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Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Sango Wikipedia (2)

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

I propose the closure of Sango Wikipedia.

By the statistics, Sango Wikipedia is currently the smallest non-closed Wikipedia. This matches with its contents - virtually all of its pages are one-liners or don't have any Sango content at all (are completely empty or written in French). In fact, most of the pages that are not empty are simply part of the cross-wiki city spam that has been going on for a while and are not written in correct Sango. The only non-city spam (and thus senseful) articles that I was able to find are sg:Ndjoni da ti nzapa na ya jesus, sg:Bêafrîka and sg:E Zingo.

Real activity on this wiki is almost non-existant while the wiki has been heavily abused and spammed; see the recent changes. In all its time it has been there (since 2004, in fact, five years ago), only two Sango speakers ever edited this wiki (this IP and sg:User:Ice201), all other edits came from people who don't speak Sango. Therefore, this wiki is better off closed until support from native speakers arrives.

Note that the previous nomination came from a vandalizing IP and should be disregarded. -- Prince Kassad 22:11, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support

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  1. Support Per no activity. Pmlineditor ∞ 17:34, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support per no activity and relatively low interest. Razorflame 01:38, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support –Juliancolton | Talk 01:59, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support --§ Snake311 (I'm Not Okay!) 01:09, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support Only 27 pages in the article namespace. Disregarding the Main Page and redirects, there's only 21 pages. None of them are more than stubs. Reach Out to the Truth 19:37, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support --Filemon 20:22, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support No activity. -- Avi 17:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Support - No activity means no project. Tiptoety talk 02:46, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support Two native speakers have edited this project in its entire existence, and there's no apparent activity. A Stop at Willoughby 02:07, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Support Has almost no content in Sango --Church of emacs talk 20:40, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Support I do not like the idea of closing things per no activity, as such a thing seems more of a failure to promote a project than the project itself. However, in this case there are other languages used by the country where Sango is derived, and there is a parent language connected to it, so there is an alternative present for use. Ottava Rima 15:35, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Current activity gives me hope that the project is sufficiently motivated to be worth while. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:41, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

