Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Inuktitut Wikipedia
Ending per #Discussion: Result: Keep
This closure proposal has been rejected 13:2, no discussion activity since Feb. 23. Therefore, I would like to close this proposal. (there is apparently no official procedure for closing discussions, therefore I decided to take this step unilaterally). --Johannes Rohr 10:28, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Proposal for closing the Inuktitut Wikipedia
editI believe that the Inuktitut wikipedia project should be closed for the following reasons:
- There are only 70 pages that are probably legitimate content pages [1] WRONG 118+
- Most pages do not qualify as articles WRONG MORE THAN 50%
- All pages have English in them, not the language that the project is about. WRONG MOST PAGES NOW HAVE BOTH SYLLABIC AND ROMAN SCRIPT INUKTITUT
If you see any other reasons, then contact me either here,[2], at my Wikipedia talk page, or here,[3] at my metawiki talk page. Thank you!Hairchrm 00:14, 16 January 2007 (UTC) 3 native speakers now, real community, lots of good things happening, now have 130 articles, all in inuktitut, really 260 articles since articles are wriotten in two differant orthographies, interface mostly in inuk now!! rejoice! all in inuktitut, very good inuktitut. end of disccussion now lets?
Support closing iu.wikipedia
editSupport This project came about more than three years ago. There have not been many contributions on Inuktitut, and I don't foresee a drastic change in that, anytime soon. Nishkid64 00:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Support There should be no English there... and per Nishkid, being it closed three years ago. --Majorly 00:58, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Support There doesn't appear to be even one regular contributor who is a native speaker. All edits in the last six days have been bots or non-speakers doing maintenance. This language should have to go through the same procedure as all other prospective languages. Most articles are one word translation stubs. There is one person who admits knowing the language in a rusty fashion but he hasn't edited in four months. One active native person, convert to test Wikipedia at the Wikimedia Incubator. --Pmsyyz 05:33, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
- There is one, but he isn't there daily. You might have seen that there are many new articles (with Inuktitut text) since this request was opened. --Thogo (talk) 02:34, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Oppose closing iu.wikipedia
edit- Oppose I'm against closure. Since Inuktitut is spoken by relatively prosperous and very heimatbewusst people, it should be able to be revitalised/started with relative ease compared to e.g. many wikis in African languages. If only we contact the right people or institutions. Steinbach (formerly Caesarion) 13:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- If only :P --Majorly 14:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose It's not possible to predict whether or when some small group of motivated individuals, or even a single individual, might begin contributing to this project. If it's closed, it almost guarantees that it will never happen -- a newcomer would be forced to traipse through the whole process of reopening the Wikipedia. Is the continued existence of this project a serious burden? --Babbage 10:56, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose - Official Response from Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK)[4] - Due to recent developments in technology, Inuit are just becoming equipped with the tools to actively participate in the Inuktitut Wiki. ITK will use our available resources to inform Inuit about the existence of this wiki and we will promote the value of contributing. More details in the comment section below. InuitTapiriit 21:02, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
- If you can teach me the language or give a link to appropriate webpage with grammar and dictionary, I maybe will help with the number of articles, because I am personally interested in small and reviving languages. I participate now in several similar projects like Sakha wikipedia. --Yaroslav Zolotaryov 10:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose --Thogo 16:57, 18 January 2007 (UTC) I don't think that it is a good idea to close a project at all. If nobody tells the Inuktitut people that something like Wikipedia exists even in/for their language it cannot grow. On the other hand, I wrote an email to the Nunavut government some weeks ago, but I didn't get an answer... Anyway, this request might have a good effect, because now people are nudged to care about it. So I hope that native speakers come and write.
