[Wikipedia-l] na: problems - WikiSquatting (was: Starting a new wiki)

[Mark Williamson]

Tim Starling wrote:
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > 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:).
> >
> 
> I don't mind if people squat on empty wikis, since their secrecy means
> that they won't be able to request help writing language files, or to
> ask for help in making interlanguage links. In fact, I'll happily create
> any wiki if the potential contributors agree in advance to use a
> language file which is already mature, and that you refrain from
> requesting interface customisations which require developer attention.
> 
> If that seems like a bizarre rule, then maybe you should re-read my
> posts, where I have repeatedly attempted to explain my objection.
> 

Actually, it appears that is *exactly* what is being done at
http://na.wikipedia.org/

I have investigated and na.wikipedia as well as na.wiktionary appear
to be totally fraudulent. I'm not sure what language they *are* in,
but it sure as hell isn't Nauruan - the dead giveaway is "el welcomi
gua wikipedia gua nauruoese" - a number of hints in that one sentence:
1 "welcomi" is *not* a Nauruan word, teh Nauruan word for "welcome" is
"talofa" 2 The Nauruan language for itself is not "nauruoese" but
rather "nauri".

In addition the names of articles can be used as an example. "Langue"
is not Nauruan for language, the Nauruan word would be "ekakairu" or
"edorer". "Nasion" is not Nauruan for nation, the Nauruan word would
be "ename" or "eponname". "Xiao" is not Nauruan for city, the Nauruan
word would be "tekawa". Of course since "Suaong" has no interwiki link
I cannot tell what it's supposed to mean, but suffice to say the word
does not appear in any Nauruan dictionary.

Also notable is this language's usage of an -s suffix to indicate
plurals, as in English and many Romance languages. A Polynesian
language such as Nauruan would not indicate plurals with a suffix like
that, and even if it *did*, it would be an extreme coincidence if it
was the same as in English.

It also appears that this language has noun cases - "xiao" (city)
because "xiae" (not sure what case either of these are, but I think
the former might be nominative and the latter accusative). This is a
feature that most definitely DOES NOT appear in Polynesian languages
(I would say it doesn't occur in Austronesian languages at all, but I
don't know that for sure).

Also suspect is the fact that a huge portion of the words they use are
cognate to English words - this would not be the case for a real text
in Nauruan.

--node