Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Tarantino Wikipedia

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The result of the following proposal for closing a WMF project is to KEEP the project. Please, do not modify this page.

The following discussion is closed: result: KEEP. Speedy closed as vandalism. Opened by someone gutlessly hiding behind anonymity, obviously to provoke fights and insults. --birdy geimfyglið (:> )=| 19:54, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder when it is going to be archived – almost a whole year has passed and it is still here! 01:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Starting this Wikipedia was an enormous blunder.

The language is not a language, and anyway its speakers don't seem to be interested in writing anything in a Wikipedia (maybe because they don't need to write in "Tarandíne", since writing in Italian does it for them).

This project almost entirely consists of pages generated automatically, and even its administrators are hardly active. One of them quit some time after the project started, and later he suggested closing the Wikipedia, candidly admitting that things couldn't go on; the remaining two administrators haven't been contributing for four months now (since February and since March).

Let's not persevere in error.
00:33, 5 July 2008 (UTC) Comment left by someone passing by


I wonder how long will it take for a decision to be reached; quite a few weeks have passed since this proposal for closure was made and the discussion started.

Nothing has substantially changed in this Wikipedia; the number of inactive administrators seems to be on the increase (since their election is surprisingly easy), though only one person claims to be a native speaker of this alleged language. And rather than writing articles, he has carried on with the obsession for quantity rather than quality.

As I pointed out above, the bulk of this project is made up of dull articles that were generated automatically: their one-line stereotyped text reads "X is an Italian commune with Y inhabitants" (try randomly). Some original articles do exist, but they're mostly laughable stubs: for instance, an Encyclopaedia is just "A book where loads of things are written". Finally, other pages contain an image with no text at all (which can be nice, if you like to say it with flowers).

If at least this project had been based on a recognised language, maybe all that inefficiency could be tolerated: but Tarantino is a merely supposed language with no official recognition at all, devoid of that precious ISO-639 code which is an absolute requisite for any new Wikipedia. And, as I have remembered below, there are innumerable "micro-languages" (commonly known as "dialects") spoken in Italy: Tarantino doesn't seem more "special" than most of them, because its characteristics clearly include it in a wider group (Intermediate Meridional dialects).

Forgotten by its founders, ignored by its administrators, with no significant content, with no constant contributor, this Wikipedia seems to serve one real purpose: to tantalise those who would like a similar project for their own dialect (or unrecognised language) but can't have one, since the rules now deny that.

Those who are in charge ought to be aware of the undeserved privilege that the unproductive Tarantino Wikipedia has.
01:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC) Comment left by someone passing by


Here they are! The lost founders, the lazy administrators and the like, they all rallied here to avoid the danger of losing their toy Wikipedia...

Votes[edit]

Support[edit]

