Erik Moeller wrote:
Er, excuse me? Who did this and why? I thought we had
agreed to put these
borderline languages on hold until there's a consensus on how to deal with
them. I'm not very happy about facts being made through administrative
action. As far as I can tell, there was no vote and no discussion on this.
Erik beat me to the punch. I'm not sure this discussion belongs on
tech-l, but as this is the only Wikipedia list I subscribe to and I
think the topic is serious enough, I'll voice my thoughts: get Klingon
wikipedia away from
wikipedia.org, and do it fast.
After people are told how wikipedia works ("you mean EVERYONE can edit
ANYTHING?" "yes" "clearly then it's completely useless"),
convincing
them of its value as a useful and convenient source of information is
difficult enough as is. Adding an inexistent, overtly nerdy language to
the list of translations is putting words in the mouth of the
incredulous who will be ever so delighted to ask "Wikipedia? You mean
the pretend-encyclopedia that is available in Klingon?"
Don't give them the luxury. Jimbo - Wikipedia is a serious project and
one that, I think, has a very bright future - don't taint it with this
type of exercise in pointlessness (how many users do you think will use
this?). I'd suggest this language is shut down immediately and relocated
offsite (possibly to
http://www.memory-alpha.org/ in this case, which
also runs MediaWiki and is topically correct). A list of 'Non-endorsed,
unofficial Wikipedia translations' may perhaps be kept at Wikipedia, but
these borderline languages should in no way be mistakable for "official"
Wikipedias.
Cheers,
Ivan.
P.S. Before someone points out 'Google does it!' as an admissible
argument, let me remind them that Google does *not* provide content. We,
on the other hand, do.