Allemanisch and many other German dialects. Anybody who can uses
Wikipedia in a German dialacet spoken in Germany can also at least read
standard German.

Why am I against such languages? A) They are an additional cost and
Wikipedia isn't exactly swimming in money and B) the contributors of
these Wikipedias would be making contributions to the larger more
popular and also more necessary standard version of the language. I know
this from several cases that good editors switched from Standard German
to their local dialect, for "a laugh". 

Of course, this doesn't apply to all dialects and all dead languages.
Latin for example is still used in academic circles and is therefor not
dead in my opinion. However, I don't see many people writing in Goth
anymore.

What is the general opinion on this, am I alone in thinking that this is
maybe an issue that needs to be addressed?

Ian [[User:Poeloq]], who is running the risk of making some enemies ;-)
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