User talk:Smeira

Welcome to Meta!

أهلا Smeira ، ومرحبا بك في ويكيميديا ميتا ويكي! يعمل هذا الموقع على تنسيق ومناقشة كل مشاريع ويكيميديا. ربما سيكون مفيدا لك مطالعة صفحة السياسات هنا. إذا كنت مهتما بأمور الترجمة، راجع ميتا:بابلون. يمكنك أيضا ترك ملاحظة في ميتا:بابل (من فضلك راجع أولا التعليمات هناك قبل ترك الملاحظة). إذا أردت الاستفسار عن شئ ، لا تتردد في سؤالي في صفحة نقاشي. تمتع بالتحرير هنا!

Hello Smeira, and welcome to the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! This website is for coordinating and discussing all Wikimedia projects. You may find it useful to read our policy page. If you are interested in doing translations, visit Meta:Babylon. You can also leave a note on Meta:Babel or Meta:Metapub (please read the instructions at the top of the page before posting there). If you would like, feel free to ask me questions on my talk page. Happy editing!

Hallo, Smeira, und Willkommen bei Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! Diese Website ist zur Koordination und Diskussion aller Wikimedia-Projekte gedacht. Vielleicht findest du es nützlich, unsere Regelseite zu lesen. Wenn du daran interessiert bist, etwas zu übersetzen, besuche Meta:Babylon. Du kannst auch eine Notiz auf Meta:Babel oder Meta:Metapub hinterlassen (bitte lies die Anleitung am Anfang der Seite, bevor du etwas schreibst). Wenn du möchtest, kannst du mir auf meiner Diskussionseite Fragen stellen. Fröhliches Bearbeiten.

Hei Smeira, ja tervetuloa Wikimedian Meta-Wikiin! Tämä nettisivusto on kaikkien Wikimedia-säätiön projektien koordinointia ja keskustelua varten. Saattaa olla hyödyllistä lukea käytäntömme. Jos olet kiinnostunut käännöksistä, käy Meta:Babylon-sivulla. Voit myöskin jättää huomautuksen Meta:Babel, Meta:Metapub -sivulle (ole hyvä ja lue ohjeet sivun yläosassa ennenkuin kirjoitat sinne). Jos haluat, saat vapaasti kysyä minulta kysymyksiä keskustelusivullani. Iloisia muokkaushetkiä!

Bonjour Smeira, et bienvenue sur le Meta-Wiki de Wikimedia ! Ce site a pour but de coordonner et discuter de l’ensemble des projets Wikimédia. Il vous sera utile de consulter notre page sur les règles de Wikimédia. Si vous êtes intéressé par des projets de traduction, visitez Meta:Babylon. Vous pouvez aussi laisser un message sur Meta:Babel ou Meta:Metapub (mais veuillez d’abord lire les instructions en haut de cette page avant d’y poster votre message). Si vous le voulez, vous pouvez me poser vos questions sur ma page de discussion. À bientôt !

נכתב בלשון זכר למען הנוחות
היי Smeira, וברוך בואך ל- ויקימדיה מטא-ויקי! אתר זה נועד בכדי לתאם פעולות ולדון בפרויקטים של וויקימדיה. יש להניח שדפי המדיניות שלנו יהיו שימושיים עבורך. אם הנך מעוניין לבצע עבודות תרגום, בקר ב-Meta:Babylon. תוכל גם להשאיר הערה ב-Meta:Babel, Meta:Metapub, (אנא קרא את ההוראות בראש הדף לפני כתיבה שם). אם תרצה, הרגש חופשי לרשום לי שאלות בדף השיחה שלי. עריכה נעימה!

Hallo Smeira, en welkom op de Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! Deze website is voor het coördineren en bespreken van alle Wikimedia-projecten. Waarschijnlijk vind je het handig om onze beleidpagina te lezen. Als je geïnteresseerd bent in het vertalen van teksten, ga da naar Meta:Babylon. Je kunt ook een bericht achterlaten op Meta:Babel of Meta:Metapub (lees wel de instructies aan het begin van de pagina voordat je een bericht achterlaat). Als je nog vragen hebt stel ze me dan op mijn overlegpagina. Veel plezier met bewerken!

Cześć Smeira i witaj w projekcie Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! Ta strona została stworzona do koordynacji i dyskusji nad wszystkimi projektami Fundacji Wikimedia. Proszę Cię o przeczytanie naszych zasad. Jeżeli chcesz się zając tłumaczeniem stron, odwiedź Meta:Babylon. Możesz również zostawić notkę na stronie Meta:Babel, Meta:Metapub, (proszę jednak, abyś najpierw przeczytał instrukcje na górze tej strony). Jeżeli będziesz potrzebował pomocy zostaw komentarz na mojej stronie dyskusji. Miłego edytowania!

Olá Smeira! Seja bem-vindo ao Meta! Este site/sítio é dedicado à discussão e à coordenação de todos os demais projetos da Fundação Wikimedia. Talvez lhe seja útil ler a página contendo a nossa política (em inglês) antes de começar a editar. Se tiver dúvidas, sinta-se à vontade para me fazer perguntas em minha página de discussão, ou deixe uma mensagem para toda a comunidade na Babel, Meta:Metapub, a versão do Meta da Esplanada. Boa sorte!

Hola Smeira! Bienvenido a la Meta-Wiki de la Fundación Wikimedia! Este sitio es para coordinar y discutir todos los proyectos de la Fundación Wikimedia. Tal vez le sea útil leer nuestra página de políticas (en inglés). Si le interesan las traducciones, visite Meta:Babylon. También puede dejar un mensaje en Meta:Babel o Meta:Metapub (pero antes de hacerlo, por favor lea las instrucciones situadas en lo alto de la página). No dude en preguntar si tiene cualquiera duda, o pregunte en mi página de discusión. Buena suerte!

Ciao Smeira! Benvenuto sulla Meta-Wiki della Wikimedia Foundation! Questo sito serve a coordinare e discutere di tutti i progetti della Wikimedia Foundation. Potrebbe esserti utile leggere le nostre policy (in inglese). Se sei interessato a fare traduzioni, visita Meta:Babylon. Puoi anche lasciare un messaggio su Meta:Babel o Meta:Metapub (ma per favore, leggi le istruzioni che si trovano all'inizio della pagina prima di scrivere). Se vuoi, puoi lasciarmi un messagio nella mia pagina di discussione. Buona fortuna!

Ciao Smeira, şi bine aţi venit la Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! Acest website este pentru coordonarea şi discuţiile tuturor proiectelor Wikimedia. Este folositor să citiţi pagina despre politica noastră.. Dacă sunteţi interesaţi de traducere, vizita-ţi Meta:Babylon. De asemenea puteţi lasa o notă pe Meta:Babel, Meta:Metapub, (vă rugăm citiţi instrucţiunile de la începutul paginii înainte de a posta acolo). Dacă ai întrebări, nu ezita să mă întrebi pe pagina mea de discuţii talk page. Editare cu succes!

Hej Smeira, och välkommen till Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! Den här sidan är till för att diskutera och samordna alla Wikimedias projekt. Vill du veta mer om sidan, kan vår policy-sida komma väl till pass. Är du intresserad av att hjälpa till med översättningar, besök Meta:Babylon. Du kan också lämna ett meddelande på Meta:Babel eller Meta:Metapub (vänligen läs instruktionerna överst på sidan innan du skriver något där). Om du vill, är du välkommen att ställa frågor på min diskussionssida. Lycka till med redigerandet!

Hei Smeira, og velkommen til Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! Denne siden er til for å diskutere og samordne alle Wikimediaprosjektene. Vil du vite mer om siden, kan vår policy-side komme til nytte. Er du interessert i å hjelpe til med oversettelser, besøk Meta:Babylon. Du kan også legge igjen en beskjed på Meta:Babel, Meta:Metapub (vær vennlig og les instruksjonene øverst på siden før du skriver noe der). Hvis du vil, er du velkommen til å stille spørsmål på min diskusjonsside. God redigering!

