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Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Novial Wikipedia

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This is a proposal for closing and/or deleting a wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is subject to the current closing projects policy.

The proposal for closing nov: is rejected and the project will be kept open.

Simply put, this Wikipedia is barely alive and that situation is unlikely to improve. There are only 7 “active users”— three have almost zero edits and two are bots. Novial is a constructed language spoken by almost nobody, so the prospects of userbase expansion are slim and the number of readers is probably even slimmer. Practically every single article is a stub. The “working language” of the wiki isn’t even Novial— large chunks of the interface are in English and what little communication goes on between users is mostly in English too. Lastly there is simply no practical benefit to hosting an encyclopedia in a language no-one uses, especially one in such poor shape. Dronebogus (talk) 22:40, 26 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support[edit]

Support per nom. --87.116.167.196 15:14, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support closure – constructed language wikis other than maybe eo will always have the aforementioned issues. --SHB2000 (t • c) 21:31, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Ridiculous prejudices against constructed language are no argument. International auxiliary languages and not just Esperanto have living communities, literature, journals, standardized grammar and lexic (in contrast to many dialects which have Wikipedias) and are used on conventions, internet forums and videos. This is also true to some extent to Novial.KardonaBoske (talk) 22:26, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Dialects and “ausbau” languages shouldn’t have Wikipedias either and new ones were rightfully banned. The reason conlang Wikipedias don’t work is almost no conlang has first-language speakers. Instead of making ad hominem accusations of prejudice and citing meaningless facts, why not explain the actual educational utility of Novial Wikipedia beyond a language learning resource? Or refute any other point I made besides the last one? Dronebogus (talk) 23:33, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are ausbau languages, and also Luxemburgish, Dutch and German. Many Swedes have trouble understanding Danish (in particular spoken, but also written), while many (but not all) understand English to a fairly high degree. The same is afaik true to different extents about the others. Do you think Swedish Wikipedia ought to be deleted? Flinga (talk) 12:12, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    No, because you just said it wasn’t mutually intelligible with Danish, making it Abstand-in-practice. I’m thinking of languages like English/Scots which (in written form, the only form that matters here) are almost completely mutually intelligible (Malay/Indonesian and Dutch/Afrikaans are probably in the same categories but I won’t make assumptions about languages I don’t know). Dronebogus (talk) 09:59, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Do speak more than one language except your mother tongue English? Are you able to read and understand and least one more Wikipedia? Its obvious that you have no understanding of linguistics and that you do not share the Wikipedia values of a democratic and open society. Wikipedia is the wrong place for narrow minded people like you. Your idea to close dialects and "Ausbau"-languages like Luxembourgish, which is one the official languages of Luxemburg is another indicator or your lack of understanding of the world language subject. Novial is no conlang. Novial is an international auxiliary language, just like Esperanto, Ido, Interlingua, Volapük. Conlangs are made for fun and not made for communication, whereas international auxiliary language have a clear educational goal and want to faciliate international communication. As Novial is based on European source languages it can be understood passively by millions of people. So articles in a Novial Wikipedia have certainly an educational value. Valodnieks (talk) 19:18, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I can pretty much passively understand Novial and don’t find Novial Wikipedia’s content remotely useful. Good faith as they are IALs simply don’t work for their intended purpose— Esperanto survived and flourished because of the large subculture it spawned, not because anyone actually used it for its intended purpose. The actual IALs are English, French, and Spanish and nothing is going to change that. People who “passively understand” Novial are going to use one of those or their major regional language, not Novial. Dronebogus (talk) 19:22, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per above --176.104.110.11 19:41, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral[edit]

