User:Slomox/Languages

This page reflects the personal opinion of a single user and should not be viewed as policy in any way.

This page tries to document requisites to be fulfilled by languages and by their test projects, which want to be approved as full projects of the Wikimedia Fundation. This page tries to keep the barriers as low as possible, so the aim to provide knowledge to everybody can be fulfilled as wide as possible. But it tries also to make sure, that the projects do not get empty, unuseful or abandoned.

This page is about proposals to open a new language edition of an existing Wikimedia project that does not already exist (see the complete list of Wikimedia projects) only.

General

A speaker is a "real" speaker, if he or she is able to fully express him- or herself in all or almost all daily circumstances of life relevant to the society or subset of society in which the language is spoken and/or relevant to the speaker him- or herself.
A community is a "regular" community of X persons, if there over a longer time of at least six months are at least X persons, who are regularly participating in a content-developing manner (at least one edit every two weeks and at least 100 edits or 100kB of text and wikicode added in six months), and if there is no good reason to believe that this could change in the near future.
A language is "unique", if there is common agreement, that the language is a language of its own and not just a variant (dialect, sociolect, regiolect, spelling variant, nation based variant of a pluricentric standard language) of another. If common agreement about this is lacking (if for example major institutions relevant to the language deny that it is a language of its own) the status of the language cannot be determined by this policy. Constructed languages are always considered unique.
A language is "vivid", if its number of speakers is stable or most likely will reach a permanently stable number of speakers at some point in the future in the future.
In contrast a language is "moribund", if it in all likelyhood will lose more and more speakers until it will be extinct at some point in the future and it is not likely that this process can be stopped by providing knowledge and educative material.
A language is "dead", if there are no real speakers.
A language is "natural", if it is not a constructed language.
A language is "ancient", if it is not dead, but evolved into another language.

Every language which wants to get a Wikimedia project should have an ISO 639 code, so it can be assigned to a subdomain.

The interface of the language should be translated.

Wikipedia/Wikibooks/Wikinews

Requisites for the Language

If the language is unique it should have at least 1000 real speakers. Languages with fewer real speakers are not excluded per se, but should have very good arguments, why they should be added.
Rationale: Languages with fewer speakers than 1000 will in most cases be fully multilingual in another language which will compete as language of knowledge issues. In the world of the communication age (as sad as it is) languages with fewer than 1000 speakers will hardly survive.
For Wikinews: At least 500 speakers of the language should have internet access or the community should proof, that they are going to take measures to make the content available to offline users, so that at least 500 speakers have access to the content (for example by printing out the content and make placards or handouts).
Rationale: Due to its special nature, Wikinews entries must be read soon, cause they will be outdated after some time. Where Wikipedia entries can be seen as investment in the future, which will not loose value that quickly, for Wikinews we must make sure, that the content is circulated.

Requisites for the Community

For Wikipedia or Wikinews there should be a regular community of at least three real speakers.
Rationale: An edition of Wikinews is comparable to a newspaper. A single person or group of two persons is hardly enough to create a useful newspaper. An edition of Wikipedia can be maintained by a single person, but the principle of mutual control should be fulfilled. Additionally an encyclopedia needs a specific mass to begin to be useful. An encyclopedia starts to be useful if there is a good chance to find an useful entry on typical encyclopedic topics (like entries for countries, common plants and animals, important juridical terms etc.). An encyclopedia of 10 or 100 entries can never cover even the most important terms and an encyclopedia of 1000 entries hardly can do too. Going up on the logarithmical scale an encyclopedia of 10,000 maybe can claim some completeness for the most important terms. So an edition of Wikipedia should be able to grow to 10,000 articles in a realistic time (10 or even 20 years should still be acceptable for lesser used languages). Fewer than three persons can hardly write that much entries.
For Wikibooks there should be a regular community of at least two real speakers.
Rationale: The number of two is chosen, cause useful Wikibooks can be developed without bigger communities, but the priciple of users mutually reading their content and correcting errors should be fulfilled.
For Wikipedia: The test project should have at least 500 useful articles with at least 500 bytes of text each and 500 kB total text.
Rationale: 500 articles should be proof, that the community is willing and able to go the way to 10,000 and further.
For Wikibooks: The test project should have at least one book completed and working on a second. There should be at least 250 kB total text.
Rationale: With one book completed the project can be viewed as useful resource.
For Wikinews: The test project should have at least 50 news entries with at least 500 bytes of text each and 50 kB total text.
Rationale: The barrier is lower than for Wikipedia or Wikibooks cause of the special nature of Wikinews. News entries posted in a test project never will attract much readers and be outdated soon, therefore the contributors shouldn't be forced to work for nothing.

Wiktionary

Requisites for the Language

If the language is unique and natural it should have at least 1 real speaker. Constructed languages should at one point in history have fulfilled the prerequisites for a Wikipedia. Natural languages lacking real speakers are not excluded per se, but should have written or acoustic records which allow for satisfactory dictionary entries.
Rationale: There must be verifiable sources to collect information about a language. Constructed languages with no important followship can't be supported.

Notices: Moribund and dead languages should provide measures to make their content available to speakers of relevant non-moribund languages.

Requisites for the Community

There should be a regular community of at least two real speakers for vivid languages or two persons either real speakers or persons scholarly educated about the language for moribund or dead languages.
Rationale: The users should at least be able to correct their errors mutually.
The test project should have at least 1000 useful entries with at least two translations or one definition of the word in the own language.
Rationale: 1000 entries should be proof, that the community is willing and able to create a useful resource.

Wikisource

Requisites for the Language

The language should be unique and natural and if it's an ancient language it should have no single direct successor. If it is not natural it at one point in history should have fulfilled the prerequisites for a Wikipedia.
The language should have produced any written records, which are in the Public Domain by age. If there are no written records in the Public Domain by age, there should be authentic content by a real speaker released under a licence accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation. This released content must be accepted by the language community as authentic.
Rationale: It is not acceptable if the project solely consists of content, which was made up for the project or not being backed as authentic by its language community. That means, that a Declaration of Human Rights translated into Indoeuropean can't be used to proof the usefulness of a Wikisource in Indoeuropean. The same for a novel written by an ethnologue in the language of a tribe of New Guinea to proof the usefulness of a Wikisource in the tribe's language, if the tribe's language has not produced other written content, until the tribe accepts this work of the ethnologue as part of their own culture.

Notice: Ancient languages which have a single direct successor (like Anglo-Saxon and its successor English) should be covered by their successor. If a language has several successors (like Latin and the whole group of Romance languages) it should have its own Wikisource.

Requisites for the Community

There should be a regular community of at least two real speakers for vivid languages or two persons either real speakers or persons scholarly educated about the language for moribund or dead languages.
Rationale: The users should at least be able to correct their errors mutually.
The test project should have at least 10 complete and correct source texts with at least 1000 bytes of text each and at least 50 kB total text. If the whole body of written works in the Public Domain of that language consists of fewer than 10 source texts and/or fewer than 50 kB, this requisite is fulfilled, if the Wikisource project covers the complete body.
Rationale: With 10 source texts the project can be viewed as useful resource.

Wikiquote

*** I never understood, what quotes have to do with knowledge. Wikiquote as a project for me is a mistake from the early times like Klingon was as a language. So no criteria from me for Wikiquote. ***

*** Feel free to add criteria here. ***

Wikiversity

*** I never understood, what Wikiversity is about _exactly_. I don't disapprove it like Wikiquote, but I can't formulate criteria for it. ***

*** Feel free to add criteria here. ***