Helló Smeira, és üdv a Wikimedia Meta-Wikijén! Ez a weboldal az összes Wikimedia projektet érintő ügyek megtárgyalására és koordinálására szolgál. Hasznosnak találhatod elolvasni az irányelveinket (angolul). Ha szeretnél fordításokat végezni, látogasd meg a Meta:Babylon-t, vagy a Meta:Babel, Meta:Metapub, oldalon hagyhatsz üzenetet (mielőtt ide írsz kérlek olvasd el a lap tetején található utasításokat). Ha szeretnél, nyugodtan kérdezz tőlem a vitalapomon. Jó szerkesztést és tartalmas szórakozást! Jó szerkesztést és tartalmas szórakozást!

Здравствуйте, Smeira, и добро пожаловать на Мета-вики фонда Викимедиа! Этот сайт предназначен для координации и обсуждения вопросов, связанных со всеми проектами фонда. Для начала предлагаю ознакомиться с правилами этого проекта. Если Вы заинтересованы в работе над переводами страниц Мета-вики и других материалов, посетите Meta:Babylon. Вы также можете обсудить различные вопросы на странице Meta:Babel или Meta:Metapub (пожалуйста, ознакомьтесь с инструкцией сверху, прежде чем писать). Если возникнут вопросы, не бойтесь задавать их мне на моей странице обсуждения. Удачи!

Hola Smeira! Benvingut a la Meta-Wiki de la Fundació Wikimedia! Aquest lloc està fet per a coordinar i discutir tots els projectes de la Fundació Wikimedia. Potser us serà útil llegir la nostra pàgina de polítiques (en anglès). Si us interessen les traduccions, visiteu Meta:Babylon. També podeu deixar un missatge a Meta:Babel, Meta:Metapub (però abans de fer-ho, llegiu les instruccions situades al principi de la pàgina). No dubteu en preguntar si teniu qualsevol dubte. Si cal ho podeu fer en la meva pàgina de discussió. Bona sort!

Здраво Smeira, и добро дошли на Викимедијин мета-вики! Овај сајт служи за координацију и дискусију око Викимедијиних пројеката. Вероватно ће Вам бити корисно да прочитате наше странице везане за политику рада. Ако сте заинтересовани за превођење, посетите Meta:Babylon. Можете такође и оставити поруку на страници Meta:Babel, Meta:Metapub (молимо погледајте упутства на врху те странице пре него што пошаљете свој коментар тамо). Ако имате неко питање, можете да ми поставите на мојој страници за разговор. Срећно уређивање!

Smeira, 你好！歡迎光臨維基媒體元維基！這個網站是為協調和討論所有維基媒體項目而設。我們的政策頁可能對您有用。如果您有興趣協助翻譯工作, 請參觀Meta:Babylon。你可在 Meta:Babel, Meta:Metapub 留下口訊 (張貼之前請先讀該頁上指示)。若有問題, 請在我的討論頁問我 。祝
編安!

வணக்கம் Smeira, விக்கிமீடியா மேல்விக்கி! இற்கு நல்வரவு. இவ்விணையத்தளமானது கூட்டாகச் சேர்ந்து விடயங்களை விவாதிப்பதற்கென உருவாக்கப் பட்டது. விக்கித்திட்டங்கள். நீங்கள் எங்களின் பாலிசிகளையும் பாலிசி பக்கம் படித்தறியலாம். நீங்கள் மொழிபெயர்பில் ஆர்வமுடையவராகின், Meta:Babylon ஐப் பார்வையிடவும். நீங்கள் Meta:Babel, Meta:Metapub இல் குறிப்பொன்றையும் விட்டுச் செல்லலாம். (பக்கத்தின் மேலேயிருக்கும் அறிவுறுத்தல்களை வாசித்தபின்னரே அங்கே செய்திகளை இடவும்). நீங்கள் விரும்பினால் எனது பக்கத்தில் செய்தியொன்றை விடவும் talk page. உங்கள் ஆக்கங்களை வரவேற்கின்றோம்!

ވިކިމީޑިޔާގެ މީޓާ-ވިކީ އަށް މަރުހަބާ! މިވެބްސައިޓަކީ ވިކިމީޑިޔާގެ ހުރިހާ މަޝްރޫޢުތަކާއި ބެހޭގޮތުން ވާހަކަތައް ދެކެވި އެ މަޝްރޫޢެއް ހިންގައި ހަދާ ވެބް ސައިޓެވެ. އަޅުގަނޑުމެންގެ ޤަވާއިދުތައް ފުރަތަމަ ވިދާޅުވުމަކީ މުހިންމު ކަމެއް ކަމުގައި ދެކެމެވެ. ތަރުޖަމާކުރާ ހިތްޕުޅުވެވަޑައިގަންނަވާ ނަމަ މީޓާ:ބެބިލޯން އަށް ވަޑައިގަންނަވާށެވެ. އަދި ހަމަ އެހެންމެ މިކަމާއި ބެހޭ ލިޔުމެއް މީޓާ:ބޭބެލް ގައި ލިޔުއްވަވާށެވެ. (އެހެންނަމަވެސް އެޞަފްޙާގައި އެއްވެސް އެއްޗެއް އިތުރު ކުރެއްވުމުގެ ކުރިން އެ ޞަފްހާގެ މަތީގައިވާ ޢިބާރާތް ވިދާޅުވެލައްވާށެވެ.) މިއާއި މުދު ހިތްހަމަޖެހިވަޑައިގަންނަވާ ނަމަ އިތުރު އެހީ އަށް އެދުމަށް މި ޞަފްހާ ގައި އެދުމަށް ފަސްޖެހި ވަޑައި ނުގަންނަވާށެވެ. އުނިއިތުރު ގެނައުމުގައި އުފާވެރި ވަގުތުކޮޅެއް ހޭދަ ކޮށްލައްވާށެވެ!!

Smeiraさん、ウィキメディア メタ・ウィキへようこそ！このサイトは、ウィキメディアのプロジェクト間の調整や話し合いを目的としています。もしよろしければ、ポリシーページを是非ご一読下さい。もし翻訳に興味をお持ちなら、Meta:Babylonをご覧下さい。Meta:Babel, Meta:Metapub にメッセージを投稿していただくことも可能です（投稿前にページ上部の説明をお読み下さい）。もしよろしければ私のノートページに質問をお寄せ下さい。

Smeira님, Wikimedia Meta-Wiki에 회원가입하신 것을 환영합니다! 이 사이트는 모든 위키미디어 프로젝트들 간의 상호조정(coordinate)과 토론을 위한 공간입니다. 우리의 정책을 보면, 도움이 되실 겁니다. 만약 번역에 관심이 있으시다면, Meta:Babylon을 방문해 보세요. 또한 Meta:Babel, Meta:Metapub 을 사용하실 수도 있습니다. (사용하시기 전에 바벨의 사용설명란을 먼저 읽어주세요). 만약 궁금한 것이 있으시면, talk page에 질문을 올려주세요. 즐거운 편집이 되시길 바랍니다!

Vítejte, uživateli Smeira, a vítejte na Wikimedia Meta-Wiki! Tento server je určen pro spolupráci a diskusím ke všem projektům nadace Wikimedia. Možná si budete chtít přečíst naše pravidla. Pokud chcete spolupracovat na překladech, navštivte Meta:Babylon. Také můžete přidat příspěvek na Meta:Babel či Meta:Metapub (nejdříve si přečtěte pokyny na začátku těchto stránek). V případě potřeby se neváhejte zeptat se na mé diskusní stránce. Hodně štěstí!