- Ridiculous proposal. --Node ue 00:18, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose. I initially did not see that this language project could be revitalized again, but the discussion below indicates that the inactivity problem can be fixed. If we inform the proper persons, we can improve the Inuktitut Wikipedia. Nishkid64 21:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose It's soon to be the official language of Nunavut, a Canadian territory, and by that point all government employees must speak the language or be fired. There is a strong support system we could tap into, especially if Wikimedia Canada ever gets off the ground. -- Zanimum 15:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
- While your optimism is refreshing, I remain sceptical, esp. when looking at the Greenlandic wikipedia. Greenlandic is and has long been the official language of Greenland, together with Danish. Further, as I was told by Danish friends who work with Arctic indigenous peoples, there is a considerable diaspora of Greenlandic university students in Copenhagen. But the Greenlandic edition shows few signs of life, mostly bot edits, (spam) deletions and minor typographic corrections, cf kl:Special:Recentchanges. I just examined the changes for Jan 2007. There has not been a single edit that actually added any content. In December, the situation has been pretty much the same. Most edits came from kl:User:Dkc, whose user page say that he studies at Cracow University and does not speak Greenlandic, see [5]--Johannes Rohr 11:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose It doesn't need to be closed, it just needs some fresher system message & namespace names. Smiddle 16:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
- EXTREMELY STRONGLY OPPOSE i think there some content here and even tho it may not be much its somthing, it will take some time for there to be a reasonable amount of articles that are worthy of the name name encyvlopedia and of good quality but it will happen, closing wont be helpful at all. The aboriginal sylabics are beautiful and i think they area truly awesome. maybe this edition needs to have some publicity in iqaluit or somehere else with lots of speakers. lets try and revive it before simply gutting it. someone will just want to make a new one later, why bother with all that? i was looking at the Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada article and happened to click on the link into inuktitut then just clicked on the wikipedia logo in the top right, out of curiosity. shutting this down is just wrong. espeically for a native language, this project could really save many languages and people from cultural, linguistic, and historical genocide.(contributed by user:71.142.68.229, see [6]. Not a countable vote, however.--Johannes Rohr 12:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC))
- Certainly, the cause of saving indigenous languages is a just one. But aren't you grossly overrating the power of Wikipedia? I have yet to see an example, where a Wikipedia language edition has contributed significantly to the revitalisation of a numerically small language. I cannot think of any wiki with just a few thousand or tens of thousands of speakers having generated significant amount of content. Well, there is one, the Upper Sorbian edition is faring quite well. But there, the socio-economic conditions are entirely different from the Canadian Arctic. --Johannes Rohr 12:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
- you dont have to believe me, but thats what wikipedia is doing, even if its unconsciencously, even if it hasnt been done yet, this edition as it will eventually grow will hold a collection of inuit knowledge. to my knowledge there is not a Inuktitut encyclopedia in print.this is the only one, i can write some inuktitut i have trouble speaking, i learned from my grandfather. there should be a more active effort to cultivate these small wikipedia because what i say is omthing they very much can do, and are allready begining to do. maybe spend a little donations money on publicity, or get the higher ups to contact the nunavut and canadian governments or track down some linguists. look back in 5... 10 years maybe inuktitut wont take off as fast as other wikipedias, but its the internet it will always be there and it will be better and l;arger as time goes by and WILL help to preserve and reverse linguistic, cultural, and historical genocide of the inuktitut people histy lanague.contributed by User:71.142.68.229, see [7]
- As I wrote, everyone working to strengthen indigenous languages has my full sympathy. However, what counts are the results, i.e., the quality and quantity of Wiki content. The latter is sorely missing in most existing smaller wikis, including the Inuktitut edition.
- Now, if you are confident that Wiki{books,pedia,versity,quote,news,(...)} has the potential to make a difference for the Inuktitut speaking community, the question arises: Why has the potential not yet been realised (one explanation was: no Internet connectivity in Arctic settlements) and second: What strategy would be appropriate to change this? Concerning the second: The most fundamental qualification to contribute to the Inuktitut Wikipedia is - fluency in Inuktitut. It is only the speakers, only the Inuit people of Canada, who can make the difference. Others may assist in technical matters (and will gladly do so, see the reactions here!). But there is no-one else who is capable of achieving what you have referred to as the reversal of linguistic genocide, except for those who still speak the language of their ancestors. It is them, who is needed, not governments, not linguists. Linguists might only then be helpful if the language would be insufficiently codified or if vocabulary for non-traditional areas would be missing or incomplete. I cannot see, what governments should do. You don't need a permit or a license to contribute to a wiki. All you have to do is sit down and write.
