Talk:Language versions

From Wikivoyage General

Language versions - Discussion - Interest? - Rules - Metaarticles

As it might happen that other than a German language version should be launched we should discuss the basic needs for launching a possible new language version.

[edit] General Questions

[edit] About forking

Forking a WT wiki usually means forking a community. Not into two parts, but into three: 1. those who prefer to stay on WT, 2. those who join the new wiki, 3. those who stop contributing and wait until one of the two projects turns out to become their favourite one.

As we have seen at the de: example, the wiki world as well as contributors to either of both wikis expect that one wiki turns out to become the more popular on long time terms. In fact, it would not make too much sense to describe the same destinations in free articles with the same license on both wikis in parallel.

Wikivoyage has proven to be able to manage a fork, technically as well as organisationally. The development of both communities during the last months has shown that there really was a need to fork WT/de and that WV's ideas are better supported by German speaking contributors. Now, it is getting more and more important to communicate to a world wide wiki community that Wikivoyage is a reliable and responsible project.

Forking a wiki is not just a fun. When forking, we give some implicit promises to new contributors. We promise to keep maintaining the new wiki for long time. We also promise that we are convinced that the new wiki will become strong and popular enough to be able to stand on its own feet within the near future. And we promise to support the new language version with contributed efforts. Well, promises are fine, but why should people believe? In my opinion, for only one simple reason: they trust the Wikivoyage project and its popular contributors and admins because up to now, Wikivoyage has turned out to be reliable and responsible. It's nothing but our good name.

We need to be very careful not to run into temptation to gamble with our reputation. A fork that crashes within the next half year would cause more damage than tree successful forks could compensate. We need to examine very exactly whether a fork of a certain WT language version is possible or not and avoid hazardous adventures.

I am convinced that a fork can only succeed if it is supported by a large majority of active contributors and admins on WT. This was the case on de: in an extraordinarily massive way, but it still took half a year until WV has become number one. We always must keep in mind that the mass of sporadic contributors or those who stumble upon WT is incredibly inert. It is really hard to stand against WT's search engine rankings.

-- Hansm

[edit] When?

When there is a need articulated by the community. Der Reisende 17:58, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

I agree. The most important criterion for a new language version is its need. I can imagine two basic scenarios:

There is a big enough group of interested contributors willing to build up a new language version from scratch.
There is a still bigger group of contributors to some WT language version that feels that uncomfortable with WT that they want to do another fork.

For each of the above cases, we should elaborate detailed criteria under which conditions we would be willing to start a new language version.

-- Hansm 19:53, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

How will we know that there is a need by the community, and by which community? Ok, if we speak about people wanting a fork, it might be rather obvious for our users who come from WT and still have contacts there, but otherwise...? Where and how will the contact between WVers and interested people be established? --Mulleflupp 23:44, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

There already have been sporadic requests for other language versions. I think, the most intuitive way for Wikitravellers would be to drop some message in our Pub or on some admin's talk page. People who prefer not to appear in public probably would send a mail via the user mail interface or to vorstand@wikivoyage.org.

If we get several requests in relatively short time, we could open some kind of language version preparation page where interested contributors can sign up. This would be a transparent way to examine the situation.

I think it would not be the right way to advertise WV in some WT version's pub by ourselves. If contributors to this WT version feel that WV would be the better choice and decide to advertise, that's something different.

-- Hansm 11:54, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

I think we need an English mail like management@wikivoyage.org ;-) For an English user it's sounds better than vorstand@wikivoyage.org. -- Jensre 12:43, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

No problem at all, but I'd propose board@wikivoyage.org. Keith, what's your opinion as a native speaker? -- Hansm 14:19, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

I do think that a English version of the email would be good for prospective contributors, the difference between board@wikivoyage.org and managment@wikivoyage.org is minor, almost non-existant. But I do feel "board" feels like it's a bigger organization, even unpleasantly large, and management feels like a more human scale org. Other native speakers may feel differently.--Keithonearth 09:01, 9 September 2007 (CEST)

As mentioned below by Bobo11 we should have a minimum number of contributors who are willing to start depending on the potential size of thge new wiki. At least 10 to 15 are recommended for starting somewhat around 1000 articles. If they announce their will they should start with a defined number of meta articles. These are to be translated prior to launch. When finished a new version can be launched.--Der Reisende 11:13, 20 July 2007 (CEST)

I would like to propose a clearly defined rule for when to start a new language versions. Let me distinguish 2 cases:

There is already a WT version in this language: Observe WT's language version statistics and see how many edits there have been made in the language wiki during the last 2 weeks. Divide the number of edits by 6. This is the number of interested contributors that have to sign up for contributing to WV in this language version. Additionally, at least 20% of the WT admins of this language version need to have signed up.
There is no WT version in this language: The language version may start as soon as 10 contributors that have signed up and 3 of them are willed to become an admin.

