[Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

Tue Nov 22 18:11:37 UTC 2005

Walter van Kalken wrote:

> I will send it again as I am under the impression nobody read it.
>
> Anthere wrote:
>
>> then, I suppose you would rather support the idea of letting new 
>> languages develop on a seed wiki... and see to which point it is 
>> viable ?
>>
>> This still raise the issue of "when do we consider a language should 
>> be removed from the seed wiki and put in the live wiki" (even though 
>> the entire content might be a hoax :-)) ?
>
> Why do it difficult with seedwiki's. Give languages a chance on a real
> wiki for say three months. If they haven't created 100 articles of some
> length by then (so not 1 line, but lets say approx 10 lines at least) we
> lock them. 

We have any number of languages with Wikis that never got anywhere, and 
it's very difficult to get rid of them.  Having new languages in a 
separate project impresses on people the need to perform or have the 
project killed.  It leaves them under the axe. 

> By doing this you help a language to seriously start up and give people
> in the fledgling community someone to learn from. The adopter could even
> help think of a strategy to make the fledgling wikipedia reach at least
> 100 articles of reasonable quality. 

Ultimately, the survival of a project will depend on the speakers of the 
language.  The adopter could be helpful, but it may not be his language.

> This way we can ensure a language gets a serious chance. If the native
> speakers of that language do not take that chance we lock the pedia.
> Plain and simple. 

Eventually it could even be deleted.  Perhaps lock it after three months 
of complete inactivity;  delete it after six months.

> Give people a fair chance. Do not make a decision by voting. 

I agree that voting gets us nowhere.  Better to have a standard for 
starting and retaining a seed wiki, and a higher standard for promoting 
it to full wiki status.

> If there
> are a couple of people (could be even one very active person) who claim
> they speak the lingo and an experienced wikipedian willing to adopt the
> language give it a chance. This is equal opportunity. Everyone gets a
> shot. If you blow it you blow it and your next requests will not be
> taken seriously! 

Agreed