--Slade ♠ 00:24, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Abt the new list

Its good to see that you have created this list. This list can serve as a secondary support to the List of articles. Also, this can serve as a template for the development of the "completion index" of the required articles. Thanks for creating this. Also, I wanted to respond to your previous request but as you might have noticed, I am the only person working in Nepalbhasa and dont know other people who are interested in this issue. So, I could not comply with your request. Sorry about that. Regards.--Eukesh 15:15, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

List of Wikipedias by sample of articles

Are you using a script to update the list at the moment? If so, when the list's format and criteria stabilize, could you publish the code somewhere or make the results available online (like Mutante's WikiStats)? That would go a long way toward replacing the plain-vanilla article count for ranking Wikipedias. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 07:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I have a script which I can make public (perhaps here?). Note that it is not an online, automatic script like Mutante's; it's a plain python script which sits on my laptop and which I manually run every time I want results. It's also quite slow -- it takes about 25-30 minutes to get the results for one Wikipedia, so I have to let it run for two or three hours to get five or six more Wikipedias in the table -- and that's why I'm not done yet, only 150 out of 243; it'll probably take me a week or so. Should I publish the source code here? (Note also that there are some suggestions in the talk page of the List of Wikipedias by sample of articles that I'd like to implement -- I'll probably change the script after I'm done with all Wikipedias and then run it again after a couple of months.) --Smeira 14:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Take your time. :^) If you ever get tired updating the page, though, I'm sure there'll be people willing to update it for you; that's mainly why I asked. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 08:10, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, I like how it's all in... that must be Volapük! So it's a little exercise to get people learning some basic words in that language, like pukavodem. :^P Thanks for posting the code, and please don't interpret my request as stopping you from developing the script. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 05:13, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Looks like support for non-ASCII identifiers could come in Python 3.0, which is currently scheduled for release in August. [1] Not sure if it'll actually make it, of course, but PEP 3131 looks promising. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 03:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Yep, it's coming in Python 3.0. [2] You can download an alpha release here. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 19:18, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll have a look when I have some time... God knows when that'll be! --Smeira 09:55, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The fallacies you use in the "Radical Cleanup" discussion

Good evening, Sérgio.

I have noticed several fallacies and ambiguities you have used in the discussion concerning a radical cleanup of bot-generated stubs and minimal quality articles on Volapük wikipedia. I deem that the fact that you are trying to twist the truth and make things appear different to defend your case is but further proof that your cause precisely cannot be defended by true argument, and you must therefore resort to trickery and fallacy.

There are several points I would like to focus the attention on.

1.- You said: "...exaggerated, since you haven't even discussed this question within the vo.wp community itself..

Of course Arnomane has not discussed within the vo.wp community, whose opinion is (logically) biased in favour of keeping all those articles. It is even more biased by the fact that you, main defendant of vo.wp, are one of the few users in that wiki.

2.- You said to Fossa: "It's good that you've come out of the closet as a Volapük hater. That makes it easier to guess the kind of arguments you probably have.".

That is but a vulgar ad hominem argument. You try to discredit a person's arguments by means of his opinion. What else can I say?

3.- You said: "You're confusing this with a proposal for closure; since this Wikipedia will still exist regardless of the result of this vote, why are talking about "market" and making comparisons to dead languages and Klingon? But since you want to discuss the viability of Volapük instead of this proposal... Can you name the number of speakers of Old English (the Englisc Wikipedia), which you implicitly considered worthy of keeping unchanged? There are no native speakers of Volapük, but the "dead languages" that you say have _way more_ speakers also have no native speakers. How are they better than Volapük as a language? Private project: again, how many contributors does the Old English Wikipedia have?"

As it has been said, Volapük is not a martyr nor the sole target of this desire to improve or weed out extra-poor quality wikipedias. It is just not possible to go for all of them at once. Klingon wikipedia has already been closed because it is a constructed language with little to no native community. Latin and Old English have been a people's language in the past, and therefore embody the culture of a nation. On the other hand, Volapük never had native speakers. (the Eneid, the Odyssey, Beowulf... Tell me, in what way can Volapük even compare to the rich cultural heritage of these dead languages (ancient Greek, Latin and Old English)? That makes all the difference between these dead languages and Volapük, so please stop invoking them as examples.

And even if they were valid examples, which they are not, the fact that other wikipedias are in a shabby state and with a reduced userbase does not legitimise vo.wp's current state. Is it acceptable to steal just because there are other people who do so?

4.- You said: "If I had to guess, I'd say links to Volapük stubs are less than 10% of the total; en.wp, fr.wp, pl.wp have a lot more stubs than vo.wp, and are responsible for most of the interwiki links to stubs -- or even to bot-stubs, since there are more bot-stubs outside of vo.wp than inside of it. Would you like to check the numbers? (And there is of course the question of why you think interwiki links to stubs are useless -- what's the reason?)"

I checked that figure myself. Clicking 100 times on the random article page, I stumbled across 76 bot-created stubs (pre-determined sentences where only the numbers change) and 24. That means 76% of the articles in Volapük wikipedia are robot stubs - quite far from the 10% figure you proposed.

5.- You said: "I don't think anybody here, supporter or opposer, really thinks Arnomane's proposal will do anything to improve vo.wp.".

Yet another fallacy: this time, it is w:Appeal to belief. Besides, "I don't think sth" isn't a particularly strong argument.

6.- You said: "Another point: in suggesting that bot articles be removed, you're bypassing the opinion of the people involved: those who contribute to vo.wp. Please consider discussing your proposal and your arguments there beforehand!".

See point 1.

7.- You said: "All reasons mentioned in the proposal have been discussed and answered in the previous proposal for closing vo.wp. If the proposer wants admin rights, s/he should request them at vo.wp (e.g. at vo:Vükiped:Kafetar, and s/he should discuss his/her intentions for vo.wp with the other contributors. Otherwise this is the wiki equivalent of a coup d'état".

You have already proved that you strongly oppose any cleanup at vo.wp. With this sentence, you're only asking for this proposal to be evaluated exclusively by a biased community (biased because instead of being neutral, they have all voiced their strong opposition to cleanup), therefore allowing you to decide on this subject on your own. If the other thing is the wiki equivalent of a coup d'état, your proposal is the wiki equivalent of an autocratic dictatorship.

8.- You said: "Go ahead, let's see what happens. Maybe someone will ask for the closure of the Dutch Wikipedia too, since they have tens of thousands of bot-created city stubs (e.g.: nl:Buchères). Hmm... you'll probably be opposed by the same people who opposed the first vo.wp closure proposal and this second one (per Slomox, this proposal is equivalent to a second closure proposal). Are you sure you wouldn't want to start a discussion about bot-generated stubs and whether or not they are evil first? Meta is a good place for that too. (Also, it seems you don't have a userpage at Meta yet -- I think you have to have one, with a link to your home wiki, in order to participate or to propose closures or "radical cleanups")."

Once again, you have to resort to pointing out the flaws of other Wikipedias in order to hide Volapük's. The short stubs in Dutch wikipedia are more than compensated for by the great number of long, useful articles. This isn't quite the case in Volapük, is it?

9.- You said: "You're the one using elusive answers. The numbers are what they are: lots of bot-created stubs at vo.wp. But the point is that you think this is a "problem", because bot-created stubs are "bad". I challenge that assumption: please show that this is so. If bot-created articles are not necessarily bad, there is no problem with the number of articles they created -- unless we again fall into the statistical misuse of article count as a measure of quality or good work."

Bot-created articles aren't bad by themselves. They can be useful for creating and maintaining articles nobody is likely to work on, but only for those cases. When bot-created articles become the norm instead of the exception, that is when they become bad.

10.- You said: "in fact, there's a TV program here in the Netherlands who wants to do a little 2-minute report on Volapük because of the Vükiped -- wouldn't it be bad coverage if they had to report that non-Volapük users forced Volapük users to delete articles?...".

Maybe that was not what you wanted to convey but that has blackmail written all over it: don't attack vükiped because that will give you a bad reputation. Choose your words better if it was not your intent to blackmail proponents.

11.- You said: ""One contributor". We're now around 5 with active contributions in the last month, not counting anonymous contributions. Please have a look at the contributions of e.g. Malafaya, Robert, LadyInGrey, Chabi, Zifs etc."

Five contributors instead of one hardly improve the situation. fr:Verlan is used by many more people yet nobody tries to create a Verlan wikipedia, do they? Granting the privilege of having a Wikipedia to any group of twenty people who speak a language they have invented is nonsense - think of the potential number of tiny Wikipedias that could imply. On the other hand, all Volapük contributors understand other languages far better than they understand Volapük - actually, I have seen none who surpasse Vo-2 level. What is the point in keeping a Wikipedia in a language that virtually nobody speaks as a first language, knowing that people will tend to look up the article in a language they understand better?

I am waiting eagerly for your answer, and hope that you will not have to use fallacious arguments once again to defend your cause. False arguments mean no arguments. So please either accept that Vükiped be moved to the Incubator, or give solid proof that it will significantly improve.

You are free to move this message to the proposal so everybody can read it, or link to it if you prefer. I only ask you to preserve its integrity.

Have a nice evening, and good luck with your Albanian learning.

