[Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request

[Pablo Saratxaga]

Kaixo!

On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 08:26:20AM +0100, Boris Lohnzweiger wrote:

> But, a the end of the day, what is (or should be) an encyclopedia all
> about?  My definition is: a _comprehensive_ source of information.
> Now I'm afraid neither Klingon nor Quenyan nor any other fictional
> language wikipedia will ever achieve that status. Matter of fact,
> I think even most International auxiliary language wikipedias which
> have been set up so far won't get there. 

I fully agree.
(note that for "most international auxiliary languages", their
wikipedias are not very healthy because the language itself isn't;
Esperanto is the most successful auxiliary language, used by
a lot of people and I have actually seen Esperanto in use in
various places; and eo: Wikipedia does quite well).

> So after all, those fantasy language wikipedias would all end up being
> creative playgrounds for small circles of people. Which surely woundn't
> be a bad thing. But would that really fit into the concept of this
> great project?

That is the problem; what the proposers of those languages want is
not a Wikipedia!
They want a playgroung, feature the wonderfull mediawiki software
(which has evolved to be the best wiki software out there).
Imho such demands should be redirected to wikibooks or a similar thing
(maybe not hosted by wikipedia foundation); it will be even better for
them, as there won't be the need to write NPOV encyclopedic articles.

As for people doing research, I can perfectly imagine people doing
research in Klingon about Klingon language topics (or about supposed
Klingon fictional universe); but indeed I don't imagine them doing
research in Klingon about chemistry, medieval European history
or Russian litterature...
So, a mediawiki site for those fictional language makes sense and
is legitimate, but it should definitively not be a wikipedia; it doesn't
has the same goels, and it should have the same constraints either.

(I feel the same about some dead non-fictional languages, like
classical Latin or Anglo-saxon)

-- 
Ki ça vos våye bén,
Pablo Saratxaga

http://chanae.walon.org/pablo/		PGP Key available, key ID: 0xD9B85466
[you can write me in Walloon, Spanish, French, English, Catalan or Esperanto]
[min povas skribi en valona, esperanta, angla aux latinidaj lingvoj]
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