[Wikipedia-l] Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokmål?

[Ulf Lunde]

I have presented all my arguments in favor of a separate
nb:-Wikipedia, and I don't have
any new ones.  (Jeremy has understood the political issue perfectly.)

But since some people on this list (notably Lars Aronsson and Lars
Alvik) apparently
still do not get it, I will attempt some analogies which may make it
easier (for anyone
not familiar with nynorsk) to grasp the provocativeness of the
problem.  I will also try
again to explain why there will be no "dead links" and only very
little "extra work"
associated with my proposed solution.


Lars Alvik wrote:

> The idea nowadays is to change the interwikicoding and provide a list
> of reasons why bokmål is no: (like Utne suggested). This would create a
> bokmål/riksmål wiki on no: and formalize the language situation. And
> yes, i see this as an permanent solution.

Lars Aronsson wrote:

 > To most non-Norwegians, and I think also for many Norwegians, the concept of
 > the "Norwegian" language (written and spoken) is easy to understand
 > and unambigious.   [meaning that for most foreigners, Norwegian = Bokmål]

My reply to both of these comments is (and I hope there are some Mac or Linux
users on this list, or my point may be moot):

To most web surfers, and I think also for many wikipedians, the concept of
"computer" is easy to understand and unambiguously identical to "Windows".

The problems arise when Microsoft (read: either of the Norwegian languages)
pretends to have monopoly on the concept "computer" (read: "Norwegian").

When Bokmål users or Nynorsk users pretend this, the other group is
just as upset
as amerindians are when third generation European Americans pretend to have
monopoly on American heritage.


Lars Alvik also wrote:

 > Just moving no: to nb: creates a lot of problem and establish an own
 > nb: wiki idependantly of no: would kill the community and confuze new
 > users (i for one don't think it's fun to move around 11 500 articles).

I, for one, don't think that what Lars Alvik thinks is fun should
dictate the name of the Bokmål Wikipedia, when we have an unambiguous
set of ISO language codes which
is used for all other Wikipedias.  :-)

The fact that many foreigners (and some Norwegians) "feel" that
"Norwegian" equals
"Bokmål", is an emotional issue which should not lead a serious
project like Wikipedia
to break with established naming conventions.


Having given the problem a lot of thought, I can see no *practical problems*
in having separate no: and nb: Wikipedias (in addition to the nn: one) alive
at the same time.  There need be no *confusion*, either:

Articles which exist only in Bokmål or only in Nynorsk, can be left at
the common no:
Wikipedia indefinitely.  No "moving around 11.500 articles" is required.

New articles may be written in the no: Wikipedia, regardless of language form.
Visiting users need not even know that Norwegian has two written
forms; they will
find only articles in *Norwegian* (of which some will be in Bokmål,
some in Nynorsk).

When someone writes the same article in the other language, the first
article should be
moved from no: to nb: (if it is in Bokmål) or to nn: (if it is in
Nynorsk).  The no: article
should leave only pointers to both, preferably with some indication
about the length
(or other attributes) of each article.  Admittedly, this is slightly
more work than just writing
an interwiki link in the new article, but it is hardly "a lot of extra
work".  Given the amount
of eager programmers in the Wikipedia community, I reckon that a tool
for "moving the
article, calculating its size, and leaving a link" would probably soon
appear as a simple
click-button on every page of no:.  (Or a bot could periodically be
set to just move all
pages where the language is known, out of no: and into their
respective databases.)

Other Wikipedias may (and perhaps should?) always link to no:
(Norwegian), regardless
of whether the article is in Bokmål or in Nynorsk.  If only one of the
two forms exists,
there should be a #OMDIRIGER (which equals #REDIRECT) directive in no: to the
existing article, so there will not be any intermediate pages or any
extra clicking when
there is no ambiguity.

Of course, brand new articles would be written in the nb: and nn:
Wikipedias also.  When
this happens, we should make sure that links to these appear in no:
within a reasonable
amount of time.  Personally I think this will happen on its own
account, because of alert
Wikipedians who like to look for, and correct, such missing
redirections.  But it would be
simple to get a bot to do the search on a daily basis, if necessary.

An open question is how to write intrawiki links.  Should nn: contain
links only to no:, or should it be possible to link from one nn:
article to another (which is the default today)?
Note that this is not a problem which arises from the proposed change,
it is an existing
problem today, and something which should be adressed anyway, as long
as we allow
for Nynorsk (or Bokmål) articles to exist solely in no:, like we do
(for both languages) today.

Norwegian is a special language and merits special treatment. 
Wikipedia sysops may
see the case of the Norwegian language as an exercise and a step in
the direction of
a multilingual Wikipedia!

Ulf Lunde