Leptictidium 21:39, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Leptictidium! I am so happy to finally see someone who wants to discuss and compare arguments. I have answered you on your talk page. --Smeira 03:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Reply

Olá, Sérgio. É um prazer poder discutir com alguém quem sabe estruturar lógicamente as suas idéias e responder exactamente aos argumentos do seu interlocutor. Mas falerei em inglês, porque faz muito tempo que não escrevo em português.

The bias of the active Volapük community

Indeed it would have been a mistake to assume all active Volapük users were against eliminating these articles. It is wrong to try to deduce somebody's point of view according only to what we believe about them. Fortunately, I verified my assumption before I brought out the subject.

I checked who are the active users in Volapük wikipedia and looked at their contributions to check they were really active. Not counting bots, there were only two: vo:Geban:Smeira and vo:Geban:Malafaya. Both have already shown their strong opposition to the radical cleanup in the proposals page. Therefore, it is quite safe to say that the active community of Vükiped is biased towards keeping all those bot-articles.

On the other hand, I agree that Arnomane has not acted in the most appropiate way - he should have at least notified the Vükiped community before beginning this procedure. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that Arnomane made a mistake, the fact remains that Vükiped does need to eliminate those articles or bring them to a good quality level within a reasonable period of time. The latter seems difficult given the small community and the huge amount of stubs which require improvement.

Fossa the Volapük hater

It is not the fact that you caracterise user:Fossa as a Volapük hater which seems discrediting. It is this other sentence you used:

That makes it easier to guess the kind of arguments you probably have.

It looks as if you're implicitly trying to assert that "because you're a Volapük hater, we can all guess that you arguments against Volapük will be purely emotional". As you put it, a Volapük hater need not be always wrong in his arguments against Volapük. Fossa did react in an emotional and unreasonable way, but I think it would have sufficed to simply discredit the "argument" he had just given, without actually elucubrating about the nature of any eventual solid argument he may propose.

The four points

I strongly disagree with your view that Volapük isn't worse than dead languages when it comes to using it as a way for humans to share their thoughts. Languages need a culture behind them to be efficient thought-communication tools. Let's not forget that a language is quite dependent on the ideology and shared values of the culture which speaks it, which means that speakers of that language have a culturally innate understanding of each other, because they share the same ideology. When a language lacks a background culture and deeply-ingrained way of thinking, speakers will always have a harder task understanding one another because they will not share the same cultural context. As you surely know, the meaning of a sentence can greatly change depending on the context, and cultural context is precisely one of the most important ones. But, let's go back to the four main issues.

'1.- As I said before, bot-created articles aren't bad in themselves, as long as they don't make up 95% of the encyclopedia. They're good if they're only a few, as they create articles which nobody else would create (let's be honest, who in Turkish wikipedia would have the slightest interest in making a fully fledged article about ca:Tiurana?). But they simply cannot and should not replace human contributors in articles that they would be able to create and expand. I'll give you a real life example: it is not bad to take a vitamin-C pill once in a while to supplement your diet; but if 95% of the food you eat is composed of vitaminic supplements, then your diet will be very bad and you will quickly fall sick.

2.- I do not deny that Volapük was a very important constructed language in the late nineteenth century - but it isn't in 2007. And we're discussing this proposal in 2007. You might say that Latin and Ancient Greek are long dead too. Yes. But, as I said before, the vast cultural element of these languages (original creations, not translations - a great part of the Volapük corpus is composed of translations from other languages, and there are few Volapük original works, which become even fewer when one considers only Volapük texts which are not related to Volapük itself). This huge cultural background justifies keeping the Latin wikipedia, for example. But, for better or for worse, Volapük lacks this original culture background, so there really aren't any strong exolinguistical reasons to keep the Vükiped.

Yet I do not advocate for (immediate) closure. Volapük does deserve a chance to prove that it can develop, and if it does work out, it can even help increase its number of speakers. Maybe those people who oppose the move to the Incubator could change their vote, and then volunteer to help make the Vükiped flourish. If a few of them learn Volapük in order to contribute, that will help spread Volapük. So, now that the 100,000 article publicity coup has been achieved, and Volapük has been brought to the Wikimedia spotlight, I think it would actually be better for Vükiped to change quantity for quality and get people involved to increase its number of active users.

3.- Great to see that we agree completely on the dead languages point.

4.- I did misread your quote. My mistake.

Yet I still think that 10% figure is extremely high, especially if, as you say "So Volapük bot-created stubs are about 10% (my guess) of all bot-created stubs in all Wikipedias". Volapük is only one of 253 wikipedias, yet it accounts for one tenth of their stubs. This is grossly disproportionate. Even if we only took into account the 75 wikipedias with at least 1,000 articles, Volapük stubs would still represent a (relatively) huge part of the total stubs.

5.- Well, whether your text was an argument or simply a claim, it is wrong. I do believe getting rid of those articles and starting anew will definitely help Vükiped. I admit that during the closure proposal, I supported the closure, mainly because I thought it is utter nonsense to give a Wikipedia to a 20-people group who want to write in their own constructed language. I still believe that it is pointless, but now I see a simple elimination of abyssal-quality stubs as the best path for Vükiped. Why? Because I have seen that many people were concerned about Vükiped and think that, if they can be convinced to contribute, Volapük wikipedia can (in the long term) become a decent Wikipedia. Even though I am quite pessimistic about the Volapük project, I sincerely believe Arnomane's proposal is the best choice for Vükiped. Maybe (very probably) not in the short term, but very certainly in the long term.

That is why I ask you not to generalise ("And my claim was that nobody thought doing this would help vo.wp.") because, just as I do, other supporters of the cleanup may honestly believe this is the best choice for Vükiped.

6.- Nothing to say.

7.- An unanimous decision made by a group of people who have different points of view need not be flawed. But if that group of people is made up exclusively of people who share the same point of view, then it is flawed. What I mean to say is that, Volapük being part of a larger all-Wikipedia project (as different language version are more or less tied to each other), decisions like this should be taken not only by the Volapük community, but by members of as many Wikimedia projects as possible. Then, unanimity is much more legitimate than in the reduced-community case.

Regarding the fact that Arnomane should have talked to the Volapük community before making this propsal, I have already answered before - he did make a mistake in not informing Vükipedists of his ideas, but his claim is right nevertheless.

8 and 9.- Sérgio, I assure you it was not my intention to sound offensive. To "resort" (recorrer) has never sounded offensive or discrediting to me. The same goes for "hide". But let's go back to the point. Yes, you guessed right that I think that there should be a proportion-rule for bot-stubs.

While the information in stubs can be accurate, relevant and well-presented, so is the information given in a phonebook, which does not make for particularly good reading. Additionally, most people looking up for information on a certain town, for example, seek more information than just its area, number of inhabitants, post code and population density. They look for things like its history, its festivities, its neighbourhoods... But, as you said it, you have your opinion and I have mine. So let's move on to the next point.

10.- The best way to improve is thinking positively: i.e., thinking "it would be even better publicity if the TV program reported about the great quality of Volapük wikipedia" instead of thinking "it would be even worse publicity if they strip us of most of our articles". People and projects grow by moving towards what will be better, not by simply saying "there is somebody worse than us". So, if you really want Vükiped to flourish and become a living (non-bot-dependant) Wikipedia, try to think about what could be better and not what could be worse.

11.- I think the fact that Volapük was invented by someone else is not very relevant. The fact is that it's not a natural born language. And having different Wikipedias for every 20-member community is bad because it fragments efforts. I'll pick up the Verlan example once again. If, let's say, 100 people dedicate time and effort to the Verlan wikipedia, they are losing time which they could be dedicating to the French wikipedia. And that is nonsense, because nobody speaks Verlan as a first language, and those who use Verlan use French 95% of the time. Their efforts would be better directed to improving the French wikipedia, which is useful to them because they understand the language, which is easy for them because French is their first language, and because French is spoken as a first language. And this same example goes for any language which is only spoken as a second language by a very small community, especially if it is a constructed language.

At least in Spain, many school classes invent their own "languages". While they are not fully-fledged languages, in some (admittedly, rare) cases they are astoundingly complete and stable, and are even passed on to younger students. Should each of these school classes with 30-50 pupils get a Wikipedia for their language?