Only those who have signed up during the last month are counted. Every interested contributor is free to reconfirm her/his signing in order to be counted.

Before the new wiki really can be launched, at least some key articles that still have to be listed have to be translated or adapted, respectively.

In any case, the association's members' conference is free to decide exceptions from this rule.

-- Hansm 19:46, 24 July 2007 (CEST)

To me it sounds ok as a start definition, and I think that these conditions will leave us quite some time to get ready, because I don't have the impression that we will easily and fast find 10 users for a start from scratch or the x percent of users and admins from an existing WT version. Just out of curiosity I'm going to have a look on WT/fr, how many active contributors and how many admins they have. This could give us a better idea of what numbers we are talking. --Mulleflupp - Беседа 10:13, 25 July 2007 (CEST)

[edit] How?

A wiki should be created, meta articles should be translated first. Der Reisende 18:02, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

Not sure if we have to insist on that. If so, I suppose a defined set of, say 10-20, key meta articles would be enough for the beginning. -- Hansm

Agreed. Der Reisende 23:10, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

Same here, basics first (10 to 20 meta articles) and if enough multilingual contributors are available maybe more. --Mulleflupp 23:44, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

Also in case of a fork the meta files had been taken over should be checked.

I think small tools could help if a new language version will be built up from scratch in particulary:

Tool creating all continents and countries skeletal articles containing quick bars an IsIn templates.
Tool importing articles from de: or other Wikivoyage language branches for translation. On this way the article contains full attribution.
Preparation of a set of useful templates (babel, formatting etc.) --Roland 07:50, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

[edit] How many admins at launch?

At least 5, better 10 admins or active contributors, one should speak either fluent (or rather fluent) German or at least English to serve as communicator to de:. Der Reisende 18:02, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

I Agree with 5 or more. But it would be better if there were 3 or more people with experience in the job of Administrator (from WT or WP). Another point is that she/he must have a good enough knowledge of English or German (better both) to be able to communicate here. Bobo11 18:17, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

This question depends heavily on whether the new version is to built up from scratch or whether it is a WT fork. In order to build up a completely new version, 5 contributors willing to do the job could be enough.

If the language version would mean to fork an existing WT version, the number of admins and contributors depends on the language version's size. Obviously, we would need much less contributors for forking WT/nl than for forking WT/en. I would propose to define the number of needed admins/contributors via some quotient, either relative to the number of articles or the number of edits in the language version in question.

-- Hansm 20:11, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

When I consider what we achieved on the German WV with "only" 5 admins and some other 10 or 15 high profile users within less then a year, I am confident that not more than an initial 5 admins for any language version will be needed. The optimal number of admins will of course also depend on the number of potential users/authors for the concerned language version. --Mulleflupp 23:09, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

I see problems with less then 3-4 administrators. What happens when one of them stops her/his work on Wikivoyage. Then all the work is left for 1-2 administrators. Its clear that it might work as well with 1-3 Administrators, but these 1-3 must have a lot of interest in the future of Wikivoyage. We don't have this problem on de: because the first 5 administrators are the initiators of Wikivoyage.

I hope I maneged to express what problems can arise with only a few administrators. We don't need to have 5 administrators, but we must have 5-10 good writers/users. Bobo11 04:53, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

I more or less asked Evan to lower the threshold to 5 contributors on Wikitravel, which led to the faster creation of more language versions of Wikitravel. I'm sure that 5 contributors would be enough for a version of Wikivoyage where there is no Wikitravel version yet. Guaka 19:06, 3 September 2007 (CEST)

[edit] How much autonomy for language versions?