A questa rispondo in italiano, così che ci capiamo meglio, e poi suppongo tu sia pugliese. Hai ragione riguardo il parimenti diritto di avere una wikipedia anche per i baresi, i messapi, i salentini ed i daunici, che non sono figli di un dio minore. Solo una cosa, se roa-tara chiude questi propositi saranno insuffragabili perché l'unico apripista dialettale che poteva rappresentare un casus juris, sarà già bello e chiuso. Quindi mi pare strana la cosa. Poi vorrei capire dove sia l'offesa... Perché Taranto stavolta è venuta prima di Bari ? Evidentemente questi hanno avviato la proposta e i baresi forse no, e gli è andata bene con i tempi biblici delle approvazioni definitive dei progetti. Se nessuno presenta la proposta barese (o altre) non è colpa loro, e se roa-tara è stato promosso e roa-ba (ipotesi) no, vi consiglio una formale protesta per disparità di trattamento su 2 progetti fondamentalmente similari pro forma.
Se passi da queste parti, mi spieghi perchè il tarantino dovrebbe essere assimilato al napoletano? --Maximix 11:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC) [reply]
Interverrei anche io in questa querelle. Io non conosco l'esito della votazione del 2006, mi sono affacciato a questo progetto poco tempo fa, ma io ho dedicato il mio tempo per cercare di ampliare questa Wiki, a questo punto doveva essere chiusa subito, non è possibile prima attribuire uno stato di legalità ad un qualcosa e poi toglierlo. Sono dell'opinione che invece dovremmo batterci per fare aprire altre Wiki in dialetto. Tu chiami farsa la votazione del 2006, io chiamo questa votazione una FARSA! Non si può votare per la cancellazione dicendo che i Tarantini godono di un privilegio che gli altri ceppi linguistici pugliesi non hanno e, per rispondere anche a Francescoluciano93, per me il calabrese può avere una sua Wiki (come abbiamo già avuto modo di discutere sulla Wiki tarantina!), alla fine Francescoluciano93 disse anche che non sarebbe stato contro una ipotetica cancellazione, oggi vedo che ha votato per la cancellazione! Poi vorrei capire perché ogni volta che ci devono essere voti contrari alla cancellazione devono essere utenti registrati invece chi lascia commenti contro gli oppose si firma "Uno che è passato di qui" senza lasciare la firma! Io avverto una certa disparità di trattamento! Vedo messaggi ironici di risposta, come quello lasciato contro Maximix (dove lui afferma la foresta è un seme lasciamola diventare foresta) rispondendo "Taglia la foresta!". Per non parlare degli altri. Fino all'ultimo io mi opporrò con tutte le mie forze a questa assurda cancellazione!--Joetaras 07:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose[edit]

  • No There is a lot of activity recently, so there is no need to close it. I'm completely indifferent to Italian identity politics, and the admission of any amount of editors that the project is doomed to failure is not convincing without his arguments. I cannot glean enough from Tarantino to figure out why he left or if it is a compelling reason to close an entire project. Furthermore, the bot-generated pages are not a detriment in my mind; that's a useful cross-wiki feature if anything. Koavf 01:22, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good.
Then we should start 8,113 new Wikipedias at once: undeniably, it is fair to give equal opportunities to everyone's language.
And it won't matter if there'll be hardly anyone interested in writing things and the bots will do most of the work. After all, who needs humans.
Sure If you can get 8,113 other communities of speakers to be as active as this one, go for it. If you can show that many of those edits are in a language other than Tarantino (e.g. standard Italian), then you have a case. If you cannot show this, then you do not. Koavf 22:03, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If a "community of speakers" consists of one or two editors, you will always find a "community of speakers" eager to write in their own dialect. I for one could edit my own Wikipedia, in my hometown parlance (which differs from Standard Italian in the same degree as Tarantino does); and of course, the bots would do the rest, which doesn't seem to disturb you.
Don't care I have no opinion about whether or not Tarantino is an independent language; I don't care, and I'm not going to get into some Italian nationalist argument with you. If you can find enough editors to create a community for whatever dialect of Italian you speak, propose it. I call it "Tarantino" because that is its name in English - why would I use the native language? Koavf 04:48, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You ought to care whether it is an independent language: the language must have a valid ISO-639 1–3 code, which Tarantino has not.


  • Strong No. The admin left because he did not speak the language - not that unusual with minority tongues - that says nothing of the viability of the project as a whole. It seems to have been quite a lot of activity lately by a native speaker. Besides, the whole proposal reeks, IMHO, of politics. Something which is quite out of place here.--Damien Perrotin 11:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't be hypocritical about politics being out of place here: think about the great many Wikipedians who fill at least their own page with blatant propaganda, and no-one tells them not to.
Linguistics is what I am concerned with, and Tarantino is not classified as a language by experts who are supposed to know better than you and I.
And if one native speaker of anything is enough to make a Wikipedia, then there should be as many Wikipedias as speakers of a certain idiolect; that is, personal Wikipedias.
  • Oppose. I'm an assistance administrator of the Tarantine Uicchipèdia and I oppose a closure of this Wiki. Yes, it's true that Tarantine is not recognised as propper language by Ethnologue/ISO, but what does this tell us? Nothing. Tarantine has a written history and also a quasi-standard for writing. And yes, this Wiki was inactive for while. Then the user Joe Taras, a native of Taranto, appeared and began to work. He created several articles, giving a second life to the Tarantine Wikipedia. The bot-imported content from the "first life" remains. But!, this bot-imported content is not a reason for a closure as it also exists in other Wikipedias (just see volapük). The bot-imported content consists only of Italian municipalities articles which we organised in categories. We also added infobox templates and pushed some up to stub class. Now, Joe Taras had to leave for a while, leaving some prepared yet not entirely translated and filled pages. He left me also an e-mail address but didn't answer my mail yet. He's certainly going to return. Thus we have two active registered contributors: One native speaker and one speaker of a closely related dialect.