- So, in my view, the best strategy to ensure the continuation and success of this project would be to gather a group of committed individuals (four or five might be fine for starters) and start writing articles. Real articles. Not that kind of sub-stubs that this wiki currently consists of. Translating from en: is an option, too, as it takes no research efforts to do so.
- Finally, I think we would all be happy, if at least a single speaker of Inuktitut would make a firm commitment to this project through volunteering as administrator. Imagine: There are tens of wikipedia editions, which do not have even an admin who understands the respective language. Myself I have taken over temp adminship for five African wikis, to keep them spam-free, just because there are absolutely no native contributors. If you really want to help the Inuktitut Wikipedia, the first step would be to go to http://iu.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogin&type=signup , to create your account, start writing and expanding articles and eventually volunteer for adminship. Please don't wait for government to take action. That would be ridiculous, if you look at the history of this project. --Johannes Rohr 10:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
- ᖁᕕᐊᓱᒃᑎᑦᑎᓂᖅ ᐃᖅ ᐃᑭᑭᑦᑐᖅ / quviasuktittiniq iq ikikittuq i am not a speaker but i am a writer of inuktitut. sometimes i edit, sometimes no one, maybe one day 3 or 4 then all 30,000 Nunuvutans and Nunaviaks! Translating from simple is better than from english. i understand the language but i dont think i can be an admin.
- EXTREMELY STRONGLY OPPOSE i think there some content here and even tho it may not be much its somthing, it will take some time for there to be a reasonable amount of articles that are worthy of the name name encyvlopedia and of good quality but it will happen, closing wont be helpful at all. The aboriginal sylabics are beautiful and i think they area truly awesome. maybe this edition needs to have some publicity in iqaluit or somehere else with lots of speakers. lets try and revive it before simply gutting it. someone will just want to make a new one later, why bother with all that? i was looking at the Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada article and happened to click on the link into inuktitut then just clicked on the wikipedia logo in the top right, out of curiosity. shutting this down is just wrong. espeically for a native language, this project could really save many languages and people from cultural, linguistic, and historical genocide.(contributed by user:71.142.68.229, see [6]. Not a countable vote, however.--Johannes Rohr 12:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC))
- Oppose It is not the target of spam or vandals that go unchecked like on other small Wikipedias, and there is good reason to believe it will be more active in the future. Grandmasterka 00:42, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose. Firstly, because this wiki is active. Take a look at Recent cnanges page. Secondly, it will be the official language soon. Just give this Wikipedia time to grow, and it will flourish later. V. Volkov / В. Волков (kneiphof) 12:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose stricktly. It is active. It is not hampering anyone or anything. In an enviroment and society where people are not customarily spending their working days + spare time online, it may take longer to get momentum, so what? That is cheap as far as server load etc. is concerned. So this proposal is nonsential, or it is linguicism. --Purodha Blissenbach 12:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
- Strongly Oppose Even if the three reasons given were totally true, those should not be enough for closing the place.
- «There are only 70 pages that are probably legitimate content pages» - So what? That means that the bud must be nipped? Numbers are not all in this life.
- «Most pages do not qualify as articles» So what? Again the usual obssession with having to be born with the whole gear of feathers attached and ready to make the owner fly like a swallow instead letting things and communities grow its own way. A wiki is there waiting for anybody to improve it, not only for readers who get frustrated if they do not find what they look for (Is Wikipedia or the Internet the only place in the world to find information nowadays?), for {{NUMBEROFEDITS}} racing or for editors to proudly show off their shiny and polished editions. It is an irrelevant fact for a wiki whether the place needs one week or one century to start off its development. The people who may be able and eager to properly contribute in iu.wiki... must they know that the place already exists? Must they have an internet connection yet? Must they have IT skills or somebody helping them right now? Must they have spare time in this very moment? Should they have been even born yet? In general knowledge and culture impatience does not pay. As long as the maintenance of the site is not a problem, the place should stay there, and here no maintenance problems havr been mentioned by the ones proposing to close it.
