Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Votic

Votic Wikipedia

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Requests for new languages (Wikipedia Votic)

submitted verification final decision Discuss the creation of this language project on this page. Votes will be ignored when judging the proposal. Please provide arguments or reasons and be prepared to defend them (see the Language proposal policy). (See an unofficial analysis of this request.)

Proposal summary
Language details: Votic (Vaďďa tšeeli, vot ISO 639-3) Editing community: Andrijko Z., 2Q (N), Чернявский_Виталий (P), Comp1089, Tamara Ustinova, RgC, Nazzi List your user name if you're interested in editing the wiki. Add "N" next to your name if you are a native speaker of this language. Relevant pages: development wiki project External links: * About language and people Vaddamaa Vadda ceeli Ингерманландия:водь и ижора
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I see, that it can be too hard to make a good Wikipedia on Votic, because the population, which know Votic, is too little (about 1000 people in common), but I request to give it a chanse, because this test-Wikipedia has some timely active contributers 2Q & Чернявский_Виталий, also some Wikipedians know Votic, the statistics sais, that there are now about 135 articles, and it's growing up in it's development (statistics is here), moreover, 500 most-used messages have been translated into Votic. Thank you very much for your help in the creation (and for your votes)!--Andrijko Z. 14:39, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Arguments in favour

• Support: per above--Andrijko Z. 14:39, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support Master Shadow 15:47, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support --Dark Eagle 16:46, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support --Рашат Якупов 19:07, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support --Riwnodennyk 15:27, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support --Gerbeda 17:21, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support--Gordonrox24 | ^Talk 17:25, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
• support| --N KOzi^Talk 11:16, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support, this community is small but active, they have more than 100 articles in the incubator, so I think, that Votic Wikipedia will contain useful information. --LexArt 14:28, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
• Support --Kaiyr 20:15, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
• Support, yeah --U.Steele 19:34, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
• Good wiki. I support. --Midnight Green 23:29, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support --Jugydmort 13:08, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
• Support. I'll try to help this wiki.--Tamara Ustinova 13:41, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
• Support -- I hope I'm not too late with the support. Let's give some light for this flower to flourish. Kubura 03:48, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
• Support. I've just started to learn this language and I hope I could help. --RgC 22:14, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support simon1468 21:17, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
• Support as a native speaker of the similar language. I'm sure that I can contribute in Votic Wikipedia in WM-Inc and after opening of this project.--Nazzi (talk) 16:28, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Arguments against

• I've changed my mind, I /will/ vote against the proposal. I've stated my reservations in several posts here already, but summary: the bulk of the articles were written by one person (myself), and the vast majority of other edits has been an idiotic battle over orthography - edits changing only the spelling, and whoever it was who's been doing that has refused to discuss or communicate, and has also refused to write any new articles. I see little point in officially supporting such an endeavour - a Votian wikipedia will go nowhere. 2Q 17:10, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
  • You can change your mind again :) . Now I often edit pages in this project.--Tamara Ustinova 12:36, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
    • I will help to this project too.--Nazzi (talk) 16:28, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Other discussion

I started working on this Votian wikipedia project, I also did the translations of the system messages. I undertook this project in the hope that it would unite the community of Votian speakers and those with an interest in the language.

But my experience with the project showed me that this is unworkable. If you look at the existing articles on the incubator, the vast majority of them were started by me. Yes, there have been other contributors, but they pointedly refused to start new articles or expand existing ones - instead, a "war" broke out, each contributor changing existing text only to reflect their preferred orthography or their preferred dialect; short form, instead of contributing towards the growth of the project, they were picking nits. A rough consensus eventually did form as far as orthography goes, but the dialect-warfare continued; I suggested that ALL dialects be used (since they are all very close to each other), instead of attempting to standardise on one, but this went ignored.

So, I gave up. I'd still love to see a blossoming, growing Wikipedia in Votian, but I don't think this is going to happen - there are far too few of us to keep it going, none of the contributors are native speakers (though perhaps unsurprising, since the VAST majority of native speakers are over 60 years old now).

Conclusion: I'm not going to vote in favour, for reasons listed above. But I'm also not going to vote AGAINST it, either, in the hopes that it may yet take off. But I will remain on the sidelines until then: when the number of articles has doubled (that is, other contributors have started new articles to grow the encyclopedia), then I will eagerly rejoin the effort. But I see no reason that I should write every article, and indeed, that wouldn't even be acceptable by Wikipedia standards as I understand it... 2Q 23:58, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I have the same three questions as I had for the Livonian request: --Millosh 08:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

1. Who would write those projects? --Millosh 08:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
2. What is the purpose of those projects? --Millosh 08:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
3. What do you think about starting Wikisource editions instead of Wikipedia? That would be wiser action if the language conservation is the main goal. --Millosh 08:58, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

1 - Going by existing history of article creation? Me. Except I'm not going to, for reasons I explained in my earlier paragraph. 2 - Well, the purpose of the project was the same as for any other language - to have information available online in Votian. 3 - Wikisources is completely wrong for Votian: nothing has been ever published in the language apart from a dictionary except for Vanka Zhukov by Chekhov - the language doesn't even have an accepted standardised orthography! (And this is the root of the problems I described in my long paragraph above. 2Q 11:10, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

• Dispute for letters better to write - "tš" or "c" is not a "root of the problems". Moreover, standardised orthography is accepted to fact - "c" instead of "tš". Do you know it?--Nazzi (talk) 16:28, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

---

There isn't much of if any up-to-date evidence of living people whose first language is Votic. Ethnologue considers Votic near extinct. 193.40.10.180 16:42, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

• WOW! We never knew about it! *irony* --Tamara Ustinova 15:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
• Can't you see that we have a native speaker?--Tamara Ustinova 15:44, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

No offence, it's just important to point this out as there's a requisite of a sufficient number of living native speakers. According to field research data from 1998 there were 30–40 more or less native speakers [1]. As they were old people, it's probably less by now. The user marked as native speaker hasn't really confirmed having Votic as his first language and contrarily states none of the contributors are native speakers. 193.40.10.181 14:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

So why do we have for example Old English Wikipedia? --RgC 22:14, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• Little number of native speakers is not a big problem, imho. The main thing is that at least someone speak it. :) By the way, according to the Russian Census 2010, Votic speaks by 68 people. It means that number of native speakers is growing, Votic revives... isn't it?--U.Steele (talk) 19:16, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

This census data includes second language speakers. 193.40.10.180 14:53, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Does it matter who is going to edit and read: native speakers or second language ones?--U.Steele (talk) 10:27, 22 February 2012 (UTC)