[Wikipedia-l] The Borders of Language Variety Tolerance

[Jimmy Wales]

(Wouter asked me privately to please personally comment on this thread,
so I will.)

Wouter Steenbeek wrote:
> Could requests
> for wikipedias in Zeelandic and Town Frisian be granted. 

Not knowing anything about these two particular variants, I am unable to
make a proper guess or judgment.

This thread has done a very good job I think of discussing some or most
of the factors that should properly go into a decision such as this.

We are currently inconsistent in our treatment of different linguistic
situations.  I do not think this inconsistency is good, but I also do
not think it is a grave crisis.  I am not even certain that consistency
is desirable -- there may not be a "one size fits all" solution to this
question.

One thing I think we can all agree upon: there is a difference between
us *needing* a certain language in order to fulfill our global vision of
a free encyclopedia for every single person on the planet (in a language
they can easily enough understand) and us *wanting* a certain language
in order to fulfill a secondary goal of language preservation and
support for minority communities.

"Every single person on the planet" is a bit of rhetoric, but a serious
bit of rhetoric.  I will feel that this mission is complete if we have
an encyclopedia written in enough languages so that 99.99% of all people
_who are able to read in some language_ can read a Wikipedia.

Let me take as an example Welsh.  I am happy that we have a Welsh
wikipedia.  But it is all true that virtually every Welsh reader can
also read English.  Therefore, to meet our *central* mission, English
does the trick for Welsh speakers.  And for this *secondary* goal, Welsh
is a nice thing to have too.

Are all people who could read Zeelandic and Town Frisian also people who
can read standard Dutch?  Then we don't *need* them for our primary
mission, but they would be a nice thing to have as well, if it makes
social sense for the community.  (Meaning, if there are enough people
who want to do it, etc.)

--Jimbo