Hi Ziko, On Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 8:41 AM, Ziko van Dijk <zvand...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> In the discussion, the question of creating a Wikipedia in simple > German came up. This would be useful. > As we know, to-day Wikimedia language committee policies prohibit a > new Wikipedia in a language that already has a Wikipedia. To be more precise: the language committee was tasked with determining when to start new language projects. It was never asked to consider other sorts of new projects. So either "simple German" is a new language, or it's out of the current scope of the committee. Overall, we've never decided whether a "simple" or "children's encyclopedia" should be a separate project with its own root domain, or another set of 'languages' that show up as an interlanguage link or as FOO.wikipedia.org . > The existence of a Wikipedia in simple English refers to the fact that it > had been created before that policy of 2006. Simple English is quite useful, and used for groups developing their literacy skills at all ages, including many communities learning English as a Second Language. Presumably the same could be true of any other language. > There are a number of ideas and initiatives to create online > encyclopedias in "simple language", in and outside the Wikimedia > world. Wouldn't it be suitable to reconsider and try to give those > initiatives a place? Who else is more capable to create and support > such encyclopedias than we are? +1 My thoughts: * I would love to see similar projects in at least German, French, Spanish, and Dutch -- languages in which there are already communities working on encyclopedic knowledge in simplified language. * We should have a new process for requesting a simple-language version of a project. * We should resolve standard practice for naming them, and decide if this should be a new top-level Project (like wikikids) or a variation on the normal language code. Considering the historical role of the children's encyclopedia, we might consider rescoping "simple" as "for children" -- this could help to increase participation and use, and clarify the role of these projects. SJ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l