Give the Wikipedia some time to grow, now, that there's some activity. If nothing will have happened in a reasonable amount of time, I propose to move the Wiki to the Incubator where we could keep improving and extending the content.

I could also make another proposal: Linguists don't agree whether the Tarantine dialect should be classified as an Apulian or Salentinian dialect as it contains characteristics of both groups. Therefore the content of the Tarantine Wikipedia could be incorporated into the Neapolitan-Calabrese or the Sicilian Wikipedia since Apulian and Salentinian dialects belong to these language groups. Native Tarantines would probably not agree to this, but these are linguistical facts. I, as an administrator of the Neapolitan-Calabrese Wikipedia, would gladly welcome Tarantine content and users in our project.

Despite everything, bear in mind that you also don't trash or burn your Britannica or Brockhaus or whatever encyclopedia you use in your country, although nobody edits it. Also, Wiki is not paper and Hard disks are cheap.

Now it's up to y'all. --Kazu89 18:29, 25 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear... another administrator!
All generals and no soldiers in the Tarantino Wikipedia.
This Wikipedia did have time to grow: two years seem enough to me, and one native speaker who is occasionally active (and doesn't answer to your mail!) is not definitely enough for a "language" which claims to have hundreds of thousands of speakers.
Anyway, incorporating the insignificant content in Tarantino into an existing Wikipedia would be a satisfactory compromise to me. By the way, notice the negligible difference in the text of the same bot-generated article: Tarantino and Neapolitan. And at least, the latter "language" (though questionably) has had its ISO recognition.
And ISO recognition is important, though you might not agree: have you ever read this? First you get the code, then you get the Wikipedia.
  • Strong NO I'm a Sysop of Tarantino Wikipedia, our community is very little but We are working to carry our Wiki at the same level of other Wikis. In communication page we speak italian because we want to show our proposal to all people, tarantino-spoken and italian-spoken.