- «All pages have English in them, not the language that the project is about». So what? What is the option then? Something like «Hey guys! You have already en.wiki, go there for contributions and general encyclopaedic info.»?... That has been part of the evolution of some wikis in their beginnings. I remember when I started in es.wikipedia; very few contibutors were there (it had a massive loss of people which hindered it for a long time) and a relevant portion of the users were people whose mother tongue was not Spanish but they were there helping (except when one of them started to edit big articles by taking them directly from en.wiki and rendering them into Spanish with a translating programme!! Mending that was hard work XD).
Iu.wiki is not developing fast principally because languages like inuktitut are in a tough situation in these times. Closing up the site is closing another door for it (for all of them; for all of us actually). --Piolinfax (@es.wikt) 15:02, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
- Oppose I think this ione o those language who has to be suported, even throug wikipedia. Then, against its vclosure.
Comments regarding iu.wikipedia
edit[8] I just did an Alt+X and got this page. It has "The moon" on it, but the rest is in that language. You said that all articles have English, not the language that it should have. I went through a dozen articles or so, and found that they all had this particular language, and minimal English. Nishkid64 00:52, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
- However, they have just single words in Inuktitut. I just tested iu:Special:Random about 20 times. No legitimate article found so far.
- Agreed. I believe that maybe it is acting more like just a dictionary. Is that what these "articles" are? Because one or two words cannot define the moon. Look at the English wikipedia article! It isn't three words. Most of the articles are similar to that, acting like a dictionary with the name in Inuktitut, then the word in English. Any other ideas? -Hairchrm 16:48, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I wonder, to which degree Greenlandic and Canadian Inuktitut are mutually intelligible. The point is that the Greenlandic edition has been doing somewhat better, it has at least some articles consisting of full sentences, however sparse, e.g. kl:Nuuk. If it weren't for the Canadian Syllabics, I wonder if a merger of the two would be an option. But, of course, the different scripts are in the way. (plus, I really don't have any idea how far the linguistic distance between these two variants is.) --Johannes Rohr 16:41, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Concerning above remark about "contacting the right people": The Canadian branch of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference might be a good starting point. Maybe also the Government of Nunavut might be willing to support the project.--Johannes Rohr 09:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it's worth pointing out that there are articles in the Inuktitut Wikipedia; banging on alt-x isn't really the best way to get an impression. Admittedly, they are very few, but they exist:
- http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᓄᓇ
- http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᐃᓕᓐᓂᐊᖅᑐᓕᕆᓂᖅ
- http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᐆ
- http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᓄᓇᖃᖅᑳᖅᓯᒪᔪᑦ
- http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᑐᓴᐅᒪᖃᑦᑕᐅᑎᔾᔪᑎᓂᒃ
- http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᐆᒪᔅᓱᓯᖃᕐᑐᓕᕆᓂᖅ
- http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᖃᕆᓴᐅᔭᒃᑯᑦ
- http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᐃᒡᓗᕐᔪᐊᑦ
- http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᑲᓇᑕ
- http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᓄᓇᐅᔪᖅ
- http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᓄᓇᕗᑦ
- http://iu.wikipedia.org/wiki/ᑎᑎᕋᐅᓯᖅ
Think of it this way: taking down those articles may cut out a significant proportion of what little content that search engines have in this language. If you nuke it, that's gone. --Babbage 11:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
- Mind you, would you call "ᓄᓇ nuna Earth" an "Article"? I sure wouldn't. Apart from that, I agree that there is no urge to close this project - as long as it is maintained by someone. Many other smaller Wikipedias have the problem that they are completely orphaned and that no-one cleans up the spam. This does not seem to be the case at iu:. Therefore, its existence does no harm. BTW: I've sent a mail to ICC Canada (Inuit Circumpolar Conference), notifying them of this debate. Let's see if they have any comments or suggestions. --Johannes Rohr 11:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
- I've just inspected some more articles on iu: - I have still not found any legitimate article. Only the article names are in Inuktitut, all the rest in in English, e.g. iu:ᐃᓄᐃᑦ ᓄᓇᒧᑦ ᐊᑕᓂᕆᔭᖓ
iu:ᐅᓂᒃᑲᐅᓯᒃᑯᑦ ᑐᓴᐅᒪᓂᖅ , iu:ᐃᓄᒃ, The only exception seems to be iu:ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ.
