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Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Herero Wikipedia

< Proposals for closing projects

Moving finished. incubator:Wp/hz. MF-Warburg(de) 08:37, 25 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion finished. Result: CLOSE. Existing pages will be moved to incubator. --MF-Warburg(de) 12:36, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I propose to close this discussion within 4 (yes, four, not seven) days from now, if there are no other opinions. --MF-Warburg(de) 18:25, 20 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Sadly, the Herero Wikipedia is clinically dead and has been so ever since its inception on 29 August 2004, 07:33. Herero is a language spoken mostly in Namibia by the Herero people. According to en:, the number of speakers is estimated at 240,000.

This is the same case as with the Venda Wikipedia: Another zero content Wiki. hz:Special:Recentchanges reveals, that there is no activity except for vandalism and its eventual removal/deletion. The closest to an article on this Wiki is hz:Ombeibela, which is a listing of the books of the bible.

There were two more articles in this wiki, hz:Jesus Kristus and hz:Oparadisa. I chose to delete these articles, as they had no content, both consisted of an image only.

Having a dead wiki around may be tolerable, as long as it is controlled and kept spam-free. So an alternative to closing it may be its lockdown while placing a note on the mainpage with information where to request unlocking if one attempts to contribute. However, this note should be kept in the Herero language, meaning that someone with some command of Herero should be identified to write it. However, I doubt that this will yield better results than first closing it and requiring any proponents to follow the new language policy.

  • Comment: This wiki is not "clinically dead" as the above writer claimed. It appears to contain about 20 or so pages with words in what I assume is the appropriate language, and about 4 or 5 pages with sentences in that language. The pages that have words but no sentences often have images and links which appear to be meaningful. If nothing else, this wiki can be useful for someone beginning to learn this language, because it links images to words that presumably mean the things pictured. I looked at all the pages and didn't see a single thing that looked like vandalism. --Coppertwig 17:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Those 20 or so pages are not even dictionary entries. The have been created by User:Kanon6917, who, according to his own words, does not speak Herero. Seebelow. I would expect dictionary entires to be explained in the target language, which these are not. hz:Orupa, the only "article" in the sense of page containing several sentences was not in Herero, but in the Zulu language, see [1]. --Johannes Rohr 15:49, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Support closing hz Wikipedia edit

  1. Support As outlined above. --Johannes Rohr 16:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support, project has not been active in the past two and a half years. --Coredesat (en.wp) 01:24, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support, practically inactive project.--Afinogenoff 04:34, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Support, inactive project.--82.57.175.147 00:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC) IPs are not eligible to vote--Johannes Rohr 10:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support, it's useless. something like tech.wikipedia.org for technology things would be better and more useful than this. (en:User:Wikinerd2000) Not a countable vote, user was not logged on, see[2]--Johannes Rohr 10:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC) Additionaly, first edit of en:User:wikinerd is on 2. Feb. 2007, i.e. after this discussion was started.--Johannes Rohr 22:41, 11 February 2007 (UTC) Does this count? Wikinerd2000 23:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC). I think, we can finally accept this as a valid vote, see [3]. After all, the decision isn't supposed to be taken on the ground of vote counts, but arguments instead.--Johannes Rohr 22:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support Couple of articles isn't worth keeping. --Majorly 23:40, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support Hz.wikipedia is a magnet for WoW-style page move vandalism. The only edits this year have been by vandals, and by stewards cleaning up the vandalism. PullToOpen 23:56, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support per above. It is a dead project simply. Baristarim 20:30, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  8. SupportNo needto make any more fuss. JaydenhwangJaydenhwang (talk) 01:53, 26 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    Support, per Baristarim 87.213.36.86 11:50, 14 February 2007 (UTC) IPs are not eligible to vote.Wikinerd2000 22:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support Was created before current rules on creating new Wikipedias were created. Devoid of content. --Pmsyyz 01:10, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Support As Pmsyyz observes, this would surely (and properly) fail if proposed under extant policy. I would not be altogether averse to Herero's being locked, but I think the nominator is quite right to suggest that such solution is likely no more propitious simple closure. Joe 23:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Support at the moment, inactive. If interest appears, it can be reactivated but until then it has no use. --Tone 17:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Support There has been a little activity from a Polish IP in the last several months expanding Christianity stubs by a few words and adding links to a Jehovah's Witnesses site. POV edits or not? Who knows? I've left a note on the talk page for the IP address he/she most recently used. If they want to take this Wikipedia on for purposes beyond proselytising, then I'll reconsider my "support" comment. --A. B. (talk) 19:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    There have been a number of recent changes by one user (see hz:Special:Contributions/Kanon6917) in the last several days. I don't know if they're NPOV or not; see hz:User talk:Kanon6917. Missionaries and evangelists have been among the leaders in keeping languages alive, so I don't mind ... as long as the edits are NPOV. --A. B. (talk) 11:57, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Support Many of the Incubator Wikipedias such as Crimean Tatar, Lower Sorbian, Ottoman Turkish, Karelian, Latgalian, Hakka, Kinaray, Hanja etc have plenty activity. Hz.wiki on the other hand is occassionally dumped with spam and has Zero native contributors at all. --Philip J 10:26, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Support, sadly. Of course this doesn't mean Herero doesn't deserve to have a Wikipedia; it does! But to be practical, its Wikipedia has to have a community of users, which it doesn't at the moment. Angr 16:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Support In these countries you can't go by number of people who talk this language. I think that the most people who talk this language don't even have a computer! --Ooswesthoesbes 06:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Support per Ooswesthoesbes, these people don't even have electricity, let alone computers with Internet access. - ∅ (∅), 16:19, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Support per above reasons. The last edit to this project was made by a bot. Miranda 05:24, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral edit