Personally I've bought a lot of books on tarantino language to help on his grow this Wikipedia. Please, give a chance, this Wiki can grow, this Wiki will grow. --Joetaras 18:12, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't you send those books to the guys on Ethnologue and convince them that yours is an independent language? If you get that magic language code, I will stop complaining. You've already had two years and all you've done is a travesty of a Wikipedia.
  • Oppose - Tarantino is a language spoken in Apulia. The following Romance languages spoken in Italy have their own Wikipedias: Emiliano-Romagnolo, Friulian, Ladin, Ligurian, Lombard, Neapolitan, Piedmontese, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, Corsican, Sardinian. Since those Wikipedia language editions are allowed to exist, then Tarantino Wikipedia should also be given the priviledge to exist. --Jose77 21:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The great big difference, my dear, is that those are officially recognised as languages and have their ISO-639 code which is an absolute requisite for any new Wikipedia.
Yes, that's what friends are for.
Nevertheless, the Tarantino language can trace its roots all the way back to antiquity - the ancient Greeks and Romans periods. Unlike the Andalusian dialect which derived from Spanish, the Tarantino language had slowly evolved from Latin[1], and not the standard Italian which was adopted by Italy in the 19th century. --Jose77 09:55, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • No: There are, of course, some problems and the community is very little; but somebody who voted yes, for me, don't know roa-tara. Why could roa-tara be an offence for other apulians ? Why ? I've read of a proposal in barese dialect (roa-ba ?), ok, open it, i'll support it ! Where is the offence ? Is it more difficult, for me, doing a wp in a group of dialects as emiliano-romagnolo or lombard. Anyway, this is my personal opinion, i support dialects (or greatest ones). They could have their dignity, for exemple, as of artificial languages and; in some cases, there is not an enormous difference between 'em and proper languages. --87.11.20.172 22:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong NO Only because the tarantino language doesn't have a recognition ISO, it doesn't mean that it is not a language. Perhaps the ISO doesn't even know about the existence of the tarantino language. And however even if it was only a dialect, in the moment in which the encyclopedia was open, the staff of Wikipedia agreed. Closing it now would be anti-democrat! Beren85 11:18, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • NO!! I am strongly opposed to the closure!! As a bureaucrat and sysop on two little projects: Sicilian wikipedia (scn.wiki) and Sicilian wiktionary (scn.wiktio), and as a sysop on another little project: Corsican wiktionary (co.wiktio) I am against this proposal of closure. Tarantine language has a traditional litterature and the standards of writing are uniform, constant, and satisfactory for writing encyclopedical articles, folksongs and poetry. There are a lot of wikipedian projects that were inactive for a time, but then they have become more alive. The Tarantine user Joe Taras is a very voluntary and skilled person, he has bought books and literary material to work better in the Tarantine project so I think that we must to encourage him. I know the Neapolitan language and the Salentine dialects (Sicilian language), I think that I can help Tarentine language. The weak projects must been protected and helped. This Wiki is viable and will grow, please give more time to roa-tara.wiki users and they will manage making this wiki more important. Please don't close this project. Best regards. --Sarvaturi 18:49, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. I oppose the closure.--Theirrulez 19:52, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments[edit]

The argument of "some admins not being active" don't hold much weight. First of all, some wikis don't even have any admins. For many small wikis, the admins composed of either stewards and/or members who doesn't even speak that language. OhanaUnitedTalk page 06:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

La fate finita o no di rimettere i commenti di someone passes by, alias 62.94.178.131 ? Che diritto ha questo troll di venire ad insultare commento per commento in opposizione ? Come si permette questo flamer di ordine infimo di fare il maestro, lui che è un sacco pieno solo della sua boria ? Pensasse lui ad andare a giocare, visto che non sa neanche la differenza abissale fra il tarantino ed il napoletano. E la smettesse con la sua supponenza, che è e resta un ignorante ed un cafone per quel che scrive ! Tagliamo la foresta, ma come si permette ! Si tagliasse lui le mani prima di scrivere su di un pc !!!

Please, if the discussion is a serious discussion don't consider NON SENSE SENTENCES wrote by someone passes by or I think this discussion is already closed and Wiki Taranto MUST death! I'll continue to support the battle against this absurd choose! Wiki Taranto wants to live! --Joetaras 18:12, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. The arguments given above each don't hold, or don't warrant closure, imho. Nevertheless, I'd appreciate, if Tarandine would apply for an ISO-639 code. Note that, this may be a process taking several years. --Purodha Blissenbach 17:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Language[edit]

According to Wikipedia, it's a language: see w:Tarantino language. So the argument that any of the 8,000 municipalities could get its own Wikipeddia is not valid; because not every municipality has a language like that article. And btw, it's rather a city. (Note that this does not mean I oppose this closure, I'm just mentioning the article and I'm not going to participate in the discussion). SPQRobin (inc!) 14:04, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Someone above states "Taranto is … a dialect" and concludes that, thus it should not have a Wikipedia, since there were not a language behind it. Yet looking up about a dozen definitions of dialect, we find them unisono saying, "a dialect … is a language … that …". In other words, referring to the recognition of a language as a dialect is an obvious pseudo argumentation. We could equally well discriminate just the opposite way. Greetings. --Purodha Blissenbach 17:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]