Sorry mac, but you can't ignore the fact that bokmål is written by the largest share of the norwegian population, around 90-80%. If no: could be a serverside redirect to nb: but with a portal frontpage, sure i would go for that, but i don't think it's technicaly possible.
And i don't see the point in involving a english mailinglist, that probably don't care about the situation. Hell even i'm getting tired of it.
On the other hand one of the admins at no: had a good idea that could probably heal some of the unfairness felt by nynorskusers. To use the main page on "no" as a multilingual focal point, with the nynorsk featured article of the week, and the bokmål one, side by side.
Another impotant note, we shuldn't dream up different technical solutions that is probably not viable. Sure, it would be great if all text on the internett appared in your own language (like an oversized babelfish translating everything) but in our present time this isn't possible
With no: being the de facto bokmål wiki, there has been a wish among the no: users to formalize this.
As for an third norwegian wiki (nb) this would only serve to divert ressurces and manpower.
I have no oppresion agenda against nynorsk, my goal for wikipedia is only to create a NPOV wiki in the language i know, and that being the language closest to my oral language, bokmål. I agree, even if nynorsk isn't my language it's no less norwegian than bokmål. But on the other hand, i think we should represent the majority of the norwegian people on no: and the majority use bokmål as their language. The only other solution would be to move no: to nb: and create a serverside redirect (this is accualy technicaly possible).
mvh. Lars Alvik (who is growing tried of being represented as a ignorant fool and a "jævela austlending")
På 10. mar. 2005 kl. 11:28 skrev Ulf Lunde:
Here we go again! :-)
There are several issues here.
One is the question of *discrimination or equality between the variants* of the Norwegian language. This has been pointed out by Mark Williamson earlier in this thread, but seems to be largely overlooked.
On Fri Mar 4 01:30:40 UTC 2005, Lars Alvik said:
forexample the www.google.no is on bokmål, you have to click an extra link to get to the nynorsk version. This is more or less what i think no: should be, on bokmål but with a well placed link to nynorsk.
The above remark by Lars Alvik is discriminating and offensive towards nynorsk users. Why should it be like that and not the other way around? Is bokmål a superior language?
To better explain the offensiveness of such statements of superiority, I risk a provocative analogy. To say: Bokmål is the default Norwegian language, so asking for "Norwegian" should give you bokmål, but we can put a link to nynorsk there; is tantamount to saying something like: *Men* are the default human beings, so looking up "human being" should redirect you to "man", but we can have a well placed link to "woman" on that page!
(The Sami languages are a different kind of problem, because although they are official languages in some regions of Norway, the Sami languages do not call themselves "Norwegian", and so probably do not want to claim the name "Norwegian Wikipedia".)
Incidentally, Lars Alvik's description of the Google interface is not true. The address www.google.no will give you whichever Norwegian variant you selected on your previous visit. This is a good model for how the address no.wikipedia.org can be made to work, too!
A second issue is *which names the inter-wiki links should show*.
To Olve Utne this is a major issue, while who gets to use the language code "no" is a minor issue. I see it differently. In the name of fairness, a wiki which excludes one of the two official forms of Norwegian, should not be given *exclusive* rights to the language code for Norwegian. To display the inter-wiki link "no" as "norsk (bokmål)" is simply incorrect.
To me, it is as simple as this: "no" is "norsk" "nb" is "norsk (bokmål)" "nn" is "norsk (nynorsk)" This is how the links are displayed in Wikipedia today, and it looks good to me.
Olve proposes that we change it to be like this: "no" is "norsk (bokmål)" "nb" is also "norsk (bokmål)" "nn" is "norsk (nynorsk)" I don't see any reason to make such a change. In fact, the case of equality vs. discrimination is a strong argument *against* such a change.
A third issue is whether or not to *exclude nynorsk Norwegian* from the current Norwegian Wikipedia at no.wikipedia.org.
That Wikipedia has so far been a mixed Norwegian Wikipedia, with a user interface in bokmål, but allowing articles in any written form of the language. Last year a separate nynorsk Norwegian Wikipedia appeared at nn.wikipedia.org, so now there are two completely separate wikipedias which allow articles written in nynorsk Norwegian. Since nynorsk now has its own "home", several people have proposed to disallow it in the hitherto "Norwegian" Wikipedia, effectively changing the older Wikipedia into a pure bokmål encyclopedia.
A vote is going on about this right now in http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:M%C3%A5lform If that vote decides to turn that Wikipedia database into an exclusively bokmål encyclopedia, I say that from that moment on it loses its exclusive right to the language code "no", and all links to it should thenceforth use the code "nb".
If the vote decides to keep the mixture of written forms, that wikipedia shall of course stay at no.wikipedia.org. I have tried to create a separate, pure bokmål wikipedia at nb.wikipedia.org to achieve symmetry with the nynorsk one at nn.wikipedia.org, but so far there has been little support for such an addition.
There are also other issues, related to *non-official written forms* of Norwegian, but I won't go into those here, as I feel those can wait until the main issues have been resolved once and for all.
Ulf Lunde (user and appreciator of both Norwegian written forms and of both Norwegian wikipedias) _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l