Certainly the most difficult question. I suggest that an admin of the new language version should be a member of Wikivoyage e.V. (the association). Der Reisende 18:02, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

Well, no doubt, this would be nice. But I'm not really sure if we need to make a new language version depending on association membership. However, we need to be sure that the new language version's founders support WV's ideas. It must be clear to everybody that, in case of doubt, the association's members' conference as the final right for decisions. This is simply because we need to make sure that every language version works for the goals defined in the statutes. We are obliged by law to spend our money exclusively for this goals. -- Hansm 14:22, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

I always try to do as many things as possible, and to avoid official membership of anything. :) Guaka 19:06, 3 September 2007 (CEST)

[edit] Support for new admins and authors

Particularly in case of a new branch from scratch we must give support to the new admins and authors to become familiar with or goals and rules. Maybe it's useful to nominate gossips and go-betweens. --Roland 07:57, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

That whe can help, is a important factor, that the new administrator have a good enough knowledge of English or German to be able to communicate here. Bobo11 15:25, 19 July 2007 (CEST)

[edit] What Language versions

Which language versions have a chance to be realised? This is another question. Bobo11 18:39, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

Shouldn't this depend on Language_versions/Interest? :) I think we should first assess and gather a general overview. I'm sure I can attract a whole bunch of contributors from a few places. I've "adopted" [1], started the CouchSurfing Wiki (on which I am now banned...), co-started OpenCouchSurfing and I'm an active volunteer for BeWelcome. Guaka 19:06, 3 September 2007 (CEST)

[edit] En: English

A good chance, if we find enough administrators. If we fork WT:en, we have enough articles to begin with. The other advantage is that the chance that we can entice administrators away from WT is good. Bobo11 18:39, 17 July 2007 (CEST) But we are not ready to import 15'000+ articles. Bobo11 05:40, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

WT 15,715 articles

Bobo, don't underestimate that! Forking WT/en is a very big deal, and to be honest, I'm still pretty afraid of it.

WT/en has got a phantastic search engine ranking. It's Wikitravel's heart. I'm sure, IB and Evan would start a hard fight for surviving. A fight by all means, technically, rhetorically, financially and what ever.

Well, if there where some hundreds of contributors with many admins amongst them that felt so uncomfortable with IB that they literally overflow WV with fork requests, well, than we could start to think about a fork, but not earlier.

Before forking WT/en, we better get some experiences with some smaller language versions. Experiences in both, technical and organisational aspects.

-- Hansm 20:43, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

But the point is, when will we be a multilingual travel guide. Sooner or later we will get an en: version. The second point is that very possibly we will find English speaking administrators how don't agree with the current WT and who search another travel guide. I understand that the import from 15'000 articles is not an easy job and represents a lot of work. I don't say that en: must be the fist, I wantd to say that en: is the version with the biggest chance to come. Bobo11 20:58, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

As a native English language speaker I would love to see a en.WV but I'd also hate to see it wither and die. Sadly I agree that it's far too early.--Keithonearth 23:56, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

I agree. But if the WT/en community is dividing about the current subject of splitting articles (WT Shared here) there might be an English version. Der Reisende 12:14, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

For the reputation of Wikivoyage it is necessary to have an international touch. But it makes only sense to start in next two years with only main European languages like English, Spanish and French. It should be our goal to start in the next six month with the English language because it could be that there is in the next time an other "wiki"-"travel" if the discussions in WT are going on. Maybe Mulleflupp or Arfikaspotter could act as administrator for the English version. Urgent: We need an article in the English WP. Unfortunately Stilfehler is in holiday so the question is who could translate our German article into English ? -- Jensre 11:38, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

As stated above I do not think we should start that way. If we start an English version this would be the largest one. Therefore we have to have a lot of contributors and admins. --Der Reisende 12:17, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

@Jensre: I have started the translation of the German WP article about WV but I didn't finish it because of my wedding that happened somewhere in-between. A good part is already translated and I will try to finish it as fast as possible.