As for the other part of your comment (about Hawaiian, Inupiaq, SeSotho and other small languages), this comparison is not valid. While the first two of them have very few speakers, they do have native speakers. That means that there are people who would understand Inupiaq better than any other language, and an Inupiaq WP would be useful for them. But Volapük has no native speakers, so an other language wikipedia will be more useful for them. Leaving aside your affection for Volapük language, I presume that a wikipedia entry in Portuguese is more useful to you than one in Volapük (please correct me if you honestly believe I am wrong).

---

Well, excuse me if I wrote too much or if my reply was too long. As for the "proof" that Vükiped will develop, I think it will - but the answer does not lie in abusing bot stubs, neither in keeping them. The right way, I believe (and you are of course free not to agree) is to look actively for new users - not just people who already speak Volapük, but also people who want to learn Volapük: offering them language resources so they become interested and want to collaborate when they have a decent command of the language. I am sure you will eventually find people interested in this. I am sure that Volapük is much better than simply repeating:

XXX binon zif in fedalän: YYY, in ZZZ. XXX topon videtü 00°00’ N e lunetü 0°0’ L.

Sürfat ela XXX binon mö W,W km².

XXX labon belödanis VVV (2006 dekul 31id).

Euh... I can't say if I like Albanian or not, I have never tried to learn it. Right now I am learning Welsh, which is my first Celtic language. It seems paleonthology (Opabinia - wow, nice article) is not the only interest we share; actually I'm also a kind of linguist, though I am more into translation than into pure linguistics.

Finally, I am glad to see that the number of points on which we disagree is now smaller than it was when I first showed my arguments to you. As you said, discussions on Wikipedia/Wikimedia rarely rely on solid arguments, and people tend not to be civilised (both in the "support" and in the "oppose" camps), so it is nice to find somebody who does not give emotional answers systematically, but rather gives well-thought arguments.

I'm waiting eagerly for your reply!

Tot ziens! -- Leptictidium 13:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Adelo

Adelo, si, anu, if kanol. Binob su el Skype. Malafaya 03:15, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Adelo ya no kanob... Mutob slipön... Posö! --Smeira 03:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Si, i ya no kanob. I mutob slipön :). Odelo. Malafaya 03:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Correctie van korrectie

Nieuwe spelling (iedere 3 jaar ofzo) Het is op dit moment gecorrigeerd met een c. (Limburgers zijn makkelijker gekorrezjieërd, gewoon hoe je het zegt) --OosWesThoesBes 13:00, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

O jetje. Nederland lijkt altijt te schommelen tussen k's en c's, t's en th's, traditionelle en efficiëntere spellingen. Bedankt! (De Nederlandse Taalunie zou een "spellingreform-van-de-week"-pagina moeten invoeren.) :-) --Smeira 17:37, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Volapuk Wikipedia

I have supported your request to oppose the recent proposal for the deletion of stubs on Volapük Wikipedia. You are Welcome. --Jose77 22:32, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks!! --Smeira 00:11, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Reply II

Hello once again, Smeira! How are you? I could not answer before because I was extremely busy yesterday night, creating article la:Leptictidium (it took me an hour and a half, but my Latin was rated as needing only minor corrections, most of which I corrected myself afterwards!) and expanding ca:Leptictidium in order to make it achieve featured article status. I had to search the entire Internet and a couple of books for all available infos on Leptictidium, and I stayed up until 4 o'clock, but I was inspired and wanted to take advantage of it! So that's why I couldn't write back yesterday.

So here I go.

Volapük bias

I am aware that you and Malafaya are not the only collaborating users at Vükiped. I checked vo:Geban:Hillgentleman, vo:Geban:Robert and others' contributions, but I did not cite them because, if I remember well, they had less than fifty-sixty contributions over the last couple of years, which seems to sporadic to call them active users. Whether they are active to a lesser extent or not is a different question, but it is undeniable that twenty contributions per user per year is not an encouraging prospect for Vükiped's future.

Secondly, I do think that at least some of Vükiped's community are biased and defend Vükiped while they wouldn't do the same for another language... let's say, Lombard. For example, I think your arguments are mostly valid, but I have seen you use arguments which, while "emotionally" understandable, are logically invalid. For example, Malafaya or you, I don't remember who, said that "we have put a lot of work into correcting the mistakes made by the bots, adding coordinates, etc., it would be a shame and very sad to lose all of that hard work". I know I would feel the same if all my contributions on :ca were lost, but if we think coldly and logically, the goal of an encyclopedia is to collect valuable information, not hard work. The fact that someone has worked hard on something does not (necessarily) mean it is "good" and should be kept. I'm sure many people worked hard on preparing the Challenger, but nevertheless they did a bad job. And, reusing your Hitler example, I'm sure der Führer would have been outraged if he saw that his "hard work" exterminating Jews had not been finished. Not that I'm saying your stubs are as bad as the Holocaust, I'm just saying that "hard work" isn't really a justification for keeping an inferior-quality article, and even less a myriad of such articles.

Fossa the Volapük hater (bis)

Yes, I do believe it wasn't really necessary to react the way you reacted to Fossa's comment. Anybody could have "guessed" by themselves what Fossa's arguments could be, so you pointing it out really looked like you were trying to get people against Fossa and his stance on the proposal.

But I admit that your reaction, while not really adequate, is understandable given the context. As you said, you are a human, not a robot. There isn't much more to say about the subject, so I'll move on to the next one.

Volapük and other languages

The culture gap can be treacherous in some cases, even when you don't expect it. For example, when you felt offended by my use of the words "hide" and "resort", and I said that it had never been my intention to offend you. I think that if we both shared a same mother tongue, that misunderstanding wouldn't have happened. So Volapük, without its culture (1880-1890 and a few tries later on isn't enough to create a culture), sees in this issue on of its problems.

I know that there are many works done in Volapük. Nevertheless, I say that is no original culture because most of it are translations of works in other languages, so that doesn't count nearly as much as an original work would. There are original works in Volapük, so I'd say the corpus in Volapük is around 200,000 words. If you exclude Volapük articles on Volapük, which would be reasonable because 99% of the culture tied to a language is extralinguistical (for example, how many of the greatest works in English are works about English itself?), then the actual number is probably much lower.

The case of Esperanto is different. Having been popular and widespread during the last century, many people have spoken the language and have begun to forge a culture of their own (minimal and mostly linguistic, but at least it's something). Volapük was unlucky in this respect, and the lack of a temporally continuous large speaker base has prevented it from developing a significant culture. If Volapük was in the same situation as Esperanto, I assure you I'd oppose this proposal.

The other points

1.-' Of course stubs are useful to fill gaps in the coverage of an encyclopedia. But that's it: to fill gaps, not to fill the entire encyclopedia. Bots are useful for articles which probably won't get developed, but it's not really legitimate to create articles such as vo:Paris, vo:Amsterdam or vo:London with bots, because you don't have the "excuse" that there is not enough relevant information to fill an article, as you would with nl:Buchères.

I spotted a mistake in your dietary counterexample:

To give a different dietary real-life example: if you eat all kinds of food and some vitamine supplements, but there is one little element missing, say one obscure mineral salt, the consequences may not be terrible; it might not make you sick, you might not even really notice, most of the time, that, say, some organ somewhere was working slightly less efficiently than it could; still you would be slightly better off if this element was included in your diet and the organ in question was working better.

Precisely. If it is only one element missing, the problem is negligeable. But if a lot of elements are missing (such as is the case in Vükiped - a lot of "elements" are missing quality), then your body can't work properly at all and you need to take drastic measures to get cured.

2.- You misunderstood what I meant. I am not saying a Wikipedia should preserve a culture or language. The reason I say Vicipaedia is legitimate is not because it preserves Latin culture or language, but because it presents it and makes it readily available in a way as similar as possible to the original. As I once put it in a discussion about naming conventions on Catalan wikipedia, "Wikipedia is not a charity project for endangered languages or languages with few speakers", and I positively believe that is true. If the only goal of Vicipaedia was preserving Latin, I'd say "dump it!" On the other hand, Vükiped does not convey a unique culture, so it's not too... useful.

But I think Volapük wikisource does convey what little Volapük culture exists, so I'd never vote in favour of closing down that project. As I said, I have nothing against Volapük, and if the situation at Vükiped changed, so would my vote. Once again I repeat, I sincerely believe the deletion of all those stubs is the way to go for Vükiped.

