[Wikipedia-l] Starting a new wiki

[Mark Williamson]

Oh, also there is the additional option of setting up shop at a
Wikipedia that has had little or no action. This is *not* something I
would encourage! Please exhaust all other options first. Depending on
which language you choose though, it could take a very short time or a
very long time for anybody to realise what you're doing. And if you
can round up a good sized group of contributors, and you get up a
sizable number of articles, when you *are* eventually found out there
is a good chance the content will be kept, but moved to a different
subdomain (most likely ang:).

As I said before though, that is the last thing you should try! Unlike
the other options there is the inevitability of getting caught, and
the fact that it's against the rules. So really I would not recommend
this except as a last resort, and if you *do* do it, choose a language
with low internet connectivity and a small speaker population overall.

--node

ps
Seriously, don't do that.

On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 14:49:51 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, you have a number of different options.
> 
> The first and probably best would be to go to Wikipedia forks such as
> Wikinfo and mcfly (ok, maybe not mcfly) and tell them how the folks at
> the Wikimedia organisation are... well,   describe your plight. Some
> forks really hate the Wikimedia foundation and will feel very sorry
> for you and assist you with such a project, whereas others seem to be
> meant more to augment Wikipedia and their users still contribute to
> Wikipedia on a regular basis.
> 
> Another option would be to pay for private hosting and set up the
> MediaWiki software yourself, which I can tell you is not going to be
> very pleasant if you're not experienced in setting up server-side
> apps. You could probably also hire somebody to maintain the software
> for you (often hosting companies will offer such services), but that's
> just another additional cost.
> 
> The only other option I can think of at the moment is to use one of
> the free wiki hosts available on the internet. Let me tell you in
> advance, they all suck. Really, really suck. But obviously, they are
> free so you don't have to pay anybody as you would in the second
> scenario.
> 
> best,
> node
> 
> ps
> I thought the final decision was to go ahead and create ang:?
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 16:36:25 -0400, James R. Johnson
> <modean52 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > So, in the interest of the Anglo-Saxon wikipedia, how do I, personally, set
> > it up outside the wikimedia foundation, so that I can get it started?
> >
> > James
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
> > [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Evan Prodromou
> > Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2004 2:16 AM
> > To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Starting a new wiki
> >
> > Tim Starling wrote:
> >
> > > People underestimate the cost involved in setting up a wiki.
> >
> > Once again I'd like to point out that having a language-specific Wikipedia
> > is
> > not usually the best way to organize, promote, or develop a language.
> >
> > It's probably much better for a group of interested people working on a
> > small or
> > endangered language to set up a general-purpose wiki that encompasses the
> > Wikimedia ideas of a Wikipedia, Wiktionary, a language-learning Wikibook,
> > and
> > perhaps a few other community- or discussion-oriented purposes.
> >
> > There are a _lot_ of free or low-cost PHP hosting services that can host a
> > wiki.
> > Mediawiki can be hard to set up on these services, since MySQL usually costs
> >
> > significantly more, but there are a number of other wiki engines* that work
> > with
> >   flat files and don't require a database.
> >
> > Anyways: I think the best strategy is to tell people who want to have a
> > Wikipedia in their language to go start a wiki somewhere else. If they can
> > show
> > that they have a robust community that can support a Wikipedia, then they
> > should
> > get an xx.wikipedia.org domain (as well as other xx.wikisomething.org
> > stuff).
> >
> > ~ESP
> >
> > * I can hear it now: "Huh? There are other wiki engines? There are other
> > wikis?
> > I can set up my own? Huh?"
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
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> >
>