  • Neutral I'm not generally for kicking sleeping dogs; I wouldn't argue to open this Wikipedia, but I wouldn't have started a deletion request. But it looks like all the nov.WP editors are also editing on ie.WP and io.WP. I would expect and hope that the Tatar Wikipedia is driven by Tatar speakers, and Cornish Wikipedia is driven by Cornish speakers, people writing it for their community and their family, and I'm really skeptical of the value of a Volapük Wikipedia that being written by and for people who also speak Ido and Interlingue; there's no encyclopedic purpose to have three Wikipedias by and for the same group of people.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:55, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    there's no encyclopedic purpose to have three Wikipedias by and for the same group of people. Exactly. Which is also why we also don’t need like five different varieties of German or Serbo-Croatian, but at least those have actual real-world communities besides the same small group of conlang enthusiasts. Dronebogus (talk) 03:16, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I have been active for English, German and Esperanto Wikipedia, too. So do you want to delete some of them, too? Your ideas about Serbo-Croation show once more your lack of understanding of the linguistic situation this time in Europe. In former Yugoslavia Serbo-Croatian was never really spoken as such. It was a forced compromise. Croatian, which is written with Latin letters, is even one of the official languages of the European Union. Serbian is written in cyrillic letters and is the official language of Serbia with a long literary tradition. After the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina Bosnian became an official language. Its Serbo-Croatian with elements of Turkish and Arab vocabulary. To opt for Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia and close the others is the worst possible decision and would not be accepted neither by Serbian nor Croatian users of Wikipedia. Even if the languages are closely related and each other can understand, we have to accept the choice of these people. Valodnieks (talk) 20:49, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I also said that they at least have actual communities of millions of speakers. I can tolerate ausbau language editions for languages that are used in the real world; but at the same time there’s no Montenegrin language Wikipedia because it wouldn’t provide any real benefit as an encyclopedia. Dronebogus (talk) 10:34, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't understand, why one man can't use and edit more than one Wikipedia (e.g. Italian and English, or in Novial and in Interlingua). Everyone can communicate in different languages at different times. As I remember, even W. Rosenberger (died in 1918) used both Volapük and Esperanto, and both on the high level. Morozof (talk) 04:44, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It's not about one person. Italian and English serve very different audiences, and while there's some cross-over, there's a significant number of people on both sides who would never touch the other project. There are probably Cornish Wikipedia editors who never edit any other Wikipedia, and minority languages are a different issue. But when a group of Wikipedias are edited by the same people, that raises the question of why we need multiple Wikipedias. They're not doing their job as an encyclopedia, and they're not supporting a minority language.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:26, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see a potential danger in the argument above, maybe because it's not so elaborated. I'd say that one goal of the Wikipedia projects has long been to support small languages (in the cases where a Wikipedia can be sustained), or at least knowledge in every language. Many minor languages now has exclusively, or nearly so, bilingual speakers. A Wikipedia can be a valuable project for the survival of such a language, and we should definately support that, in my opinion. Think of the many East-bloc countries where people have been taught Russian (just like Swahili and Arabic, one of many natural auxlangs) – should we close Wikipedias in languages just because "they all master Russian anyhow"? (Or say indigenous languages in the US vs. American English, or even languages of Europe vs. English.) Flinga (talk) 13:25, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is false equivalency of cultural imperialism wiping out minority languages with “we should support every language in existence because every language is inherently beautiful”, even ones that have neither a practical purpose or an organic cultural heritage (even Esperanto has the latter). I’ve said this before and will say it again: if Novial why not any conlang? Maybe someone will find Quenya Wikipedia useful for whatever reason! Dronebogus (talk) 10:06, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose[edit]

  • Oppose It's a classical interlanguage and language users (which are easy to meet in Discord and Posta Mundi for instance) stll can read the wiki. Closure points stated are just personal preferences of the topic starter. Grigoriy Korotkih (talk) 06:24, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Neither of your points make any sense and dismissing my objective reasoning as “just personal preferences” doesn’t make them less valid or true. Dronebogus (talk) 06:28, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Your opionion and your preferences are just yours and are not facts or are shared by others. We can make the interface fully in Novial. I just need a hint how I do that technically. There are enough people in this Wikipedia, who can do that. Articles are also extended, new articles are created. Not in the range it should, but things are on the way. Your proposal is just destructive and your motives are only personal. Valodnieks (talk) 19:23, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I wasn’t asking you, and doubling down on denial without refutation doesn’t make it more valid. Dronebogus (talk) 10:32, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. A language with a small number of users is still a language. By the way, Novial is easily understandable language, that is read by more people than written, and encyclopedic articles are useful to them. As to interface, this is hard to translate all commands to another language; this task requires a large team of speakers. Morozof