I know I can't speak Volapük, but (in case you haven't noticed) I opened an account on Vükiped. If this proposal works out and the stubs are deleted, I'd collaborate with improving it and creating useful article, so you have one more "semi-active" user (especially at the beginning, I wouldn't be very active given that I currently have no idea of Volapük; but as I progressed in my Volapük skills, my contributions would grow progressively). I know one more half-active user may not mean much to you, but it's better than nothing, and maybe that helps to show you that I'm not just voting for deleting all those stubs and then abandoning Vükiped to its fate.

You also said:

It seems to me that, if you really believe (a), and if you really think the Volapük Vükiped will only be at best a 20-people community, then you should also believe that the Vükiped will never flourish, that it has no future (at least not as a Wikipedia project) -- in which case any attempt to improve it is simply a loss of time. Or am I wrong?"

Once again you misunderstood me... Yesterday it was me who misread everything, today it was your turn :) I don't argue that Vükiped will only be at best a 20 people community, or that it has no future. I say that in its present state, with its present community, it has no future. But if things change, Vükiped can of course flourish.

You also said:

"Also: having 100 000 articles has, as you correctly pointed out, attracted attention and therefore new active contributors to vo.wp -- something we all agree is good."

But using bots to create large amount of information and posting links to it on websites (by means of interwikis) with the primary objective of advertising something is just a step away from being spam. So even if it did attract more contributors, it was not a legitimate way of attracting them.

About different Wikipedias enforcing different policies: it is true, but you must also remember that quality is asked for in ALL wikipedias. I don't see any problem in Volapük creating articles on Pokémon, South Park characters, using a red-colour font or whatever, as long as articles are good quality.

On the diversion argument

Once again, we have the constructed/natural language opposition. Diverting users from Italian to Lombard, from Dutch to Zeeuws and so is not bad because those natural languages have the culture which is intrinsecal to them. The same goes for the Spanish and Catalan wikipedias, both represent a different culture which deserves a different project.

And I don't agree with your view that every Spanish school class should get their own wikipedia. If I, for example, could meet up with ten or fifteen friends who like languages, construct a new language and then get a Wikipedia to promote it, it would almost be like Wikipedia being used for promotional/advertising issues. Apart from being a mess (can you imagine that? loads of Wikipedias with a few hundred articles each, most of them being the same articles), it would be a heavy weight on Wikimedia's shoulders. Volapük itself may not cost a lot, but if it works as a precedent, the cumulative cost of all the projects who will want a Wikipedia for their own will damage Wikimedia. That will have a negative effect on the existing Wikipedias' "free information for everybody" mission.

I have an idea for you to get more active users. It may be very far-fetched, I just took it out of the top of my head. What about trying to contact Cifal Bishop? He would probably be interested in taking advantage of this chance to promote (save?) Volapük, and his "authority" could entice a few veteran Volapükists to work on Vükiped.

So... This is about everything. I don't think I wrote as much this time, maybe your wife will be happy that this "fanatic addict" isn't making you waste as much time as before :)

Just out of curiosity: how many languages do you speak with decent fluency? As for myself, I'm soon going to put Welsh into standby because my exams are near and I want to fully concentrate on them.

Ledit!!!— The preceding unsigned comment was added by Leptictidium (talk)

Re: Volapük

Antes as discussões que eu me envolvia em alguns lugares, incluindo a Wikipédia, acabavam sim me afetando pessoalmente. Mas eu consegui me policiar e não me deixar afetar. O meu incômodo é mais ver uma questão tão delicada, e que ambas as partes tem razão (convenhamos... a preocupação deles de a Wikipedia em Volapuk figurar no www.wikipedia.org como uma das wikis maiores é até que válida; só que o problema é como tal site está estruturado, não com conteúdo válido sendo criado de um jeito ou de outro) com discussões agressivas :/

Tenho pra mim que é apenas mais um dos assuntos que geram grande barulho, que vai ser daquelas votações que terminam praticamente empatadas e que por isso ninguém tem coragem de tomar alguma atitude mais drástica (e mesmo se tiver, meio mundo cai em cima). Mas um desdobramento, se for adiante, parece que vai ser interessante: depois dê uma procurada na foundation-l sobre o tópico "wikicouncil". 555 14:21, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Desculpa intrometer-me, 555. Isso já foi afirmado antes mas esse facto está desactualizado (perdoa o meu "sotaque" luso :)): A Wikipédia Volapük já há algum tempo que não figura na página de entrada da Wikipédia (www.wikipedia.org), onde efectivamente se encontram as maiores Wikipédias provavelmente com o significado de "melhores" Wikipédias. A vo.wiki figura, isso sim, na Lista de Wikipédias, no Meta, que é mesmo isso, uma lista, apesar de estar ordenada por nº de artigos. A retirada de um elemento de lá é simplesmente desvirtuar uma lista compreensiva dos projectos (que aliás é copiada do WikiStats, algo externo à WM), daí que nos oponhamos a isso. Isso do Wikicouncil pode ser que traga alguma paz a todas estas questões. Brigadão pelo teu apoio. Malafaya 14:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

lol, para ver como eu me importo com tal tela, a meses que eu não a acessava. Obrigado pela informação :) (e não se preocupe com seu "sotaque luso"; falar nisso, sempre que reparar que alguma tradução minha no betawiki: esteja abrasileirada demais, sinta-se livre para a deixar mais neutra, me esforço para não passar por cima de nenhum dialeto, mas sempre se escapa algo) 555 15:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Concordo, 555: algumas pessoas estão sinceramente preocupadas e não só irritadas. Felizmente, o Fossa é minoria, até na wiki alemã. Mas veja, eu tenho alguns pontos de vista a esse respeito, e eu sinceramente acho que muitas dessas pessoas sinceras estão erradas em achar que essa "falta de qualidade" (= falta de variação no texto dos stubs, relativamente pouca informação neles, e falta de variedade nos tópicos presentes na vo.wp: 95% cidades, 5% todos os outros tópicos) seja um problema tão grande. Eu disse muita coisa a respeito para na página de discussão do Leptictidium, bem como no blogue do Arnomane]; sobre algumas dessas coisas as pessoas sinceras talvez devessem refletir. O que não sei bem é como dizer isso de tal maneira que não achem que estou só tentando encontrar pretextos para manter o meu "reino Volapük". (Basicamente: o alvo de uma Wikipédia numa língua com poucos falantes ou com poucos Wikipedistas dedicados não pode ser semelhante ao de en.wp ou fr.wp; um projeto desses nunca seria uma enciclopédia tão boa quanto as maiores, talvez nunca sequer chegasse a ter um número suficiente de artigos bem escritos para ser uma enciclopédia, mesmo pequena... no máximo seria uma coleção de bons artigos sobre certos tópicos. Se esses projetos têm alguma razão de ser, não pode ser a mesma dos projetos maiores.)

Eu concordo que pôr a Wikipédia Volapük em destaque na página principal, ou em outros lugares (exceto a List of Wikipedias, pela razão que o Malafaya já mencionou) não é boa idéia. Mas eu faço outra sugestão: isso é porque estão usando número de artigos como o parâmetro principal, e isso está errado. Tirem a vo.wp das páginas de "publicidade", por favor; mas também tirem frases como "these are the LARGEST Wikipedias". Escrevam algo como: "these are the BEST Wikipedias", ou "these are the Wikipedias WITH THE HIGHEST QUALITY PARAMETERS", ou algo assim. Será que isso é pedir demais? Estou sendo irracional? Creio que não.

Eu sou de fato muito interessado em Volapük e na vo.wp (deu pra perceber né? :-). Acho que é por isso que essa discussão ainda me consegue atingir pessoalmente. Deixando gente como o Fossa de lado, o próprio Arnomane me dá a impressão de um aluno de escola primária, zangado com um coleguinha, que só sabe repetir: ele é malvado, é sim, é sim! e não passa disso. E isso me frustra um bocado, porque, tanto quanto eu pude ver nas páginas dele em de.wp, ele não é má pessoa. Até se interessa por tópicos de que eu também gosto, como astronomia. Deveria ser possível trocar idéias com ele, mesmo que não concordemos. Mas infelizmente parece que não é. --Smeira 15:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Reply III

Happy New Year, Sérgio! And happy birthday too!

