[Wikipedia-l] Re: No more new Wikipedias !

[Traroth]

I completly agree with this, even if seem to
presuppose that *image* is a main issue, what may be,
if we look at what image implies (public interest,
donation, number of contributors and so on), but it is
certainly not so obvious you seem to think.

Traroth

--- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> a écrit :

> Right
> 
> Time for me to say something here.
> 
> Angela is essentially right about myself not being
> willing to get 
> involved in the decision of a new language creation.
> 
> I consider the board is not here to micromanage
> things and that natural 
> leaders or natural groups of decision makers should
> appear to make the 
> final decision on whether to open a new language or
> not.
> 
> The board must certainly be involved in the deciding
> whether to create a 
> NEW PROJECT (such as Wikiversity or others), because
> this decision is 
> *strategic* to our whole organisation.
> 
> But once a project has be agreed upon, I do not see
> the decision of 
> opening one language or not being the job of board
> members, EXCEPT for 
> decision such as whether to work in real languages
> only, or to accept 
> constructed languages, because again, it might be a
> strategic decision. 
> My opinion on the matter is simply that languages
> such as Klington are 
> not welcome. And it seems the other board members
> agree with this.
> 
> 
> However, collecting and offering knowledge to the
> largest number of 
> people on earth is our mission. And it makes sense
> that knowledge is 
> offered in the language people know best. So, I
> consider that by 
> default, as a board member, I agree with the
> creation of any (real and 
> used) language.
> It also makes sense to ME, to help sustain
> endangered languages; so I 
> see no limit to our possibilities here.
> 
> 
> 
> However, AS A PERSON, I try to be practical and
> realistic.
> Practically, a project with only one editor working
> on it, has high 
> chances to be crap or pov. It is NOT a 100% certain,
> but chances are high.
> The problem with new languages is not only workload
> for the developers, 
> the problem with a new language with very few
> participants is simply a 
> project which is most of the time of poor quality.
> The QUANTITY of 
> information in the small wiki is NOT an issue for
> me. These projects 
> will NEVER be 100 000 articles big. It does not
> really matter. Even if 
> it contains only 5000 great quality stuff, it is
> WORTH it. Because good 
> quality content is worth.
> But most small projects usually are of poor quality.
> And this is not 
> very good for our image.
> Some will argue that as long as they are small, they
> are not very 
> visible, so it might not matter much. To a certain
> extent, this is true.
> However, each time I visit the french wikinews, my
> heart grieves, 
> because though small, though demo, it is visible.
> And poor quality is 
> noticed.
> 
> So as a person, I would prefer that all the small
> languages future wiki 
> only start if they can show a significant group of
> editors involved and 
> motivated. However, some would also argue that if
> new languages REQUIRE 
> 5 editors motivated at the same time to start...
> some encyclopedias such 
> as Bambara would NEVER start. And THIS would be a
> disastrous decision.
> 
> 
> 
> So, here is my handle.
> If more than 5-10 real and motivated people are
> asking for a new 
> language, by all means, let's start the new
> language. Why on Earth would 
> you need a board decision to do this ? These guys
> are real, with real 
> needs and real motivation and real language. The
> project is approved. So 
> ? Why not creating it ?
> If only 1 or 2 people are asking for the language,
> then we should 
> discuss the reality of the language proposed and the
> opportunity of the 
> opening. If the language is spoken by 10 millions of
> people, by all 
> means, we should open it. 10 millions
> readers/editors IS significant. If 
> spoken by only 200 people, then we might decide to
> get to know the only 
> interested editor a bit more ... so delay the
> creation a little bit.
> 
> 
> By the way, it would be nice that small new
> languages make the effort to 
> make short reports from time to time, so that any
> major difficulty does 
> not go unnoticed (such as a pov domination).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Anthere
> 
> 
> 
> Traroth wrote:
> 
> > That you don't want to make the work to create new
> > wikipedias is something I can understand, but why
> > destroy existing one ? 'Beats me !
> > What I cannot understand is : except the workload
> > problem, where is exactly the problem with new
> > languages ? Do you want to say which language
> people
> > have to speak ? Or what ?
> > 
> > Traroth
> > 
> > 
> > --- Tim Starling
> <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> a
> > écrit :
> > 
> > 
> >>Arbeo M wrote:
> >>
> >>>... at least not for the past three months or so.
> 
> >>>
> >>>In the past you only had to drop the name of some
> >>>language you'd heard of and a new wiki for that
> >>>language was created right away. This surely
> >>
> >>wasn't a
> >>
> >>>very intelligent approach, for it left us with
> >>
> >>quite a
> >>
> >>>number of inactive Wikipedias.
> >>>
> >>>Nowadays, it's the opposite extreme: there are
> >>
> >>heaps
> >>
> >>>of requests that have been discussed very
> >>
> >>thoroughly
> >>
> >>>by the community (cf.
> >>>
> >>
> >
>
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages).
> > 
> >>>Some of them are pretty well-qualified and
> >>
> >>supported
> >>
> >>>by numerous native speakers willing to
> contribute.
> >>>However, not a single new Wikipedia has been set
> >>
> >>up
> >>
> >>>for quite a while now.
> >>>
> >>>Some time ago there had been a remark that it was
> >>
> >>hard
> >>
> >>>for our developers to recognize which new
> language
> >>>proposals can be considered as accepeted by the
> 
=== message truncated ===



	

	
		
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