Re: [Wikimediauk-l] A little wiki hacking
On Wed, 2011-09-28 at 13:53 +0100, Harry Burt wrote: On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 1:45 PM, HJ Mitchell hjmitch...@ymail.com wrote: The same could be said of Welsh, or Latin, or a handful of other languages with a dedicated Wikipedia. I'm on the fence as to the usefulness of these projects, but I thought I'd just point out that there are a few of them. ;) Harry (HJ Mitchell) Oh, sure. But Scots is the most marginal case of the lot, I think, which is why I was reminded of it by the original post. I'm going to chime in here onHarry's post, as-opposed to getting further down the rabbit hole on this discussion. I live in Edinburgh. I am surrounded by people who speak Scots. They don't even know they do so. If you mention Scots as a language to them, they *might* think of the poetry of Rabbie Burns. If they're smart, they may say they speak a Scottish dialect of English. Personally, I would say the difference between Scots and British English is more than the difference between Brit.Eng and U.S.Eng, but less than the difference back to Shakespearean English. I'd go as far as saying you can only call it a distinct language if you're one of the people south of the border who demanded subtitles for Rab C. Nesbitt. Whether or not the sco language code is justified, is a point I'll defer to linguists on. As I say, Burns is the best-known example of it, and I've no passion to glorify the poetic musings of an ex-tax collector. Brian McNeil. -- http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil - Accredited Reporter. Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news. ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] A little wiki hacking
On Wed, 2011-09-28 at 10:02 +0100, Michael Peel wrote: On 28 Sep 2011, at 09:58, Harry Burt wrote: Sorry to ask such a tangential question, but what is WMUK's position on non-English wikis that might be suitable for a Scottish audience (e.g. Scots)? Will it seek to actively promote interest in them? In general, yes, most definitely. In reality, we need to have speakers of the language, and people from the appropriate geography, involved so that it's not just English people promoting them. ;-) Finding those people has proved to be very tricky in the past (as is currently being demonstrated by the few people that have signed up or left apologies for the Edinburgh wikimeet this Saturday, http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Edinburgh_3 ). Mike, I think I've identified the biggest problem there: Geonotices are opt-in only. I've *never* been presented with one, and I'm not even sure where I'd enable such. That is,... stupid (yes, being my notoriously blunt self). Whilst the WMF does not want to irk people to the extent Facebook does with their perpetual extreme makeovers, there is nothing wrong with saying we have a real-world event in your area, click here to view, or here to disable such notices. We could easily be missing dozens of people with 4-figure-plus edit counts because it might be intrusive to tell them fellow Wikimedians are in the area. Incidentally, Rock Drum has done a great job on tarting up the Wikimedia in Scotland page! Kudos are due there. Brian McNeil. -- http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil - Accredited Reporter. Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news. ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Re: [Wikimediauk-l] A little wiki hacking
Edinburgh probably isn't very representative of the lot. Bring on the Glaswegians and Aberdeen Dorics! My classmate from Aberdeen claims clearly that he's *bilingual* in Doric [Scots] and English, as do most natives of Aberdeen. I think there are lots of native Scots speakers who realise Scots is different enough from English that it has become a different language, and it's our job to promote their awareness of a Scots Wikipedia. However, for those in Edinburgh who aren't sure whether they're speaking Scots or just Scottish English, I agree that pushing them to contribute or read a Scots Wikipedia isn't the best of ideas. (Re geonotices) Geonotices are opt-out rather than opt-in. However, geolocation often isn't very good in the UK, and it's possible that your IP is tagged to the wrong place all the time. On 29 September 2011 22:17, Brian McNeil brian.mcn...@wikinewsie.orgwrote: On Wed, 2011-09-28 at 13:53 +0100, Harry Burt wrote: On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 1:45 PM, HJ Mitchell hjmitch...@ymail.com wrote: The same could be said of Welsh, or Latin, or a handful of other languages with a dedicated Wikipedia. I'm on the fence as to the usefulness of these projects, but I thought I'd just point out that there are a few of them. ;) Harry (HJ Mitchell) Oh, sure. But Scots is the most marginal case of the lot, I think, which is why I was reminded of it by the original post. I'm going to chime in here onHarry's post, as-opposed to getting further down the rabbit hole on this discussion. I live in Edinburgh. I am surrounded by people who speak Scots. They don't even know they do so. If you mention Scots as a language to them, they *might* think of the poetry of Rabbie Burns. If they're smart, they may say they speak a Scottish dialect of English. Personally, I would say the difference between Scots and British English is more than the difference between Brit.Eng and U.S.Eng, but less than the difference back to Shakespearean English. I'd go as far as saying you can only call it a distinct language if you're one of the people south of the border who demanded subtitles for Rab C. Nesbitt. Whether or not the sco language code is justified, is a point I'll defer to linguists on. As I say, Burns is the best-known example of it, and I've no passion to glorify the poetic musings of an ex-tax collector. Brian McNeil. -- http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Brian_McNeil - Accredited Reporter. Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news. ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org ___ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediau...@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