Ah, Anomalocaris! I translated that to ca:Anomalocaris. Most of the articles I write on Wikipedia are translations, but I do post some articles I have written myself. Obviously, ca:Leptictidium is the one I'm proudest of. A little advice to prevent that computer bug from bothering you again: when you write very long texts on the Internet, copy them to Wordpad periodically, in case the browser closes down.

Volapük bias and active users

I've put these two subjects together as it seems we have almost encountered common ground. Maybe I was "unlucky" and looked precisely at the contributions of inactive users, but I checked quite a few at random and most had very few contributions, including some of the "sysops" whom I found by looking at the Main Page history.

The Vükiped community is, whatever its actual size may be, inevitably biased, at least a little. That is because virtually every person in the world is biased, and his or her logic affected by this bias. Sadly, people who can be really objective and neutral despite their personal beliefs or interests are very rare and that is not going to change. I say the Vükiped community is biased, but I would say the same thing for any other Wikipedia. It is in the nature of 99.9% of humans to give their own interests a greater importance than they would really deserve (leading to wars, crime, unbalanced distribution of resources... but well, that's another story) so... Maybe you are not biased yourself (which, with all respect, I doubt, mainly because of your use of the argument it would be sad to see all our hard work lost), but most of the community will inevitably be.

On this "hard work" subject, I'd like to bring up two points: Firstly, I repeat what I once said: if I was reasonably sure that the bot-stubs on Vükiped will be improved (and not by more bots), I would change my vote to oppose this proposal. Secondly, I had a look at a few USA stubs on vo.wp; even though they were longer than other stubs, they were so telegraphic that I think I would have a hard time reading them even if they were written in Catalan.

To end this section, I have something else to say. You believe bot-stubs are better than nothing, and should be used to fill gaps regardless of the number of such stubs - I, on the other hand, believe they should only be used in a small proportion. After giving it a few thoughts, I now believe the most appropiate course of action lies somewhere in between; bot-articles can be used in an illimited number, only as long as there is a genuine intent to come back one day to the article, and improve it beyond its stub status. This should apply even to tiny villages like nl:Buchères, even if there seems to be little prospect of the stub improving.

I don't think this is the case right now on Vükiped (or in many other wikis...). People may say "Right, we're going to improve Paris, London and Amsterdam one day, but we can't hope for Buchères and Tiurana to be improved". That should change to "We'll start by improving Paris, London and Amsterdam because they are most important, but after that we'll move on to improve the rest of villages". Maybe the best way to ensure that happens is to ban any further use of bots for creating articles and to restrict them to maintenance work. What do you think?

On the Volapük culture

I will be brief in this point. If Volapük is only part of the Western culture, then it lacks its own culture. That means that Volapük only borrows on the "primary" culture of its speakers. The differences between a community of Brazilian Volapükists and a community of Japanese Volapükists will be much more important than those of an American anglophone community and a British anglophone community. This is because English embodies certain cultural and ideological elements, while Volapük simply draws upon the "native" culture of its speakers.

That is why I believe that one of these is true:

• either Vükiped does not belong to the Western culture, in which case it lacks a significant culture;
• or Vükiped does belong to the Western culture, in which case it lacks a culture of its own.

Languages, culture and Wikipedias

As for the first part of what you said in this section, I must confess I am ignorant of how the fakaj organizajoj work. Is being an Esperantist a requirement to join? If it is, then those associations are at least partly linguistical in nature, even if they are Britney Spears fan clubs or whatever, because they restrict membership to people who know that language.

You said:

"On the other hand, you also say that the situation would improve (to the point that the Vükiped might flourish) if the situation of the community changed (i.e. if it increased to... how many? 50? 100?). Isn't there a contradiction here? Or do you perhaps suggest that a sufficiently large user community would create "sufficient culture" and make presenting it in the Vükiped useful?"

Yes, I do believe a larger community is a must for Volapük culture to develop. One person or two cannot create a culture by themselves; even Christ would have had little impact on the world if nobody had followed him. That does not necessarily mean that the culture will develop; this is only one necessary condition.

As for the the "how do we measure culture?" question, it is harder to answer when it refers to natural languages. For constructed languages, I believe, it is much easier: a constructed language has developed a culture of its own where it reaches a point in which 1.- the overwhelming majority of (written or oral) corps is non-linguistical in nature; and 2.- the linguistical factor is no more a relevant factor in the relationships between speakers.

It doesn't seem to me (and I guess you'll try to prove me wrong ;)) that Vükiped has reached any of these two points. What is, in your opinion, the best way to measure a language's own culture?

Macbeth, Anomalocaris... I bet Ancient Romans wouldn't have been interested in that, even if they had known about it! More or less, what I think about this subject is that Vicipaedia should reflect and showcase the Latin culture as much as is possible, with the sole condition that inaccuracies must be corrected (so that la:Sol must say that the Earth spins around the Sun, and not the other way round). As you put it yourself, it's more or less like Cicero or Seneca had written these articles if they had been alive nowadays and known about these subject.

But I disagree when you say that, because most contributors in both Wikipedias have to look up questions of usage and style quite often, Latin and Volapük wikis are quite similar. I spent an hour and a half writing la:Leptictidium - I could have written an equally long article in twenty minutes, but my Latin would have been much worse. But I am sure there are people on Vicipaedia who are fluent in Latin, and could write a long, complex text, with little or no help.

Gaps in knowledge

See the last paragraph of this section for my latest thoughts on this issue.

Advertising

You said:

:(a) there is no commercial purpose;"

That is true, but it still isn't a valid justification - for example, one could start spreading Nazi ideology on Wikipedia claiming there is no commercial purpose. From my point of view, the effect of your bot-created articles and their interwikis (if you say you never thought about Interwikis before starting the bot, I have no reason to doubt your sincerity and I believe you) is propagandistic.

:(b) no message is spread: no "eat burgers at McMeira", not even "Learn Volapük" or "Contribute to the Vükiped!";

Hum. You said yourself that you only wanted to attract contributors to Vükiped - people who would see Volapük wikipedia at the top of the biggest wikipedias list, read something about Volapük, and then show up. That sounds pretty much like "Contribute to the Vükiped!"

:(c) other quasi-advertising activities can also be seen elsewhere in Wikipedia (CD-ROM versions of Wikipedia given away as 'publicity', WikiReaders, etc.), for the purpose of 'attracting new contributors' (a goal mentioned in the Three-year plan here at Meta); and 

That problem should probably be addressed in the future. CDs should be given as gifts to spread knowledge, not to publicise Wikipedia. Anyway, it is not a good example to follow.

:(d) that it has indeed attracted some new contributors and may well attract more.

Os fins justificam os meios. Do you agree with that purportedly Machiavellian concept? I do agree. But is the end result good enough to justify the means with which it was achieved? Are many of those new contributors active editors? Can they even speak Volapük? I leave these questions open for you to answer.

Arnomane

It is a pity he's behaving the way he is. His proposal is a pretty good idea, and he had some decent arguments to support it. But he's got a little carried away... I believe he should think about it, he has no need to resort (^^) to using insulting terms or to accusing people of monopolising the discussion. Let's see how it goes in the next few days.

---

Well, I've replied to all of the points you raised :) I am happy that you like me to have join Vükiped - I actually wanted to try and create a small article today (it would have probably taken me an hour...) with the help of the Volapük grammar link you gave me. I wasn't able to do it because I obviously lacked a lot of vocabulary. Do you know an Internet Volapük dictionary which I could use together with the grammar? It doesn't necessarily have to be Volapük-English; as you know, I speak a few more languages. Given Volapük's origins, maybe a volapük-deutsch dictionary is the best bet?

Wow, it seems you are indeed a talented linguist. I speak Catalan, Spanish, English, French and Italian fluently; I can maintain a complex discussion, but not quite as fluently, in German, Swedish, Portuguese and Dutch. And I can read texts in Norwegian, Danish, Luxembourgish, and Romanian. People seem astounded when I say I can speak nine languages (imagine if they met you!), but I actually think I only speak/understand four:

• Catalan+Spanish+French+Italian+Portuguese+Romanian = "Romance"
• German+Dutch+Luxembourgish = "South Germanic"
• English = "Western Germanic"
• Swedish+Norwegian+Danish = "North Germanic"

These languages seem so similar to me, that when I learn a new language in that group, I have the feeling I am just learning the same language anew albeit with a few different features. To make a "stupid" comparison, it's like a videogame player who learns to play FIFA'08 after having played Pro Evolution Soccer all his life. There are differences, but the base is the same.

