[Wikipedia-l] Hobby wikipedia policy

Sun Mar 12 18:20:46 UTC 2006

There seems to be no way that Romanians will tolerate cyrillic language
(even via a software setting) on their wikipedia.

Caroline/secretlondon 

-----Original Message-----
From: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Neil Harris
Sent: 12 March 2006 18:08
To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Hobby wikipedia policy

Jacky PB wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I feel that I need a clarification on wikipedia policies related to hobby
wikipedias.
>
> Consider the case of the Moldovan language. The Moldovan wikipedia has
been created and administered by Mark Williamson, which does not speak the
language correctly. He copied (and replaced the latin script with cyrillic)
a lot articles from ro.wiki, just to create what looks like a viable
wikipedia. I presume exotic languages are a hobby for him, I have no problem
with this. Even originality is not a problem, given that the purpose of wiki
is to inform.
>
> However, the Moldovan language is not extinct, so the oppinion of 
> native speakers should count. The problem being that no 
> Moldovan-speaking wikipedia user supports Mark Williamson. And when I 
> say no user, I really mean that there is none. Actually, most Moldovan 
> users dislike the existence of this wiki, because the Moldovan 
> language is actually a creation of the Soviet authorities. To support 
> this affirmation, note that there is no registered Moldovan user on 
> en.wiki, meta.wiki, and not even mo.wiki. :)
>
> So, given that this hobby wikipedia actually hurts the very people it 
> was intended  to help, is it normal that it remains online? I remind you
once more that no actual Moldovan supports it. By Moldovan speaker I mean a
person able to write Moldovan correctly.
>
> I mean, if wikipedia policy is to grant users hobby wikipedias, Mark
should get his, but maybe not using the official ISO code.
>
> Yours,
> Dpotop
>
> PS: I am sorry for bugging you with this, but some things discussed here
must be clearly said.
>
>
>   

In the apparent absence of community support for mo:, and after watching the
many comments on this list, I think the best short-term option is to start
work on the transliteration software settings.

Then we can lock, rather than delete, the mo: Wikipedia, with a note saying
why, what the planned changes are, and when they are expected to be carried
out.

Then, when the automated transliteration software has been properly
configured to support both Cyrillic and Latin scripts in both the content
and user interface, the content of mo: can be deleted, perhaps after a
period of a few weeks to allow for any valuable content to be archived, and
transferred if necessary.

Whether mo: should simply redirect, or whether it should (for example)
change the user interface or default language settings, would then be a
matter for the Moldovan community.  Liaison between the larger community and
as many actual Moldovan speakers as possible would be very useful in getting
this process going, and would also be useful in expanding the Moldovan
Wikipedia community.

Given that someone has (I believe) already written some language-appropriate
Latin <-> Cyrillic transliteration code, and given MediaWiki's support for
automated transliteration (eg. in the traditional and modern Chinese
Wikipedias), the only problem is the will to get the transliteration code
set up.

If I've followed the debate properly, I hope this would be a win for both
Latin and Cyrillic users.

Perhaps Jacky and Mark would like to help with getting the transliteration
tables ready?

-- Neil

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