oppose

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  1. Oppose rather put efford in making whis wiki known to Sango speakers having internet access. --Purodha Blissenbach 05:27, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose The no activity argument is a funny one to my mind. By sending it into the Incubator, the no activity chances increase n-fold. --0 º 13:35, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose En contra - totalmente de acuerdo con lo que dice Piolinfax --Node ue 00:30, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose Same reasons as nos.1+2 above. (Even democratic referendums can lead to wrong decisions.) --Baba Tabita 05:55, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose - strong agreement with Purodha 79.69.160.18 12:15, 18 January 2010 (UTC) (Akerbeltz)[reply]
    Please login to vote. Pmlineditor ∞ 12:17, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose - strong agreement with Purodha Akerbeltz 15:42, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oppose - strong agreement with above - I'll signal the issue on Afrophonewikis--A12n 04:23, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Follow on comment: Ottava Rima (in supporting comment) refers to other languages (yes, CAR & neighboring countries are multilingual) and Sango's relationship to specific other languages (like Ngbandi if memory serves), however, linguists do not agree on the suggestion that Sango is a creole, it also has some of the function regionally as Swahili does further east in Africa (though smaller numbers), and, as Babbage points out below, Sango is a national language in CAR (actually also "official" along with French)--A12n 04:23, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Oppose - Sango is the national language of the en:Central African Republic, closing this Wikipedia is not in keeping with the Foundation's mission of "to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language" Babbage 00:13, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose african languages NEED to be promoted on internet! Don't close down !
    Please log on to vote. -- Prince Kassad 18:41, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Oppose Lately I'm updating it, I'm doing a bit of order there and I'm trying to raise the level of this wiki, but it takes time. Don't close it ! --Reder 20:44, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose Sango is getting mementum in various domains, and now there is a large scale development of Sango technical vocabulary in the fields of law and justice at international level, as well as serious steps to introduce Sango in scholls as a mean of instruction . It would be a pity to close Wikipedia sango now instead of asking Sango speakers to document this pages.
    Please log on to vote. -- Prince Kassad 13:43, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Oppose - Lately Reder and Môlengê tî kodoro among others have been much more active, and the wiki is no longer dormant. Sj+ help translate 03:52, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Since some of the activity was spurred by this proposed closure, perhaps we should devise a different mechanism for broadcasting that a language-project needs more attention—one that doesn't imply closure or backtracking. [Sängö is a great example case—it is a national language with many native speakers and an active international projects to expand use of the written language; all potential collaborators on making it into a useful resource.] Sj+ help translate 03:52, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oppose wikis take time to get underway. If we have active users, there's no reason why the project should be closed. Glacier Wolf 04:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Oppose at ln: there is some times also no activity, former users leaves, others comes. Run a WP in Africa is quiet difficult. If there are 21 articles, this may me a point of a new start for someone in some months who would never ask to open a WP in hi slanguage. By the way, ln reached 1200 articles today. --Eruedin 21:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Please log on to vote. -- Prince Kassad 10:59, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    OpposeIt currently has 87 articles, and for two reasons related to this fact, I oppose the closure of the Sango Wikipedia.1. 87 articles is not a small enough number of articles to justify a closure.2. This wiki is growing day by day. If I was to cheeck back in a week, I would find at least one new article.3. Finally, every language deserves a chance and there are actually many first-language-speakers of Sango in the Central African Republic—there are even Sango websites, so there ARE Sango speakers on the Internet. --w:en:User:Pineapple fez
    Please log on to vote. -- Prince Kassad 10:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Oppose It currently has 89 articles, and for two reasons related to this fact, I oppose the closure of the Sango Wikipedia.1. 87 articles is not a small enough number of articles to justify a closure.2. This wiki is growing day by day. If I was to cheeck back in a week, I would find at least one new article.3. Finally, every language deserves a chance and there are actually many first-language-speakers of Sango in the Central African Republic—there are even Sango websites, so there ARE Sango speakers on the Internet. Here are just a FEW I have found:

--Pineapple fez 05:00, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • 12. Oppose Sango is used as a lingua franca throughout the Central African Republic, it is the language of instruction in some schools, and there are regular radio and TV broadcasts in Sango. --Philip J 22:22, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

comments

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Sängö is now developping a large vocabulary in the field of law and justice in connection with current trials at the International Criminal Court. On the other hand preliminary studies are being carried on for its use as language ofinstruction in schools in the Central African Republic. We need to keep Sango'Wikipedia pages open in order to share data through them.

That's great news. Can you link to these projects online? Sj+ help translate

what is the point of closing anyway? by its mere existence it allows for possible activity; being closed, no more!

Closing an inactive small wiki simply means that the content remains read-only and can no longer be edited, until a new group of editors comes along that can maintain and support an editing community. Every additional wiki has a certain annual support cost in terms of combatting vandalism; when there are no regular editors of that wiki to revert vandals, that support is provided by global wiki editors who watch all small wikis. If noone is using a wiki, and there is no useful content on it, then this small support cost is a reason to redirect sporadic editors to a space on a shared incubator wiki.
If we had a better incubation/language-creation process, there would be almost no difference between these two options (it could instead be a spectrum of wiki activity, ranging from "tiny wiki w/one editor, please incubate" to "large wiki, don't include in the swmt tools") With the current limited process, where making any change to "active" status is difficult and hard to undo, we end up with these frustrating polls about status and closure.
As people start to share Sängö-language content, the motivation to close it may go away; if you know the people working on Sängö vocabularies in law and justice, please encourage them to carry out part of their work and writing on Wikipedia! Sj+ help translate 03:52, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As of me typing this, there's 102 articles. I think that's enough for it to be kept. Also, when this discussion was created there was like twenty-something pages, so I consider most of the earlier comments irrelevant.--Pineapple fez 21:37, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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