[Foundation-l] Reconsidering the policy "one language - one Wikipedia"

[Thomas Dalton]

On 24 June 2010 15:04, Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk at googlemail.com> wrote:
> - Scope and name: Maybe it would practically make no big difference
> whether the project is called "simple" or "for kids". Poor readers and
> adult beginning readers (natives or not) tend to read texts that are
> meant for children anyway. It could make a difference in promoting,
> though. A scope question can also be whether certain kinds of explicit
> images are allowed.

I strongly disagree. There is a big difference between simple language
and simple concepts. Children need simple concepts (basically, you
can't assume as much prior knowledge because they haven't had time to
learn things that adults consider to be common knowledge). Adults that
are just learning a language need simple language because they haven't
learnt complicated vocabulary yet.

However, in either case I'm not sure a new project is a good idea.

The great thing about an online encyclopaedia is that you don't need
to assume prior knowledge, you can just link to the article that
provides that knowledge and let people decide for themselves whether
they need to click it.

As for people learning a language, the main way of learning vocabulary
is to see it used in context. There are lots of online bilingual
dictionaries (we have one ourselves) that people can look unfamiliar
words up in, so it's better just to use the words and help people
learn them.

Disclaimer: I used to be an admin on the Simple English Wikipedia,
however my opinions of its worth have changed since then.