    • You just said there were lots of speakers, now you’re saying there’s not enough speakers to get the interface right? And being easily understandable does not a wiki make— look at Toki Pona. Dronebogus (talk) 20:07, 27 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think translating the interface is as technically difficult as you might think. It's not about forking and merging code, and I suspect translating the words could be done by one person (haven't looked much into how it's done, but I've seen something of it maybe at some point), but more easily by two, of course. Flinga (talk) 12:29, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
betawiki:portal:nov and betawiki:special:translate?language=nov&group=core are the pertinent translation utilities. Arlo Barnes (talk) 18:47, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I am active in the Novial Wikipedia and also do translations in this language. I am against the closure. I can speak Novial and made even videos in Novial on You Tube. KardonaBoske (talk) 22:14, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Understandable articles are useful for readers. As for me, I don't dare to write in Novial, but I read in it and I need the Novial Wikipedia. For creation of a version of the interface a big team of people is needed (100+ translators, some programmers etc.), so this is not a valuable criteria for "small languages". Morozof (talk) 05:33, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you overestimate how technically difficult it is to translate the interface. It's not like you have to redo the code. I suspect that maybe even one skilled speaker could do it, and also that the reason that it's not yet fully done is that the community lately hasn't been aware of how to do it. Flinga (talk) 12:29, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose The Novial Wikipedia is slowly growing. The content is in not in anyway offensive or problematic. The Novial Wikipedia is no burden for the Wikipedia project. I regularly contribute also financially to Wikipedia, because Wikimedia hosts projects like the Novial Wikimedia. The Novial edition of Wikipedia has an educational value in contrast to the "arguments" presented. Please vote against that proposal. Danko e me ve suporta li Wikipedie de Novial anke in li future. Valodnieks (talk) 19:28, 29 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    What educational value? Please enlighten me. Dronebogus (talk) 03:16, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Project does not satisfy current common reasons for a project's closure. Small editing base and shortness of articles is not a valid reason for project's closure or deletion. I am also worried about some comments made by Dronebogus in this discussion, namely "Which is also why we also don’t need like five different varieties of German or Serbo-Croatian, but at least those have actual real-world communities besides the same small group of conlang enthusiasts" which clearly defies expected behavioural standards for Wikimedia projects. Reasons why there are many languages with overlapping features is not as straightforward as it seems, and we should not discriminate speakers of those languages because they share a similar language.--A09|(pogovor) 10:39, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Just because you and a bunch of other people disagree strongly with my points doesn’t make them violations of behavioral policy; that’s the difference between democracy, where majority opinion becomes rule, and mobocracy, where majority opinion silences any dissent. I don’t care if people disagree with me, even if I think your arguments are bad and will criticize them, but I do care that people are attacking and trying to delegitimize what I say both here and at my closure nomination of Volapük Wikipedia. Dronebogus (talk) 10:19, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose for the same reasons listed by others above plus because Novial is one of the easy to read auxlangs which makes content written there both easy to translate into other languages as well as to keep an eye on. Mithridates (talk) 12:24, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose There is no reason to close the Novial Wikipedia. International auxiliary languages such as Novial have found a new following in the digital age. There is evidence of recent activity with good quality articles being created in this Wikipedia.
  • Oppose: 1. there is no policy against constructed languages; 2. there is no policy against languages with few speakers; 3. temporary inactivity is not a valid reason for closing a project; 4. there is nothing offensive about the contents; 5. the language is correct; 6. the project is not in a particularly bad shape; 7. it doesn't bother anyone in any other way either. The only remaining argument — nobody needs it — is bogus: nobody needs a Wikipedia in Esperanto, Luxemburgish or Cornish either, but that doesn't mean they aren't doing their job. Perhaps this project shouldn't have been started in the first place, but there is a difference between anticonception and murder: starting a project, allowing people to work on it for eighteen years, and then suddenly deleting it all for no other reason than some outsider finding it useless is just not cricket. IJzeren Jan (talk) 22:39, 30 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    To bolster your argument about temporary inactivity: the Interlingue/Occidental Wikibooks was locked during a period in which I wasn't able to contribute to the language and as such I had to write the language's main textbook on the English Wikibooks instead. Fortunately it ended up turning into a template for other languages to translate into and thus went a little beyond Interlingue-only, but it's a real annoyance when you find the time to put a lot of time into Wikipedia/books/whathave you and realize that someone has closed or locked a project in your absence. Mithridates (talk) 03:48, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    People need a Wikipedia in Luxemburgish and Cornish to help preserve their native tongue and and provide a Wikipedia future generations can turn to in their native tongue. The Esperanto Wikipedia is a solid Wikipedia; it's top 40 by number of articles and number of edits, top 50 by number of users or active users. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:09, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That's precisely my point: Wikipedias in these languages exist not only for the sake of the information contained in them, but also for the sake of the languages themselves. My remark was in response to the statement that speakers of such languages won't need their own Wikipedia, because for the lack of monolingual native speakers, they might as well peruse a bigger and better Wikipedia – a statement I fiercely disagree with. IJzeren Jan (talk) 17:45, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Why would we do anything purely for the sake of a language? We should do things for the sake of people, with languages being part of cultures that are important to people. I also see more importance in doing things for the people in cultures that have been suppressed, rather than the games that people play who grew up speaking the language of a major colonial power. That's where the huge difference between Cornish and Novial comes into play; one is connected to a culture, and the other isn't.--Prosfilaes (talk) 14:48, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    In b4 “Novial has a culture” or “is a culture”. Yes, a subculture, built solely around speaking the same language. That’s the kind of circular logic implicit to the “all languages are equal” stance. Dronebogus (talk) 09:48, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Novial may not have many speakers today, but it's a historically highly relevant auxlang – the first designed by a professional linguist (who's still famous today) and a continuous influence on auxlangers until today that has helped to shape many auxlangs/interlanguages developed later. And the Novial Wikipedia, though fairly small, is probably already the biggest single text corpus created in this language, hence an important showcase. At best, it'll grow bigger over time and might even help attract more speakers to this interesting language. At worst, it will stay fairly small, remain as an interesting showcase, and do no damage. What could possibly be gained by deleting it?? Krissie (talk) 11:30, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Exactly. None of those arguments are a reason for Wikimedia to host this Wikipedia; it has no interest in attracting speakers to Novial, nor creating the biggest single text corpus in a language, nor whether a language is historically highly relevant (note that there is a repeated rejection of Ancient Greek, which is vastly more historically relevant.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:09, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course Ancient Greek is historically relevant; here in the Netherlands, many people even learn it in school. The problem with Ancient Greek is a different one: how can one write a modern encyclopedia in a language from two millennia ago? Even an article about the Trojan War would be problematic without a word for "Turkey", where Troy was located. Of course, that problem can be circumvented by creating neologisms, but the effect of doing so is that the language is not "pure" Ancient Greek anymore. Same goes by the way for editions in other ancient languages, like Gothic, Anglo-Saxon and Old Church Slavonic. Novial doesn't have that problem: even though its lexicon is relatively small, Jespersen provides tools for coining "virtual vocabulary". IJzeren Jan (talk) 18:03, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    We don’t need those either. In fact they’re probably even less useful because they’re dead languages. Dronebogus (talk) 10:29, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You keep using the phrase "we don't need..." when you are actually saying: "I don't need...". Or are you speaking on behalf of somebody else? Look, I'm sure your intentions are honourable, but you should really change your tone, because much of what you write (useless, obscure, nobody needs, garbage, hobbyists, waste of time, vanity wikis, etc.) is needlessly disparaging and offensive. You are of course entitled to your opinion, but at least learn how to distinguish between opinions and facts. IJzeren Jan (talk) 11:14, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you denying that speaking Novial is a hobby, based on an obscure language (unknown but negligible number of online-only, second-language-only speakers), with no practical use (it’s not a genuine lingua franca and it probably never will be)? Dronebogus (talk) 09:52, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Its obvious that there is interest for the Novial Wikipedia. Wikimedia is a community and I do not understand why should have no interest to host it? What are the interests of Wikimedia according to your opinion? KardonaBoske (talk) 22:10, 31 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    There's something about the way you've framed this ("None of these arguments are a reason for Wikimedia to host this Wikipedia") that doesn't sit right with me. This isn't a proposal for a new Wikipedia, and (though I assume it's unintentional) the phrasing looks like you are speaking on Wikimedia's behalf or trying to make it appear as such. I recommend rephrasing a few parts (e.g. "it has no interest in..." to "I haven't seen it express any interest...", "for Wikimedia to host this Wikipedia" to "for such a Wikipedia". Mithridates (talk) 04:09, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Besides all the arguments already presented, the initiator speaks disdainfully, condescendingly and offensively, which go against the values promoted by both Wikimedia and Novial itself. It makes one question the motives when they are not objectively laying out how each requirement for deletion is/not met.