  1. Neutral I am the user Kanon6917 in the Herero Wikipedia, I'm the one who was creating recently some new articles. I heard about the Herero language some years ago, and since February (I think) i discover the wikipedia in this language; sadly at that time the Wiki had less than 5 articles, and with a little searching I found articles about religion in that language. at first I deduced comparing the text with the spanish version, and I extracted some related religios (ozomganburiro) words. Now I'm triying to deduce other words related to life (Omuinyo) or maybe about earth (Kombanda yehi). All languange can be understand comparing with anothers, you can understand the composition of the words, the suffixes and prefixes. I vote neutral because I would like to help this wiki but maybe your opinions are different, maybe I can help but there is any native speaker, so I let u the decision of keep r delete the wiki.--Kanon6917 00:01, 26 May 2007 (UTC) Sorry for my bad english :([reply]

Oppose closing hz Wikipedia edit

  1. Oppose (see my vote on ve.wp) --Node ue 00:18, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose Disk space does not cost too much. Urvabara 15:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose, every language is important unsigned vote, cast by IP, see [4] --Johannes Rohr 19:30, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose It's a couple of articles. It ain't hurting anything. --Zinc2005 23:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC) Not a valid vote. First and only edit by this user, see Special:Contributions/Zinc2005--Johannes Rohr 08:59, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose It's a great idea for these sorts of languages to appear on the internet, and it teaches people that some tribes only speak Herero and probably don't even knwo we exist. Sven the llama 23:23, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose - Ninane 18:58, 15 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose, It is important that we spread knowledge everywhere. Dixonsej forged vote, see [5]--Johannes Rohr 19:26, 16 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose Wikipedia is not a censorship organization; let the Herero Wikipedia sort itself out. --UnsoundResonance 20:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oppose: I can't speak and talk Herero, but I give my suport to opose to closure Herero language Wikipedia. A language is a tresure, and the internet is basic to kepp it. Closing a basic need of a language than internet, is the wrong thing that can we do! Just is that we need people that colaborate to Herrero Wikipedia, I'm going to find them! First and only edit by this user, see Special:Contributions/UnsoundResonance. Funny argument, however. The only form of "censorship" that takes place at hz: is the deletion of the notorious interwiki spam. There is nothing to be "sorted out". There is neither a community nor any content. Unless you call the notorious interwiki vandal "Jorge Taveras" and his sockpuppets a community. --Johannes Rohr 20:32, 19 February 2007 (UTC) The argument can be made that we are censoring information (Herero information), namely a list of the books of the Bible in Herero, if we delete the Herero Wikipedia. I wholeheartedly agree that "Jorge Taveras" hardly constitutes a community, but that most definitely doest not mean a community will not erupt some time between now and "the last day." My vote remains not to close the Herero Wikipedia, but should Wikipedia's mostly-democratic process vote against me, I would say that is the course to take. UnsoundResonance 22:19, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Oppose: I feel that we shouldn't close a wiki in another language - the resources are minimal and some day someone may wish to add an article in this language. We should, in the spirit of freedom of information that wikipedia was made in, make it as easy as possible for that person to do so. --xensyriaT 22:02, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Oppose: per all the reasons above, just because there are no Herero contributors now doesn't mean there won't be someday... Closing down entire languages just for the heck of it is completely counter-productive to Jimbo's grand vision... I also think the articles with only a picture ought to be restored, as it was not vandalism... This is typical meddling by a non-speaker Blockinblox 22:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose: all languages need to have a wikipedia. Unsigned ip vote, see [6] --Johannes Rohr 06:51, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Oppose: In any moment it can be reactivated sporadically, if it is not closed... :) --Álvaro M 19:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose--83.35.138.248 22:15, 18 March 2007 (UTC) ip vote --Johannes Rohr 06:18, 30 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oppose ack Blockinblox Lycaon 12:55, 9 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Oppose: Closing a Wikipedia edition is a step backwards at a time when there is increasing likelihood of substantive contributions in less-widely-spoken languages. IMO the question should be how to develop user communities for more or less (or even absolutely) unused Wikipedias. There is a Yahoogroup for discussion of African language editions, Afrophonewikis, which might be used as a resource for developing rather than deleting editions. (That list and the informal project of which it is a part should probably be integrated more fully with Meta-Wiki - any suggestions? See this message for a question along these lines.) --A12n 18:22, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Oppose The wiki has pages in the language and no vandalism. Later maybe more speakers will get computers and if this wiki is there, they may start to contribute. If the wiki is not there they are less likely to go through the whole process of starting one up. Also, it's a resource for anyone wanting to learn a few words of the language. --Coppertwig 17:05, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(I was bold and put up a stub page at Afrophonewikis)--A12n 18:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments regarding hz Wikipedia edit

