[Foundation-l] Allow new wikis in extinct languages?

Sat Mar 29 22:41:03 UTC 2008

If the purpose of a Wikipedia or wiki in general is to communicate
information...
then creating a wiki to serve a small group of people who are already fluent
in
other major languages does not serve the purpose. I wouldn't object to a
wiki
of a type "Wikilang" if the idea is only to save the crucial and various
aspects
of the language itself for historical purposes in a way not conducive to a
Wikipedia article, but a full Wikipedia or other project seems unnecessary.

On the other hand, the question should be asked: are we saving significant
resources by denying the creation of dead or constructed language projects?
Would the folks creating these projects otherwise be contributing more
constructively, and do these projects require significant meta-resources if
the local communities remain small and isolated? Particularly in the areas
of PR risk and legal liability for projects that are WMF-hosted, the answer
could easily be that significant resources are theoretically devoted to each
project. In that case, it makes sense to continue to deny these projects.

Nathan