Well spotted.
Whatever that language is, it looks vaguely Iberian. Xerox's language
guesser program seems to think that it's Catalan, although that program does
have a fairly limited range (and Catalan has diacratical marks, which this
mystery language does not). I've tried plugging a few of those words into
Google in an effort to come up with an explanation as to what it is, and
I've had no luck - most of the words are culled from various Romance
languages, or English.
There seems to be only one person active on this Wiki anyway, who goes by
the name "Belgian Man". Based on the similarity of "nauruose" to "nauri", I
suspect this isn't a simple case of mistaken identity - whoever has written
these articles has probably done it with the intent to deceive (although why
you'd actually attempt to masquerade your language as nauri is beyond me).
Regards,
- Craig Franklin
-------------------
Craig Franklin
PO Box 764
Ashgrove, Q, 4060
Australia
http://www.halo-17.net - Australia's Favourite Source of Indie Music, Art,
and Culture
Tim Starling wrote:
> People underestimate the cost involved in setting up a wiki.
Once again I'd like to point out that having a language-specific Wikipedia is
not usually the best way to organize, promote, or develop a language.
It's probably much better for a group of interested people working on a small or
endangered language to set up a general-purpose wiki that encompasses the
Wikimedia ideas of a Wikipedia, Wiktionary, a language-learning Wikibook, and
perhaps a few other community- or discussion-oriented purposes.
There are a _lot_ of free or low-cost PHP hosting services that can host a wiki.
Mediawiki can be hard to set up on these services, since MySQL usually costs
significantly more, but there are a number of other wiki engines* that work with
flat files and don't require a database.
Anyways: I think the best strategy is to tell people who want to have a
Wikipedia in their language to go start a wiki somewhere else. If they can show
that they have a robust community that can support a Wikipedia, then they should
get an xx.wikipedia.org domain (as well as other xx.wikisomething.org stuff).
~ESP
* I can hear it now: "Huh? There are other wiki engines? There are other wikis?
I can set up my own? Huh?"
Hi all,
I've discovered Wikipedia thanks to Laurent Godard who wrote a macro for
OpenOffice.
I'm interested in the swahili version of it and I've noticed that there
are some minor mistakes in the not editable areas of the pages, i.e.
menus, options, etc.
Can you help me to understand how can I suggest corrections and
contribute to translate the templates?
Thanks a lot,
Nino
--
http://www.vessella.it (italiano, esperanto, kiswahili, english)
http://www.changamano.org (Iniziative di solidarietà per la Tanzania)
http://www.lernado.it (Articoli di quotidiani della Tanzania, Corso di lingua swahili, Corso di lingua esperanto, Vocabolario esperanto-italiano, Jifunze lugha ya Kiesperanto, Kamusi ya Kiesperanto)
Hi,
Capitalisation is now only an option in the French Wiktionary.
So, f.e., now [[allemand]] and [[Allemand]] are two different articles.
All language names are lower cases in French.
Thanks,
Yann
--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclopédie libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux
To Fred Bauder:
> There have been instances where Chinese troops have been undisciplined.
> All it proves is that people who have been desperately poor
> all their lives were tempted by wristwatches and ballpoint pens.
Do you know what you said is things about 20 years ago when I'm only a child?
Do you know China have the most cell-phone users in the world now?
Do you know China have ten million broadband Internet users,
just after USA, Japan and Korea, and will surpass Korea soon?
Yes, we are a developing country, but we are developing fast.
I have to say that the mailing list now is full of bias on China.
About Tibet problem, I provide some history issue
to reflect the common opinion in China.
Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama must be approved their identity
by the central government since Qing dynasty hundreds years ago.
Just in 1910s when China was very weak,
there was a movment to divided Tibet from China.
Great British took some part in the issue,
And we dislike the colonialism role of Great British.
Please, no more.
I'm finding it harder and harder to find _wikipedia_ signal on this
list, because of all of the _political_ noise. Let's please just all
absolutely refuse to discuss matters of a general political nature,
and stick specifically to wikipedia.
--Jimbo
--
"La nèfle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org
I'd like to invite all parties to close this particular thread as it is
devolving into a flamewar. I think no Chinese user is happy about being
censored, and that is what matters for the case at hand. I apologize for
partially igniting this flamewar by calling the Chinese government
fascist. This is my personal belief, and it does not contribute usefully
to the discussion.
Given Jimbo's clear statement on the matter, I hope we can all agree on
the following two things:
1) The content on the Chinese Wikipedia will not be censored or edited in
violation of NPOV. All sides to any issue are to be presented fairly and
neutrally, with or without the threat of government censorship.
Wikipedia's policies are not subject to change as a result of
intimidation.
2) Editors of the Chinese Wikipedia will work with the responsible
institutions to get the ban lifted under these conditions, and *only*
under these conditions.
Now, if 2) fails, I hope we can talk about what other options we have.
Actively aiding Chinese users to circumvent such censorship is, at least
to me, not out of the question. But for the time being, I would suggest to
Chinese Wikipedians to form an action group specifically for the purpose
of dealing with the issue of government censorship cautiously.
Does such a group already exist? If not, perhaps we can help by setting up
a mailing list for the purpose - if such a list is accessed through
Hotmail etc., it should be available regardless of whether Wikipedia
itself is censored. Alternatively, it could be set up on a third party
server.
The important thing to remember is that we are all on the same side, that
we believe in creating a neutral encyclopedia, and that we oppose
censorship of our work. Let's take strength from our shared values instead
of wasting time and energy on our personal and political differences.
WikiLove,
Erik
> ...Wikipedia is a threat to closed
> information, particularly that kind of closed information that
> governments often dislike: information that undercuts assertions
> that
> everything is on track.
