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List:       wikipedia-l
Subject:    Re: [Wikipedia-l] Status of Wikimedia (was: Status of Serbia and
From:       Mark Williamson <node.ue () gmail ! com>
Date:       2005-11-07 23:22:20
Message-ID: 849f98ed0511071522g694fefdfm () mail ! gmail ! com
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2.5 hoeren befarre t'genoo maz Elisabeth Bauer haat harr gashriepet inde hier:
> On 1 september I sent the following email to the board:
> [...]
> | In the last open board meeting there was a discussion about having a
> | seed wiki and a committee deciding policies for it.
> | So, here a proposal how to deal with new language requests (not new
> | projects)
<snip>
> | This way, we can maybe get rid of these pending requests:
> | http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages
<snip>

Perhaps you should've looked over [[m:Proposed policy for wikis in new
languages]]? It's not yet a policy, but hopefully it will be soon.

> In the three answers I got, I was refered back to the community and told
> that the problem will eventuall sort out by creation of the seed wiki.

...

Also, you seem to have not realised the existence of Test-Wikipedias,
which so far have proven themselves to be a great way for people to
prove the viability of a new Wikipedia.

> Now I see that the situation hasn't become better but even worse.

...

> As officer of the Wikimedia Foundation I can't welcome your decision and
> would question your competence to speak for the whole of the not yet
> existing serbian Wikimedia chapter.

That's actually something I personally didn't mention yet, but I
really agree. I wonder how Milos can so quickly articulate the
feelings of all Serbian WM'ans.

> What shall I tell a journalist who asks the press officer about the
> zlatiborian language wikipedia? "Eh yes, it's ridiculous, but you see, a
> few people who don't even speak this city dialect pressured the
> community into it. Cantonese? Oh yes, the same thing happened.

What is it with you and the word "dialect"? Cantonese is spoken over
millions of square kilometres, encompassing multiple provinces, not
just a single city. Perhaps Koelsch, or Hamburgisch, or whatever, is
the dialect of a city, but Cantonese isn't. And Zlatiborian is a very
rural language -- there are no cities located in Zlatibor, just
villages and small towns.

> Wikiversity? Ah well, sorry, we're still looking for a concept. There's
> rubbish on wikibooks like the "How to get a girl manual"? See, people
> are working on the encyclopedia, there are not enough people to look
> into the other projects and control them for quality. You found a

Actually, Wikibooks does have its own process for deletion, and I
believe somebody nominated that very manual. It was not deleted, I do
not believe, but at least there is a process that it went through.

> copyvio on suaheli wikiquote? Sorry, I don't speak suaheli - and the
> three suaheli speakers in Wikimedia are busy with the encyclopedia. Why

Uhh... wtf? That's what SWMT is for. Yes, admittedly a copyvio may be
difficult to catch if it's written in a language we don't understand,
but we catch most of the vandalism, spam, etc. that rolls through.

> are there so many corn field related news on german Wikinews while XY
> isn't treated? Oh well, now this is a funny story...

I've not heard that story... sounds amusing though.

> Wikimedia has accomplished great things: An encyclopedia, written by
> common people and volunteers, slowly getting better and better, to the
> point of being a serious alternative to classical encyclopedias. There
> are its established sister projects, slowly evolving and becoming useful
> (btw, the category:philosophy on commons is a mess).
<snip>
> I went back to the real thing, the encyclopedia in my language - which
> is nor Bavarian, neither Münchnerisch although I am from this region and
> city but german, a language almost everybody in Germany speaks and is
> able to understand (except he's maybe turkish or serbian or arabic).
> There's still a lot of work to do even if some newspapers rate us
> already as better than brockhaus.

So, you think that we should close down the Alemannisch and Platt WPs
because all of those people speak Hochdeutsch? What about the Catalan,
Basque, Galician, Asturian, and Aragonese WPs? Don't those people
speak Spanish, French, or Portuguese as well? What about Occitan,
Breton, Corsican, Walloon? Can't they speak French? Or Scots, Scottish
Gaelic, Irish, Manx, Welsh, and Cornish? Can't they speak English?

These Wikipedias have all been around for a very long time. Their
existence set a precedent of sorts -- now people don't think twice
about minority languages.

You had the chance to oppose those when they were created, and you
didn't, or if you did, not enough other people did to keep them from
creation. For you to run around complaining about it now is a little
bit late.

> Tell me when you've stopped discussing and voting on genial new projects
> and obscure dialects, when you've kicked the language fanatics from the
> mailing lists, when you've closed the unwatched spam traps, when you've

And where are these unwatched spam traps???

> settled on a checkuser and logo policy, when someone has had the guts to
> introduce single login instead of just talking about it and when you are
> serious about this human knowledge thing.

...

Mark

--
"Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
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