I had hoped to head off the arguments you bring in your first few paragraphs, Milos, by explicitly saying I'm not even suggesting any change in policy. So yes, language will remain *eligible* etc. according to the committee's policy, and the vanishingly-unlikely scenario you describe can still take place.
I think it is *separately* worthwhile to try and have some approximation of an answer to the question about rough minimal conditions for *a useful encyclopedia* in a language, *as distinct* from *a language preservation vehicle*. FWIW, I agree Wikipedia is attractive for that, and if I were trying to preserve my endangered ancestral language, I would certainly build a wiki, and probably try to build a Wikipedia (or a Wikinews-for-children, perhaps). But again, leaving aside the usefulness of Wikipedia for language preservation, and leaving aside *any* thought of changing policy, I am interested in whether the committee is interested in thinking about the question in my middle paragraph, above. A. On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 3:32 PM Milos Rancic <[email protected]> wrote: > There are a couple of issues here... > > First and most important, I think that Language committee should > maintain eligibility for a language as the rule, provided that there > is at least one native speaker interested in working on Wikimedia > projects. We shouldn't demotivate people because of the size of the > population speaking their native language. ("On hold" is mostly about > such languages.) > > The costs of supporting a project are proportional with its > usefulness: less useful, less traffic, less CPU, less RAM; more > useful, more traffic, more CPU, more RAM... So, it's not about if > Wikimedia could or couldn't support it. > > Imagine a tribe of 20 people in the rainforests of New Guinea, but > close enough to be able to get a computer and internet connection. > They likely speak their own language. And one person there is willing > to use Wikipedia as a tool to make children literate in their own > language. That person has to pass a lot of obstacles: making > her/himself literate likely in Tok Pisin or Indonesian, Internet > savvy, to invent the way how to write their native language and to > convince others that literacy is a good thing. We shouldn't make > obstacles to such person. > > It is not likely that something exactly like that would happen -- at > least not soon --, but it's about our principle. > > The other very important thing is that our main brand is Wikipedia, > not Wiktionary, not Wikisource. People want to have Wikipedia in their > languages, not other projects. In the cases like Estonian is, we know > that we'll find there a lot of useful materials. In the cases of any > non-first-world-country we will find tons of quite problematic > materials, no matter even of the size of the population. I think we > shouldn't be strict when the native population is very small; and that > we should use our main brand to gather a little bit more knowledge, > written in a language spoken today, but not in 50 years. > > Wikipedia is influencing cultures. As language is spoken with smaller > number of people, as more Wikipedia influences the language and the > culture, both. It could turn out that Wikipedia actually made that > language to survive; actually, I think Wikipedia is the main tool for > small languages to survive. > > The number of speakers limits are very questionable. It could be about > a large number of speakers (in millions, maybe even more) who don't > have positive attitude towards their own language. The languages like > those are not going to survive and it's not likely that they would > even ask for Wikipedia in their language. At the other side, it could > be about much smaller number of speakers, with population having > strong positive attitude and willing to work on it (Scottish Gaelic > has less than 100,000 speakers). It could be even about so called > "shifting" languages, which just 30 years ago didn't have good chances > to survive 21st century, but they experienced revival (Welsh). > > Ethnologue says that there are more than 5000 languages up to 6a > "vigorous" status. All of those languages will survive 21st century > and a lot of them are below 10,000 speakers (more than 2000). > > I simply don't think that we should be giving any suggestion from the > position of power. Our suggestion "It would be better if you'd use > English Wiktionary or Multilingual Wikisource" would be interpreted as > an order. I think we should speak with them after we see they started > working on the projects of their choice. > > > On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 11:41 PM, Asaf Bartov <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hello. > > > > The question in the subject line, asked by the Aramaic expert on the > > Assyrian thread, has been floating in space (and making me curious) for > > years. To my knowledge, we have never had a good answer. So I'm taking > the > > opportunity to attempt discussion of it. > > > > It seems to me it would be good to get at some approximation of an > answer. > > For example, Milos just mentioned Cora, an indigenous Mexican language > with > > about ~10,000 speakers. Thinking of a *Wikipedia* in that language > seems to > > me a complete waste of time. Statistically, it would seem it could never > > recruit more than a handful of volunteers, and it would not have a reader > > base, nor ever offer even a modest genuinely-useful corpus of up-to-date, > > encyclopedic knowledge. > > > > It makes absolute sense to document the Cora lexicon (on major Wiktionary > > projects, i.e. in other languages), to curate any extant literature (on > the > > multilingual Wikisource), to record and document live speakers (and any > > folklore) on Commons, etc. But I think this language won't ever achieve > an > > encyclopedia, and I think it is unhelpful to pretend otherwise. > > > > You may disagree, perhaps. What I am interested in hearing the > committee's > > opinion about is the general question: can we identify the criteria for a > > minimally-viable Wikipedia? > > > > I will take a shot at a very rough, partly arbitrary definition of > > "minimally-viable Wikipedia": a wiki community commanding sustained > > participation from at least 5 very active editors and at least 20 active > > editors, and able to reach 20,000 non-stub articles in under 10 years. > > (many other definitions can be offered.) > > > > It seems clear, for example, that 1 million literate speakers of high > > average education level, stable orthography, and available secondary > sources > > and higher education in that language (e.g. Estonian) are definitely > enough > > to sustain such a community. > > > > But there's still a lot of room to ponder -- would 500,000 speakers also > be > > enough, provided the other characteristics are in place? Would 10 > million > > speakers be enough, if there's no higher education or secondary sources > in a > > given language? Etc. etc. > > > > Langcom is probably the densest concentration of expertise able to > approach > > this question. Is the committee interested in thinking about it and > maybe > > working towards some working recommendation/guideline? > > (I don't think it necessarily has to result in any policy change for > > LangCom. It may just be a useful guideline for interested > > volunteers/communities to compare themselves with, for example.) > > > > Cheers, > > > > A. > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Langcom mailing list > > [email protected] > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom > > > > _______________________________________________ > Langcom mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom >
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