Yes, if every other article is about failure of this and breakdown of
that, with Falung and Commies and Free Tibet all over the place, I
would shut it down too.
I want to see articles about increased privatisation, efforts the
government makes in building health, telecom, and transportation
infrastructure. I want to see articles about economic growth in
Shanghai, about schools in remote locations, about the growing
chinese auto assembly and manufacturing capabilities.
These things are happening in China. Not including them in and of
itself is admitting western-bias, which, you are right, the Chinese
authorities don't look kindly upon.
=====
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com
chris.mahan(a)gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/
_______________________________
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Scríobh Jens Ropers:
> Sorry to say it, but I consider that cultural defeatism.
Really? If Hu Jintao calls elections, and releases the thousands of Falun
Gong practitioners languishing in PRC jails, then maybe we can start talking
about his "achievements". Until then, the PRC is just another communist
dictatorship backed by the military, and not the sort of people that those
of us enjoying living in liberal democratic countries should be defending.
And like all dictatorships, the PRC has correctly recognised the free flow
of information across the Internet as a threat to their dominance. Now, the
people of China can access information from beyond the country, from beyond
state-controlled media outlets, and make up their own minds as to whether
they like living under undemocratic communist rule, or whether they want
something else. I presume that there's some metaphorical pant-wetting going
on in the upper reaches of Chinese Communist Party over the sort of
information coming in through the Internet.
Now, Wikipedia isn't going to cause the masses in China to rise up against
the Party, and start their own democracy. But, enough little streams of
information like Wikipedia could be enough to erode the foundation of the
more oppressive elements of the government, and allow the Chinese people to
change their country to somewhere where they can freely speak their mind,
where they can freely practice their religion, and have an equal say in who
their leaders are. I think we owe it to the Chinese people, to at least
help to give them that choice (and hey, if in a free election, they choose
the Communist party - then all the more power to them). Which is why we
shouldn't give a hoot what the PRC government thinks is "acceptable" in
terms of the content on :zh.
> II. How much do you know about the Chinese government?
> Are you aware that many, many Chinese "ordinary Joes" are government
> officials?
I'm an Australian government official - but does that change anything? My
government still does some dreadful things - and the fact that lots of us
work for it is irrelevant. Power is concentrated in the hands of a
privileged few in the Chinese government - the influence of these "everyday
Chinese Joes" that you speak of, who are members of the Party, is absolutely
squat.
Here are some links that you may enjoy, on the very people that you are
defending:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Partyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong
> III.
> You may want to make it clear that you were referring to Ireland (you
> were, right?) as regards "sitting on your island".
I was referring to the Isle of Man, actually (although I do love Ireland,
and I'm active on :ga). And again, I have nothing against the Chinese
people, race, or whatever - my animosity is towards those senior members of
the Chinese Communist Party who deny the Chinese people the basic freedoms
that I enjoy every day. I also take extreme offence to the implication that
because I'm white, I'm somehow responsible for the colonial adventures of
certain European countries, despite the fact that my ancestry doesn't come
from any of those countries, and despite the fact that we got conquered as
well. Mr Sheng stating that "Only the whites would go all around the world
robbing and killing." is as ludicrous and offensive as someone saying "Every
Asian person is responsible for the current human rights disaster in
mainland China".
In any case, Erik Moeller is quite correct when he says that this is not the
place to conduct this discussion. If you, or anyone else on the list, cares
to discuss this further, I suggest that we find somewhere else to do it, and
let everyone else on this list get on with their business. This will be my
last word on the matter on this list.
Regards,
- Craig Franklin
-------------------
Craig Franklin
PO Box 764
Ashgrove, Q, 4060
Australia
http://www.halo-17.net - Australia's Favourite Source of Indie Music, Art,
and Culture.
Scríobh Jiong Sheng:
>Is this a humiliation or prejudice against all Chinese? A bunch of
>robbers? If you have no understanding of real China, and only got all
>your false impressions of China from newspapers or magazines, then you
>better shut up.
>
>Look back on history, though China had the most powerful navy and army
>since the 10th century, we did not want to conquer the whole world.
>Only the whites would go all around the world robbing and killing.
Yup. I'm white, and my people back in the tenth century were most certainly
going about the world looting and robbing every poor non-white nation that
we could get our hands on.
Except, whoops, no we didn't, we just sat on our island and eventually got
conquered by the British. Thanks for putting us all in the one basket
though!
Also, the status of Tibet 100 years ago is irrelevant. What matters is that
right now, the PRC (not "the Chinese") are embarking on a campaign of
repression against the Tibetan people and way of life, including but not
limited to, acts of violence, ethnic cleansing, and trying to breed out the
natives. At the same time, they pursue blustery threats against the
democratically elected government of Taiwan, they set up quasi-democracies
in Hong Kong and Macau, and unfortunate things happen to people who express
opposition to their rule. No matter what their other economic successes
(and I do agree, the economic growth in China recently has been phenomenal),
these things will forever overshadow it.
None of this is criticism of the "Chinese" as a people - it's criticism of
the Chinese government as an institution, and I don't think that Wikipedia
give in to the demands of such a bunch of thugs and brutes. Free, unbiased
information is a threat to the Chinese government, and it's understandable,
if disappointing that they want to attempt to smother it. I reject strongly
the implication that we should try to satiate them, however. The people of
China really deserve better than us becoming another mouthpiece of the PRC
government, masquerading as a source of unbiased information.
Regards,
- Craig Franklin
-------------------
Craig Franklin
PO Box 764
Ashgrove, Q, 4060
Australia
http://www.halo-17.net - Australia's Favourite Source of Indie Music, Art,
and Culture.