[Wikipedia-l] Request for new Wikipedia: Friulian

[Mark Williamson]

> > The problem is that to do that, I need to be able to write a press
> > release in the target language.
> 
> Which is, of course, another reason we need at least one dedicated,
> fluent, user to support and nurture any new Wikipedia.

That makes no sense whatsoever. Even plenty of thriving Wikipedias
have no mention of them in the press and a couple are actually trying
to keep things quiet until they gradually grow a bit bigger to avoid
sudden influxes of vandalism and inexperienced users.

Many of those that *do* have mentions in the press do not have them
because of press releases or contacts between journalists and
Wikipedians, but rather because the journalist simply happened upon
the site and mentioned it.

> As for what is wrong with an abandoned Wikipedia, they become a haven
> for vandalism, spam, and generally undesirable content. I seem to
> remember hearing about a language where the entire content of the wiki
> appeared to be essentially gibberish, and not the language of that WP
> at all.

As regards vandalism, spam, and generally undesirable content: that is
why I and others in a small group of users dedicated to a good
multilingual international reputation for Wikipedia and to quality
patrol such Wikipedias at least once a month to check for vandalism,
and sometimes vandalism and spam is actually caught much sooner,
sometimes within minutes of its posting. (for example, iu: or arc: get
visited less frequently than yi:)

As regards the Nauruan Wikipedia, that actually took place UNDER THE
WATCH OF TWO DEDICATED USERS - IN FACT, THEY WERE THE ONES
PERPETRATING THE FRAUD. They requested technical favours in public
places from devs, and the community knew about the new Wikipedia and I
for one was happy until I discovered loads of months later it was in
the wrong language.

I'm not sure but I think dz:, so far edited by 3 or 4 registered users
and a few other anons, has the same problem (for one, ttbomk Dzongkha
is written exclusively in U Can)

> The problem is therefore that as soon as you create a new wiki, it is
> instantly and permanently editable by all, so if you're community
> dries up, there is a risk that it will just be abused, with no-one to
> look after it. That doesn't really equate to loss of resources, but it
> does dilute the Wikimedia "brand" - can you imagine what a field day
> our detractors would have if it was revealed that there are a dozen
> "translations" of Wikipedia that contained nothing but garbage and
> spam? [I'm not saying this is the case, I'm just saying that this is
> the risk we are weighing up here.]

If we create 102020202020202 new Wikipedias, this may be a problem,
but for just the creation of two or three Wikipedias, it isn't.
Currently, the rate of "taking off" for previously barren Wikipedias
is higher than the rate of creation of new subdomains, and thus the
number of barren spaces to monitor is staying the same or even
decreasing.

> As has been pointed out, just the number of initial contributors is a
> bad indicator; but we do need some indication that a solid community
> is likely to emerge; and personally, I don't think number of fluent
> speakers (or even fluent speakers with net connections) provides this
> indication.  Perhaps, instead, we need some kind of "enthusiasm test",
> to show that the user(s) starting it is/are going to dedicate time to
> getting it off the ground, not just in terms of seeding the content,
> but also recruiting the community. I'm not saying we should make
> language creation some hideously complex process and put off anyone
> who's a little bit nervous, but perhaps some clear guidelines of what
> creating an effective new wiki involves, and a confirmation that there
> is somebody willing to undertake that process.

We already have guidelines for creating effective new Wikis, but
they're IMHO pretty sucky and according to my experience are wrong,
wrong, all wrong.

mark