There are certainly a lot of points to be made here, and I do not profess to be an expert for either side. However, I think it is important to note that Wikipedia works for other relatively tiny languages. I would support deletion of the Herero Wikipedia if or when it reaches zero articles. I feel that proponents of the Herero-Wikipedia closure should feel free to request that both current Herero pages should be deleted. If they are found to be worthy of deletion via the standard democratic process Wikipedia employs, so be it -- the Herero Wikipedia should then be deleted. Until that point, I feel it should be left alone to crumble or to thrive as it will. UnsoundResonance 20:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the record: There is no community at hz:. Zero. Nada. How can you have a "democratic process" without any single participant? there is no Herero speaker in the Herero Wikipedia. Got it?
And, well, the "articles: Number one is a plain list of books of the bible which has been spammed across all Wikis. It is not an article. Number two is almost certainly also not an article, as it starts with a greeting formula. "Sanibonani! Ukhuluma isiNgisi na?" I guess a clueless visitor left his questions there, expecting that Herero Wikipedian would respond. But this never happened and so the greeting and question will remain here until the last day, it seems and no-one of us will ever find out what exactly s/he wanted of us ;-) --Johannes Rohr 20:45, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that there is no community at hz:. "Zero. Nada." However, the "democratic process" can still occur among us debaters, and anyone who wishes to cast a vote in this regard.
But the mere fact that there is currently no Herero speaker in the Herero Wikipedia does not mean that there will never be one to take advantage of the (admittedly miniscule) information found there. Also, any Wikipedian who wishes to know the books of the Bible in the language Herero may also take advantage of the information found in that Wikipedia.
You do make a good point about the second "article" there, which seems to begin with some sort of salutation. That is hardly an article, most likely. I would support putting that article up for deletion. The other, however, remains informative. UnsoundResonance 22:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As far as the vote goes, then I agree with keeping it open - one day someone may wish to add articles for this, and at that time, there should be no constraints on them doing so, like having to request that a lockdown be removed. This may well put off anyone. As far as the articles go, I'm personally interested in the lists of the books of the Bible, and this presents an interesting list! Furthermore, the article with the greeting on makes me intrigued! What does it mean? The comment about closing it if no articles exist I think would very easily be abused, as those wishing to close the wiki would just need to have the article deleted, and then it's gone! Freedom of information available to those in their own language in important, and the resources needed to maintain it are minimal. Please keep.Xensyria 21:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but one further response - this isn't a 'dead' project - it has never been properly born - allow it a chance to 'life'. --xensyriaT 22:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm giving up on this! Why is it that all of the "let it all open, some day it will magically turn into an encyclopaedia" advocates bluntly ignore the problems attached to these unmaintained, dead wikis: The fact that they are getting abused on a daily basis, the fact that spam remains there form months, the fact that random contributions by random visitors cannot be assured to be in line with copyright, NPOV and all the other guiding principles of Wikipedia - unless this is taken care of by a community. You seriously want to keep a wiki open consisting of a single list and an "article", which may well translate as "Hi, how are you doing? What is all this crap here about?" For a proper Wiki you need a decent community. That's what the new language policy proposed by langcom is all about. Just letting it all go unchecked is irresponsible, given the degree of exposure, Wikipedia and its sister projects have nowadays. --Johannes Rohr 11:34, 21 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Though I do support the closing of the Herero Wikipedia, I do belive that a Language is a tresure... a part of a culture, and helps express that culture. If the Herero Wikipedia is closed, for any reason, and they do want it back let them have it back, but that Wiki should NEVER have only 1 article! Let knowledge ring in any and every language! But don't abuse the knowledge that Wikipedia delivers with SPAM or wasted space on the hard drive! Wikinerd2000 01:32, 28 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The text in the second article is "Greetings! Do you speak English?" in isiZulu.

Though I don't have an account here, I believe that the project should be kept open. The whole point of Wikipedia (try to) present all human knowledge in all languages. I feel that a Herero speakers -- with enough education, internet access, and patience (the situation in Namibia is vastly different from that in the West) -- would be more likely to write content in their language if there's already a Wiki set up and waiting.

Most people have no idea how Wiki works in the background and we really shouldn't have to expect people to go through Meta etc when they wish to start creating content in their own languages.

There seems to be a belief here that it is unlikely that any native speakers would ever in future start creating the content. I'm not sure if this is true or not but I strongly believe that every language, whether it's spoken by a few hundred thousand people or several hundred million deserves at least the opportunity to flourish and for people to learn in their own tongues. This is something I passionately believe in ("no nation has ever developed on the basis of a foreign language" and French, German, English etc haven't worked for Africa so far) and I think that it's simply unfair to delete a Wikipedia thus radically reducing the chances of the community ever developing.

Tebello Thejane. en:User:Zyxoas

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