Even if we don't choose English as a first new language, it might still be a not so bad idea to present ourselves on the English WP as it is a language understood by lots of wiki writers. It might be worth a thought or two if we want the same article for the French WP as well. I could look after that too.--Mulleflupp 13:22, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

I think this is a brilliant idea (French article). If you do not mind, please feel free to write one. Der Reisende 13:40, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

Ok, I'll first finish the English one (hopefully this weekend) and than I will start translating from German into French; this will be more comfortable than writing a new article from scratch. I guess that the object of our quality offensive from July could be mentioned either in the article, either on its discussion page. That might get us a few curious visitors. --Mulleflupp 14:00, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

For sure it's a lot of work to start an English fork. But I have mentioned earlier in the German WV that we could start only with logged-in users. This means that we have at the start only a few English users which is easier to handle. And if some administrative sites are missing at the start, so what. I don't think that we need the German perfectionism for the English WV ;-) -- Jensre 14:28, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

That is very true. Considering the current discussions and changes at WT, we should (in my opinion) start an English version as soon as possible to accommodate those WT members that are looking for an alternative. I doesn't have to be perfect, but it would give us a point to start from. I would be more than happy to dedicate my time to help start an English version. Talking about the administrative sites: There are a few translated sites (like FAQ) in the temporary wiki that only need a quick check and which can then be uploaded to general, but there are many more that need a thorough editing. Whatever we decide (fork or new start), I think we should do it now (or very soon) and I am sure we will have a number of contributors in no time, as people tend to wait for something to be set up before they contribute. I also think that a high number of WT's users are not aware of Wikivoyage and if they were, we would get much more support. Most of them are certainly not googling for Wikivoyage just to stumble across our site. I know that most of us do not want to rush the decision on what to do, but the earlier we do something, the better. I know that a large percentage of WT/de users was needed to start Wikivoyage, but I still believe that we can get enough people from WT/en to contribute here and maintain the wiki, simply because of the overall high number of users.

--Africaspotter 15:58, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

Contradiction. I'm convinced that we won't succeed neither by setting up a en: wiki from scratch nor by doing a WT/en fork step by step. Our only chance would be to do a complete fork as perfect as possible at once, being ready to contribute from the very first moment. Sure, there is a large number of en contributors and thus we could hope to get at least some of them. Anyway, that wouldn't be enough. Our huge challenge is to convince the mass of new contributors to contribute to WV, the new, not well known wiki with poor search engine ratings. Many contributors care for backgrounds only if they will seen some ads, not earlier. How to bring them to a wiki with almost no readers in the first time? And, I already have said that elsewhere, contributing to one wiki or another is like buying stocks. If you suppose some stock is going to raise, you buy, and if many buy, the stocks will raise. For wikis, this means the following: If a wiki has many contributors, it will get many and good articles and thus good search engine ratings. Good search engine ratings bring new contributors. If we won't be able to pull many new contributors on our side from the very beginning, the new wiki won't take off and our few brave contributors get frustrated. -- Hansm 16:31, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

I agree, we need a good number of authors and admins before setting up the wiki, but I think it can be done, if we try. I also agree that a step by step fork is no solution. We either have to start from scratch or (maybe better) fork the whole thing. I am sure that Jensre was talking about a new start, when mentioning missing admin pages. --Africaspotter 16:37, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

For a better understanding: My opinion is that we should fork all the English travel articles from WT and translate the admin pages from WV. Otherwise we have no serious chance for the establishment of the English version. -- Jensre 16:52, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

The German WP article has been translated and is waiting for "publication" on my WP/en user page. Please feel free to have a look at it and correct whatever is necessary, be it typos, grammar, vocabulary or the content. In some time, when everybody who wants has had time to have a look at it, we can "try" to put it online. I just hope that we won't immediately get a vote for deletion like it is (once again) happening on WP/de. Inch'allah, we will see. --Mulleflupp 16:44, 21 July 2007 (CEST)

[edit] Eo: Esperanto

Esperanto devlop very quick en Wikipedia, one can apprend it en one year, and all the humans of the Earth will eguals.
I lern English 20 years in school and I am not capable to good write, and read fatig him tootsuit.

Alors what en Esperanto, post one year of lern ( 4 hours by semain) and I can read and write easely.

Why attend 10 or 15 years that we leard bad read english and moor bad write it, when we all can comunicate imediatly if we lern esperanto ?

