[Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request, and Chinese Wikipedia again

[Mark Williamson]

Hi Anthere,

Of course there is no way to know for sure, but so far we have
received expressions of interest from Alex Kwan, who is already an
outstanding member of the zh: and en: communities, and Felix Wan, who
appears to be very much interested in this idea.

There are quite a few others who have expressed support on the meta:
page, but I'm not sure 1) how many are real people, 2) how many
actually speak Cantonese, and 3) how many would actually edit the new
Wikipedia.

Of course these problems are involved in the creation of any new
Wikipedia, and look how many Wikipedias we now have with good article
bases.

For example, the Limburgish Wikipedia, which just a month ago was on
the list of Wikipedias proposed to be closed because of inactivity
with 0 pages and little content in Limburgish, now has at least 171
pages due to a sudden and explosive growth in contributors, especially
Guaka and HaafLimbo.

The Aragonese Wikipedia, which although it had 30 or 40 pages a month
ago, was inactive and a member of my "inactive Wikipedias" list that I
check for vandalism, with only a couple of edits every month. Now, it
has nearly 500 pages.

In the space of a very short time, the Luxemburgish Wikipedia went
from nonexistant to over 1000 articles.

This is not to say that we should just create new subdomains left and
right without any prospect of sustainability.

Rather, I believe that instead of requiring 5 users or an interface
translation to start a new Wikipedia, we should require only 1 user -
a fluent speaker - who will respond to e-mails (some requesters of new
languages just float off into space never to be heard from again).

Thus, while the prospect for it being abandoned still exists, it is
still much less likely than just creating all requested Wikipedias.
The reason I don't think we need such stringent requirements as have
been proposed is simple: Empty Wikipedias eventually begin to fill up.

There are those who would complain about having to clean up after
vandals (and even a user who posted English-language articles on the
American Civil War to dz: a couple of weeks ago!), but this is no
longer a concern due to my constant monitoring of a list of 118
inactive Wikipedias, which has been going on for a couple of months
now.

When these Wikipedias begin to grow, I keep them on the list a bit
longer to make sure it's not just temporary growth, and then I remove
them (thus, I have not yet removed the Aragonese or Limburgish
Wikipedias, but I will soon). So far it has proven a successful
preventative for vandalism, although new pages created by vandals
continue to exist.

So as long as there is a somewhat-reasonable expectation that a
Wikipedia will begin to grow immediately, I don't believe we need to
over-worry about having heaps of participants.

Mark

On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 01:18:19 +0100, Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hello Felix
> 
> Out of curiosity, do we know how many editors would currently actively
> work on the cantonese langage ?
> 
> Ant
> 
> Felix Wan a écrit:
> > On Fri, February 11, 2005 9:41 am, Andre Engels said:
> >
> >>As far as I understand, the current Wikipedia is supposed to be a
> >>_Chinese_ one, not a _Mandarin_ one.
> >>
> >>Andre Engels
> >>
> >>
> >>>Further argument against: there is no natural reason why someone whose
> >>>interest is captured by a Cantonese wikipedia should be forced to work
> >>>on a Mandarin one first.
> >>
> >
> > Long story...
> >
> > Suggested readings:
> > [[en:Chinese language]]
> > [[en:Chinese written language]]
> > [[en:Vernacular Chinese]]
> > [[en:Cantonese (linguistics)]]
> >
> > In short, "standard written Chinese" has always been based on the Mandarin
> > vernacular.  Now there is a request to set up an encyclopedia based on the
> > Cantonese vernacular.  Although the latter has no official status, it has
> > a de facto writing system popular among Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong,
> > and is gaining popularity in Guangdong.
> >
> > It is not possible to mix Cantonese and Mandarin writing in zh: like
> > American and British English in en: because those two regional speeches
> > of China do not enjoy equal status.  Written Cantonese will be considered
> > as substandard and corrected to conform with the vocabulary and grammar
> > of Mandarin, which some people call "standard and proper Chinese".
> >
> > Even though I support the creation of a Cantonese Wikipedia, I will oppose
> > writing Cantonese in zh: for the obvious pragmatic reason: every literate
> > Cantonese speaker can read written Mandarin (standard Chinese), but the
> > reverse is not true.  Unfair, but that is the fact of life.
> >
> > My primary concern is that everyone here understand the facts before
> > making the decision.  We live in a real world.  We may deny Cantonese
> > Wikipedia due to political, public relation, or pragmatic reasons, but
> > let's be honest and state the reason.  If we pretend that it is just
> > because the two writing systems are the same, people will come again and
> > again to demonstrate that they are different.
> >
> > Felix Wan
> 
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