- I strongly suspect that no single native speaker has been involved in the creation and maintenance of this project. The last entry in the village pump is more than two years old. In December 2004, someone suggested that "We may have company soon". Evidently, this has not happened. Therefore, while I see no urgency in closing this project, I also cannot share the hope, that one day, it will magically turn into a vibrant Wiki.--Johannes Rohr 11:58, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
- I think considering how technology, both connectivity and Inuktitut Syllabics (ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ) have developed, it is too early to tell how vibrant the Inuktitut Wiki will become. With such a small population it only takes a few with initiative to get the ball rolling. Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami have been made aware of this and hopefully will have a response within the next 24 hours. Craigatcrow 20:05, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
There are about 30 000 Inuit in Canada who speak Inuktitut as their mother tongue. Most of those Inuit live in the arctic regions of the country. Until just over a year ago, most of the 54 Inuit communities had no internet connectivity.
Merging the Inuktitut Wiki with the Greenlandic isn’t practical, due to linguistic differences and fonts. The largest Inuktitut speaking populations read and write syllabics (Nunavik and most of Nunavut), Nunatsiavut and the western arctic use roman orthography.
It is very difficult to use syllabics on a computer. Until a few years ago, there was no Unicode standard so Inuktitut consisted of modifying roman glyphs to look like Inuktitut. Though this is fine for typing letters, it was useless for any work involving databases. It wasn’t until 2006 that you could search Google using syllabics. Localizing a computer to use Inuktitut has been complicated. You need to be able to install fonts, localize the machine (until recently there was no Inuktitut locale, so people generally used Indonesian with a Syllabic Unicode font set), to type in Inuktitut you needed to find and download the keyboard driver, if you use Windows XP you need to know how to run the driver installation in compatibility mode for Windows NT. Anything other than Windows XP, 2000 or NT and you were out of luck. This has proven too “geeky” for many people. In addition, Unicode works somewhat differently than the disguised roman fonts people are used to working with.
This complication with using syllabics will soon be overcome. OSX Tiger included native support and pre-installed Inuktitut fonts (Unicode). Windows Vista does the same, though few are using Vista yet in any language. This should greatly reduce the complication involved in working with Inuktitut on the web.
In addition, in 2005 community driven initiatives took place to bring DSL over satellites into Inuit communities, previously only a few regional centres had dial-up. All communities now have some level of broadband connectivity.
Now that the technology is in place, Inuit are in the process of discovering ways it can be used. As many know, a wikipedia is an incredible resource once it takes wings. There is a definite need for Inuktitut on the internet.
As there seem to be no issues with spam in the Inuktitut wiki, I would propose waiting for two years and reviewing the Inuktitut Wiki again. This will allow time for the Inuit organizations to get the word out about Inuktitut on computers and for Inuit to contribute to the Wiki. InuitTapiriit 21:08, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks a lot for your response. I certainly wasn't aware of the difficulties associated with using syllabics. BTW: The Linux desktop environment GNOME provides an input method for Inuktitut (and has been doing so for quite some time). Maybe you could have a look at it, it mights save you the bucks for buying vista.