--86.193.108.19 20:40, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

A not so good chance as English. Depending on the count of contributors - independingly of the importance of Esperanto. --Roland 14:37, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Fr: French

A not so good chance as English. Can we find enough administrators, do they speak English and/or German? Bobo11 18:39, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

WT 1,779 articles (status quo: 11/12/2007)

Yes, a possible candidate if there ever should be a need for. fr: is big, but not too big and France is not too far away. -- Hansm 20:46, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

This can be the first, we have at de: more then one user, how know French. And with Benutzer:Mulleflupp a user and administrator with fr-4. I hope he will and can write the meta side for fr:. Bobo11 22:30, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

He can and he will when it will be needed, really no problem. I might not be a Molière or Racine but eloquent enough to write a correct French and set up a reliable basis once we come up to it. I think as well that there might be a chance to find some French users who speak some German and/or English, it might at least be more probable than finding English speakers with a working knowledge of German. And who knows I might be able to motivate an acquaintance or two here in Brussels... --Mulleflupp 23:44, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

Well, would be a good one. At least we have a francophone name and already contributors to de who are also French speaking. Maybe this one would be easier than we thought. --Der Reisende 08:08, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

What about getting a French version of our main page www.wikivoyage.org as to welcome the first visitors in their mother tongue, once the French WP article about WV is online? It can be done in a second as it is just this small page without lots of text. --Mulleflupp 14:04, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

Why not especially with French this is a good idea for them being a bit reluctant to speak English.--Der Reisende 14:53, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

While googling for Wikivoyage, I came across the site www.wikivoyage.fr. Won't it be a handicap for us the day we start a French version, to have already an existing French site with a very similar adress even if they mainly provide hosting for images and articles, so their way of working is quite different, and they have only 8 registered users in their forum? --Mulleflupp 15:21, 21 July 2007 (CEST)

There is also wikivoyage.com which has been registered earlier than wikivoyage.org and wikivoyage.de, but left empty until the start of the Wikivoyage project. At this time, it had been offered for selling (60€), but we decided not to buy it because of our limited finances. We had been thinking about registering Wikivoyage.fr, but French domain registering practise makes it hard (and expensive) to register .fr domains as non-French inhabitant. Thus, we decided not to register it. As it seems, French are used to look for other TLD than .fr because of formerly very strict registration policies. -- Hansm 19:53, 21 July 2007 (CEST)

[edit] Es: Spanish

A not so good chance as English. Can we find enough administrators, do they speak English and/or German? Bobo11 18:39, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

WT 1 002 artikel

[edit] Nl: Dutch

A not so good chance as English. Can we find enough administrators, do they speak English and/or German? Bobo11 22:25, 17 July 2007 (CEST)~

WT 1.023

As every other language version, a Dutch version would depend first of all on interested contributors. However, nl: would be ideal for getting experience in managing a non-German version. For some reasons: 1. Many Dutch people know at least some German, but most of them speak rather good German. 2. About 1,000 Articles are fairly well to handle. 3. It's not too hard for Germans to understand roughly what's happening on nl:. 4. The Netherlands are next neighbours, not to Switzerland, but to Germany. Thus, a physical participation on meetings would be possible for interested nl: contributors. If there were nl: fork requests, nl: would be one of my favourites. -- Hansm 23:11, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

I agree, would be a nice one to start with. Der Reisende 23:37, 17 July 2007 (CEST)

What's about Domie?. He left WT/en because of the sell-out. And he's Dutch contributor. We can ask him whether a new WV/nl has a good chance. -- DerFussi 07:52, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

Then we should write him.--Der Reisende 08:06, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

If I remember well, I already did so about a year ago when looking for fellows to found Wikivoyage. Either he didn't answer or I couldn't reach him. We could try it again. However, he did not even contribute to WP for almost 2 months. -- Hansm 14:36, 18 July 2007 (CEST)

[edit] other

[edit] Polish

The slightest chance ever. Almost no sensible activity on Polish WT (about ten new pages/month [2]). From about 200 guide pages existing there only minority contains template and more than few sentences information. If we decide to import articles it would be simpler and faster to write them from scratch. May be after launch of the English version we could attract more Polish speaking users. LukeWestwalker ⇔ 21:23, 31 October 2007 (CET)

[edit] Subpage created for recording interested users

If you would like to kind of sign up for a new language version please go to Language versions/Interest. This will help us to estimate the need for a new veresion and provide a help in deciding wether to set up or not. --Der Reisende 11:51, 30 August 2007 (CEST)

[edit] Decision about new language versions

As posted before we worked out what is needed on our annual meeting in Stuttgart. The results will be posted here within the next days. --Der Reisende 10:02, 30 September 2007 (CEST)

Finally we got the first set of rules for non english language versions translated. Check it out at Language versions/Rules.--Der Reisende 11:45, 23 October 2007 (CEST)