Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Old English Wikiquote

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

The following discussion is closed.

Although this wiki was created in 2004 it has only received twenty-eight content pages thus far, the most recent of which was quickly deleted as vandalism and, as seen from Special:RecentChanges, little activity occurs otherwise. The charts for this wiki show that the actual activity had stopped mid-March of 2006, and most of the content it had consisted of one-line articles or untranslated pages. It seems quite obvious that the wiki community is best left editing the Old English Wikipedia and should not waste their resources on such a stale wiki; even the readers of the Wikiquote's Main Page seem disinterested in the project. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 01:32, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Link to mainpage.
Bug filed: bug 29150. Wiki would not be imported into the Wikimedia Incubator due to the change in language policies. Hydriz 01:14, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, Incubator allows wikis in ancient/historical languages. The policy for creating/re-opening a subdomain is more strict. For example, the Ancient Greek Wikipedia is quite large. SPQRobin (talk) 20:14, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support

  1. As nominator. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 01:32, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I'd hate to agree, but the Eald Englisc Ƿikicƿide (Wikiquote) never really took off to begin with. I think it's perhaps due to the fact that having so many projects is a big beyond our scale. Most important to us are Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and Wikibooks. Some will want to include Wikisource as well. (I also fixed that link you tossed up, as it lead to the ang.wikipedia) Wōdenhelm 19:12, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Sadly so. Gott wisst 02:36, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support - per above--Andrijko Z. 18:35, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support - what a shame. Mr. Berty! talk/stalk 17:22, 12 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support --Paulis 17:21, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support It seems totally unmaintained so it makes sense to close Þēos Englisce WQ :( fr33kman 01:28, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  8. An unsuccessful project, unfortunately. –Juliancolton | Talk 15:43, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  9. No real activity. Pmlineditor (t · c · l) 15:44, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Support. Messing around with Old English is fun, but hosting translations of modern texts into Old English is outside Wikimedia's scope (it could be an interesting wiki hosted elsewhere though). Adequate resources exist for relevant and useful material, both in the other Old English wikis and en.wikiquote, which will be more useful to potential users anyway. Zachlipton 19:53, 8 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Support. "Hē is dēad, Jim". Reach Out to the Truth 21:58, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Support. --Vibhijain 13:35, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support per nomination. --Pmsyyz 21:01, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Support. --Turn685 00:44, 21 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Support -FASTILY (TALK) 03:15, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Support – The exercise of translating modern quotes into Old English may have had some educational value for the participants (so does solving Sudoku puzzles), but this does not support the foundation vision of sharing the sum of human knowledge with the reading public. ~ Ningauble 17:45, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Support, per nom. — [ Tanvir | Talk ] 06:24, 20 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Support, with regret. No community or momentum ever developed here. The English Wikiquote can easily accommodate quotes from actual Old English works. Courcelles 03:09, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

  1. Weak oppose. Due to the new language rules, if this project is closed it could never be reopened again should interest be revived. There are many fine quotes from old English literature (e.g. Beowulf) that I'm sure could be included in the project if anyone was interested in contributing - and who's to say that there won't? Besides, I don't see how this project is hurting anything by simply existing. Spam and vandalism will be quickly removed by our SWMT team (and from looking at RC, there doesn't seem to be much anyway). I'm unconvinced that this project needs to be closed. Tempodivalse [talk] 22:35, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    But the activity of this project appears to have been exclusively devoted to translating from modern English, primarily 20th century popular works, and has nothing to do with old English literature. Although I could conceive of reasonable exceptions or changes to the policy requiring a sufficient number of living native speakers, I'm unconvinced that this type of activity advances the foundation's educational mission or global outreach. ~ Ningauble 15:39, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair point, I did consider that when posting here (if I think over your argument, I might reconsider and strike this oppose vote for a {{neutral}}). It's sad that a lot of pages on the wiki are frivolous (Star Trek? seriously?), but that being said ... it doesn't mean more appropriate, project-oriented quotes can't be found in the future. I might disagree that the project doesn't help the WMF mission - it is useful to learners of Old English, which I'm sure do exist somewhere ... (Similar arguments can be made for other dead languages that have wikis, for instance, Latin.) Tempodivalse [talk] 16:33, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I thought Wikiquote is also exempt from the "native speakers" rule? -- Prince Kassad 23:04, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I was under the impression all projects had to follow the "living language" rule ... don't quote me on that though. Tempodivalse [talk] 23:18, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikisources are definitely exempt from that rule (since they primarily collect historical texts, including such in extinct languages), and I was under the impression Wikiquote is, too. -- Prince Kassad 23:26, 8 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Opppose - It's not doing any harm, can be revived one day (WMF is about decades and centuries right) and it is watched by the bots, the SWMT, stewards and global sysops. fr33kman 23:45, 9 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose I can see the value in leaving this as is. -Djsasso 17:00, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose A lot of wikiquote projects are not so important, because it is not dificult to get quotes to big language groups. But old english is an historical language and it is not easy to get quotes. But I must say that modern translations seems to be not important and I suppose it is strange that somebody placed modern translations on this site. It is clear that such site is not very active, but I suppose it is important for other projects that this site will exist. For me it is a strange idaa to close it. --Soenke Rahn 12:08, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose --Sekelsenmat 14:49, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

  1. Quotations from Old English literature, with modern translations, are very welcome at the English Wikiquote (e.g. Widsið). Translations in the other direction, as seems to have been popular at the Ænglisc project, are not needed there. ~ Ningauble 21:41, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Which option (support or oppose) would best translate "Lock now, with an option to unlock later when interest is revived"? Kylu 14:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    The proposal is to close but not expressly to delete, so a "Support" !vote means lock it down for the time being. However, it could be difficult to restart because it does not meet Langcom's current policy for new projects. They might be persuaded to make an exception, like the one for Wikisource, if the project were rededicated to quoting Old English literature rather than modern translation into a dead language, but that might be unlikely. ~ Ningauble 15:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  3. I propose to close this request as successful if there are no further objections within seven days. :| TelCoNaSpVe :| 03:24, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
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