- Second, I think your request for more patience is well understood, especially after you have explained the situation in the North in some detail. At the same time, I would like to suggest, if you could look out for some one or two native speakers of Inuktitut, who would be willing and motivated to volunteer as administrators for the Inuktitut edition. This would be a great step forward, in comparison to other Wikis, that have absolutely no involvement of native speakers (an extreme case is the Kanuri Wikipedia). Myself I am an admin in the German edition and I can assure you that the amount of technical skills required to master the admin job is limited. At the same time, there are still some (non-Inuit) co-admins, who could always lend a helping hand if problems occur.--Johannes Rohr 21:21, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
There is a lot of spam in Inuktitut wiki, but I'm sysop there for three months or so now and look at the recent changes nearly every day. So all the spam that comes in is deleted immediately (look at w:iu:Special:Log/delete). If anyone wants to contribute there and doesn't know how to do that s/he should just ask me and I will be very happy to help. --Thogo 14:43, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
The Inuktitut Wikipedia just needs to be given time. Some people just don't understand what Nunavut is truly like. It is a very remote part of the world, and needs to be given the chance for people to find the site. Remember, the English Wikipedia didn't just grow to 1.5 million+ articles overnight. Kaiser matias 22:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
- I don't see, that the magic formula "more time" actually works for wikis in small minority or indigenous languages. What this wiki needs is not more time but more contributors. When I think of the Upper Sorbian Wikipedia, I wonder, what makes all the difference. Upper Sorbian has but some tenths of thousands of speakers, virtually all of whom are fluent in German. German is the dominant language in all public spheres (except, maybe, for a handful of Sorbian schools). Unlike Nunavut, there is no Sorbian autonomy, only a recognition as national minority. I would assume, that, due to the remoteness of the territories, Inuktitut still has a significant role in public life in Canadian Artic settlements.
- Still, the Upper Sorbian wiki, which was incepted only last year, has made tremendous progress. It has lots of real articles, and a considerable growth rate.
- The most significant difference that I see is, that the Upper Sorbian wiki was initiated by a group of dedicated Wikipedians and native speakers who have formed a community from the very beginning. The community was first, and then came the wiki. Opening a Wiki and then waiting for the community to magically turn up does not seem to work too well, at least not under these conditions.--Johannes Rohr 10:43, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I found a fluent Inuktitut speaker (his first language) who is very interested in getting the Inuktitut Wikipedia rolling. He's posted his first article last week [[9]]. He wrote me the following this morning:
- "I’d like to reproduce the wikipedia categorical index in Inuktitut. This way it’ll ease things tremendously for helping Inuktitut Wikipedia along. Would this be allowed, you think?"
Neither of knows much about how to work with the Wikipedia. Is there anyone out there who would be interested in helping us ghet started? Please let me know. InuitTapiriit 20:48, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Could you clarify what exactly it is he would like to do? What does he mean by "reproduce the wikipedia categorical index"? --Johannes Rohr 20:53, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the categorical index, I don't read Inuktitut, but I'll assume he means the links on the front of the Inuktitut Wikipedia [[10]]. It appears to be categories and I think he figures they need fixing. He has also talked about making sure all of the interface is translated, but neither of us are sure how to do that. For now, as there is so little content we would like to have a categorized index so people can navigate to the content as well as search for it. How do we edit content on the front page? My apologies if this is not the place for this, we are both very new at this, we want to make it fly, but we don't know how. InuitTapiriit 21:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Translating the interface requires admin access. Look at iu:Special:Allmessages. There, you see a table with Mediawiki system messages (and access key, which you should ignore for now). With admin access you can click the link next to a specific message and replace the default English text with the Inuktitut one and then save it like an article.