Well, I've got to go now. I have a rendez-vous with a couple of friends. Please remember that on Saturday I am going back to the city where I study, and I have no Internet there. So don't get angry if I take a few days to reply!

Have a nice day

-- Leptictidium 22:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Your game

I don't want a silly edit war on edit placement given your frequent "my comment on top" attitude. I hope you correct it yourself. Arnomane 20:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Why? --Smeira 21:29, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Saludos y feliz año

Hola Sergio, acabo de ver el mensaje que me dejaste hace varios días. Perdón por no contestarte antes pero estaba de vacaciones. Pensé que con la última votación al final estaríamos en paz, pero veo que le encontraron una vuelta de tuerca y comenzaron el proceso de nuevo. Aparentemente no se quedarán tranquilos hasta que no logren su cometido. Realmente es una lástima. Ya he dejado mi firma donde corresponde y aprovecho este mensajito para desearte que tengas un muy feliz año. Besos, Silvina - LadyInGrey 14:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Just one thing

Hello Smeira! I have read your reply. Sadly, I haven't got time to answer straight away, and I'm also having a few health problems lately... I'll reply as soon as I have enough time. See you! -- Leptictidium 19:10, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Finally (^^) my reply

Hello Smeira, how are you? I've just read your latest comment in the proposal page, and even though I didn't find it very "argumentative" it certainly made me smile :) You did make a good caricature of some people...

It seems Vükiped will be able to keep all those stubs after all, as you've got many more people opposing the request than supporting it. Nevertheless, as you said, this proposal should lead to a reflexion, a discussion about Wikipedia, its future, bot-stubs and the scope of smaller Wikipedias.

I will skip the bias section because I agree that people, even when they have strong feelings for something, can argument without a bias. But it is also true that this is not a common things and that people are often unable to shed their biases. Sometimes people believe in their "dogmas" and don't understand that most rules have an exception.

Bot stubs

Since we last spoke, I have found a similar problem in Viquipèdia. Even though the number of active users in .ca is manifold that of the Vükiped, and although only a few of our stubs are bot stubs, now that we have reached the 100000th article mark (hooray!) I can't help feeling that stubs have gotten out of control. We have a relatively low depth of 13 (I think) and we have many important or even very important topics whose articles are [pathetic] stubs. I wish we could improve that quickly, as we currently are stronger in numbers than in quality, but it won't happen any time soon.

So that leaves me wondering... If Viquipèdia has this problems, how in the world could Vükiped improve a significant number of bot articles, if you have perhaps 1% of our userbase, and you have myriads of but-stubs? It seems highly improbable to me, and actually impossible if the creation of bot-stubs doesn't stop now.

Culture and language

You ask me how does one measure the extra-linguistical component of a language's culture. Well... Put simply, I'd say it is the sum of the elements which make a group feel like sharing a common historical heritage, a common way of doing things, common traditions, common symbols, common music... For example, an Esperanto Britney Spears fan would be a linguistical element if it were created mainly to unite people who speak Esperanto (and accessorily like Britney Spears), but it would be a cultural element if it were created to unite people who like Britney Spears (and accessorily speak Esperanto). Hum... it's complicated...

I didn't understand what you said when you asked if I was a 'Xist... If that means "Marxist", then no, I am not. Not at all, I'd even say I strongly disagree with Marxist views of the world.

Advertising

I'll skip the points on which we agree:

2.- Norwegian (no.wp) appearing on the 13th place on the List of Wikipedias does convey a message, of course. But that message is different if you know that no.wp arrived as a consequence of an effort to build a comprehensive encyclopedia in Norwegian (almost "by chance"). On the other hand, a conscious and thought-out effort was carried out with [virtually] the sole purpose of putting Vükiped among the first. The difference lies in whether entering the 100.000+ list is a goal or a consequence.

Others

I won't answer straight away to the rest of your message because I'm still ill and... I feel slightly ashamed to say this but lately I get mentally tired pretty quickly after thinking efforts. I actually had to quit the university because of this illness... But I hope everything will be back on track on June so I can have a shot at the recuperation exams.

Well, I'll bid you good afternoon. Have a nice day, Sérgio;

-- Leptictidium 15:57, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Request to Translate an article from Volapuk Wikipedia

Hi, I recently came across an article about a certain Leopold Einstein on the Wikipedia, and I would like you to translate the article into English, if it's not too hard, as I would like to learn more about this character, though I sadly cannot speak Volapuk. I will greatly appreciate it. Thanks. 132.68.4.178 09:08, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I have in principle nothing against translating the article for you, but I'm in a busy period now and I need to work on several different things; so I probably couldn't do it very soon. Do you need it soon? (I note that there is also an Esperanto and a French version of this article, which you can find by clicking on the interwiki links there; won't they help you?) --Smeira 23:28, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Nope, nothing urgent, but when you find the time, please do so :-) Sadly, I can't use the French and the Esperanto articles, as I can't speak either of the languages, so I will patiently wait until you find the time to translate it to English 79.181.118.244 10:29, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Is this you?

Are you 83.85.141.212? His contributions involve commenting on discussions under your name, one example of that would be the closure of Volapuk wikiquote discussion, and adding statements to comments you have made. If you're not him please check his contributions, and also the history of the wikiquote Volapuk closure discussion. I am just concerned that this IP might be impersonating you, and perhaps others too. -- Felipe Aira 10:41, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, this IP-adress is indeed me. The problem is only that I work on a number of different projects, I often need to open a number of windows (each on a different project), and sometimes my computer fails to log me in automatically when I open a new window to yet another project (the 'remember this password' function seems not to be able to deal with too many simultaneous logins...). As for the Volapük Wikiquote discussion, I did add a contribution there saying that I didn't really know much about Wikiquotes, and that I probably wouldn't have time to work on it; so I supported closing it. I wished I could do otherwise -- it means losing a venue for Volapük materials -- I'm afraid I can't. --Smeira 23:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

top ten wikipedias

Hi there. Since you comented on the discussion before, I would like to hear your opinion on this suggestion. Cheers, --Waldir 23:19, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

I moved the discussion to User:Leptictidium/Discussions. Leptictidium 22:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll add a link to it at the Metapub. --Smeira 22:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you really know that many languages?

If so, that is incredibly inspiring.70.60.55.103 20:23, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Kadäm Volapüka

KADÄM VOLAPÜKA

Tü del 11id yunula, yela 2012.

NUNED

O Kadäman ledigik Meira!

Jünu no egetob nunis dö steböp olik.

If, jü del 1id yulula, yela 2012, no enunol obe ladeti nulik, osuemob, das no plu vilol dünön Volapüki. Obegob üfo Cifali ad mökön dalebüdi säcalükama. Atos sinifon, das neföro ün fütür okanol vedön dönu Kadäman. Opidobs vemo ad perön täleni so gretiki äs oliki.

Kadäm binon jenöfo klif nämik, stabü kel stanon Volapükamuf, e privileg gretik at pegevon ole. Too mutobs labön Kadämans lekonfidik.

Spelob ad getön ladeti nulik ola jü del 1id yulula 2012. Ladet obik binon : midgleyr @ talktalk.net.

(Kadäman) R. Midgley Sekretan Kadäma

Superprotect status

Dear Smeira, since you are an administrator on a wiki from which no user participated in this discussion, I'd like to make sure you are aware of some recent events which may alter what the Wikimedia Foundation lets you do on your wiki: Superprotect.

• Request for comment: Requests for comment/Superprotect rights
• An open letter about its implementation: Letter to Wikimedia Foundation: Superprotect and Media Viewer

Peteforsyth 09:49, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Lärnodem Fransänapükik Volapüka

Glidis!

No nolob if reidol nog pad at, u if spikol nog Volapüki suvo. Ab elogob das esevol Fransänapüki, e das (e?)dunol lemödo pro Volapük.

If panitedol nog fa Volapük, reidolös-li lärnodemi das tradütob ini Fransänapük, e das kanol reidön is: http://glossopoete.pagesperso-orange.fr/vol/larnods.html?

Danö,
--Theomanou (talk) 12:08, 29 September 2015 (UTC)