Seth

  • Oppose In agreement with others above. The Novial Wiki has value and is growing. --SMBisbee (talk) 14:12, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    What is the value of Novial Wikipedia? Dronebogus (talk) 16:49, 4 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Its value is as an online encyclopedia in the language. I think the real question you are asking is: what is the value of the language itself? However, this is not a proposal about your personal prejudices against international auxiliary languages or Novial. "I don't like the language" and "I don't understand why someone would speak the language" are not a valid reasons for closure. SMBisbee (talk) 19:30, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, both this and the vo-wiki closure. Dronebogus, I agree with you to some extent on many of your arguments against the existence of the wikis, and if there were a request to open new ones, I would likely join you in "host it yourself". However, when projects like these have been kicking around for longer than a significant chunk of Wikipedia's editors, your argument falls to wikiconservatism.
We are not a physical space, the Wikimedia Foundation is certainly not short of resources, deletionism as a philosophy only really works on high-volume projects where superfluous information can be damaging. By existing for so long, the projects themselves have become part of the Wikimedia culture and history, albeit a small one. Whether these wikis exist or not only really affects a handful of individuals - anyone else would only care because they're part of Wikimedia canon and tradition.
This proposal will likely fail, because you're asking a group of longtime Wikipedians whether their dusty 15+-year-old corner of this website, that no-one else ever pays a second thought to, should be deleted or not. It's just the same old deletionism/inclusionism debate, except none of it really matters.
Per Prosfilaes, let sleeping dogs lie. If a group of interlanguage nerd wants to pleasure itself writing articles few will ever read, in languages few understand, and they've been doing it for this long, let them. Frzzl (talk) 17:45, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

As far as I'm aware, there was a community of people active from the late 1990s to the early 2010s or something like that, which had revived and used Novial, and created novwp, which then was more active in say the 00s and early 10s. It seems to me interest in Novial is currently quite a bit lower – on the other hand, at some point, there might be another revival movement and increased activity.

Dronebogus: "Practically every single article is a stub." What do you define as a stub? At any rate, for a sample, I used the random article function five times and got these results:

I think it's possible to export contents of a Wikipedia. Anyone who knows how? (I see above that it would be moved to Incubator in case of deletion.) Flinga (talk) 12:58, 1 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some time ago many stubs in Novial Wikipedia were deleted. That were articles like "X is a city in the land Y". I am active in this Wikipedia since a few months and want to make it more active again and I see that there is some support for it. I would love to finish translating menus fully in Novial, but would need a bit technical not linguistic help in it. KardonaBoske (talk) 22:20, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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