- The main page is not protected, so it is freely editable. I suggest that you ask your friend to leave a note at iu:Talk:ᐊᒥᖅ or approach the local sysop (iu:User:Thogo)) and explain his ideas. --Johannes Rohr 22:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, please write me if you need help. As I said before, I'm very happy to help starting to work there. --Thogo (talk) 02:02, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
- If you need assistance with setting up the languae interface, you can address me. Quickest on IRC (open a private channel to get my attention), or else via my talk page in the Ripuarian Wikipedia. I have made one of the Ripuarian localizations. — Note, that there are in fact two things: (1) a localization of MediaWiki, which will suit any wiki, not only the Wikipedia; (2) a specific localization for your Wikipedias needs. You want the 2nd now, but since the difference is likely ony few to 3 dozen messages out of far more than 1000, you can easily have both. — If you see a need for both a Syllabic and a Latin script version in the future, and/or if there is a chance to have an automated or semi-automated conversion between them, let me know. I'd be happy to get the technical parts of it going for you. --Purodha Blissenbach 13:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
- Some conversion system between the two scripts would be clearly beneficial, as the current situation tends to get rather messy, where hybrid latin/syllabic article titles have been chosen as workaround to satisfy both syllabic and roman readers/writers (Syllabic seems to have little acceptance outside Nunavut). However, unlike e.g. the cyrillic and roman variants of Serbian, there is no one-to-one correspondence between both scripts, so automated conversion might proof difficult to achieve. Further I wonder how you distinguish between strings that should be auto-converted and those that should not, as they are not in inuktitut. --Johannes Rohr 13:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
- Good coding style makes it easy to distinguish between languages, e.g. when you have
ᐅᐃᑭᐱᑎᐊ ᐊᑎᖅ: <span lang="en" dir="ltr">english</span> ᐃᖅᑑ ᐅᐃᑭᐱᑎᐊ ᐊᑎᖅ ᖃᑯᒍᖅ ᐊᑐᐃᓐᓇᓯᕗᖅ ᐅᕙᓗᒪᔪᖅ ᖃᕆᑕᐅᔭᖅ
you know, you should skip the part labelled english, or copy it verbatim. In the ksh WP we have a template for this{{lang|en|this is english}}
but most of my fellow editors are too lazy to use either. Sad result, among others: Nonsential/missing Google hits, when you select a language.
- If a conversion cannot be made automatic, it may nevertheless be helpful to have a semi-automated one, if there is a chance that it makes conversions quick enough. This may not turn out be be possible, true. But better give it a thought, than to miss an opportunity, so I mentioned it. Also, as far as the localizatin string are concerned, they have a very limited vocabulary, so one could even try a simple dictionary based approach specific for them. --Purodha Blissenbach 15:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
- what exactly is going on? wow are articles not being found/searched cuz of mistakingly writrten? please to telling me how to remedy this sutaion. pelase sir scn you explain to me exactly what specifically in more Layman's Terms? Favor to do this for me? #1 language of the artic. Rejoice Inuktitut!
- Good coding style makes it easy to distinguish between languages, e.g. when you have
- Some conversion system between the two scripts would be clearly beneficial, as the current situation tends to get rather messy, where hybrid latin/syllabic article titles have been chosen as workaround to satisfy both syllabic and roman readers/writers (Syllabic seems to have little acceptance outside Nunavut). However, unlike e.g. the cyrillic and roman variants of Serbian, there is no one-to-one correspondence between both scripts, so automated conversion might proof difficult to achieve. Further I wonder how you distinguish between strings that should be auto-converted and those that should not, as they are not in inuktitut. --Johannes Rohr 13:34, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
- If you need assistance with setting up the languae interface, you can address me. Quickest on IRC (open a private channel to get my attention), or else via my talk page in the Ripuarian Wikipedia. I have made one of the Ripuarian localizations. — Note, that there are in fact two things: (1) a localization of MediaWiki, which will suit any wiki, not only the Wikipedia; (2) a specific localization for your Wikipedias needs. You want the 2nd now, but since the difference is likely ony few to 3 dozen messages out of far more than 1000, you can easily have both. — If you see a need for both a Syllabic and a Latin script version in the future, and/or if there is a chance to have an automated or semi-automated conversion between them, let me know. I'd be happy to get the technical parts of it going for you. --Purodha Blissenbach 13:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, please write me if you need help. As I said before, I'm very happy to help starting to work there. --Thogo (talk) 02:02, 20 February 2007 (UTC)