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Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Hiri Motu Wikipedia

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Proposal for closing the hiri motu wikipedia

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I think the hiri motu wikipedia could be closed down: (hiri motu is a pidgin based primarily on Motu)

  • According to ho:Special:Statistics, "there are “6”pages that are probably legitimate content pages."
  • According to ho:Special:Allpages, there are 7" pages. Most of those are either empty, vandalized/spammed, or written in English.
  • The only page not being empty or written in English I found was ho:Baibel which does not have any proper content.
  • Their main page does not have a word in the native language.
  • I am a pro to saving national languages, but for this one there seems to be no user base to maintain their 1 (possibly less) article in the native language. An alternative would be creating more interest in this wiki - but that is something I am not in the position to do. --Philip J 22:06, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some background regarding the Hiri Motu language

Hiri Motu is one of the three official languages of Papua New Guinea. It is not a vernacular, but a vehicular language or lingua franca, meaning that it has almost no native speakers. It is spoken by an estimated 120,000 Papuans. Due to its use by the colonial police it has also become known as "Police Motu". According to de:Hiri Motu, only a small fraction of the speakers are able to read or write it. --Johannes Rohr 19:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support closing ho.wikipedia

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  1. Support There is not even a single sentence in Hiri Motu in the entire Wiki. --Johannes Rohr 11:32, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support--MF-Warburg(de) 14:55, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support --A. B. (talk) 17:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support --Jorunn 08:29, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support -- Andre (talk) 21:52, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support --Jdavid2008 08:34, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support Det biebelgedoons is neet meer dan get opsomminge, weg mit dae zooi! --Ooswesthoesbes 06:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC) Translation: That bible-thing isn't more than some quotations of the chapters. Delete![reply]
  8. Support Not active, not in the language, not used. Cbrown1023 talk 04:53, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose closing ho.wikipedia

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  1. Contra. I got an e-mail about ho.wp a while back. --Node ue 20:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Bother to explain what you mean to say? --Johannes Rohr 12:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The answer is not to close but to find someone who can improveit. I know it isn't much use yet, but every language is important. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.34.49.241 (talk) --Johannes Rohr 19:42, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments regarding ho.wikipedia

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Regarding the above comment: I think it is essentially the wrong approach first to create a wikipedia edition and then start looking for contributors. As from my casual observations regarding small wikis, I can only conclude that this top-down approach simply does not work. Turning to NGOs, governmental bodies, cultural associations etc. has, as far as I know, not yielded any real results in terms of invigorating dead wikis.

Wikipedia creation should be a bottom-up process, where the initiative comes from the speakers of a particular language, who form an editing community and commit themselves to creating a Wikipedia/Wikitionary/Younameit.

Any such group is free to create a test project in the incubator: at any given moment.

Unless this happens, the notion that "every language is important" is entirely theoretical.

If taken seriously in the sense that every language should have a wikipedia edition, regardless of whether an editing community exists, we would have to create summarily thousands of subdomains for all the natural languages on the planet. Else, it would mean that we deem, Hiri Motu, more important than, say, Tuvan or Ingush. Both have similar numbers of speakers, but no Wikipedia editions (because no editors have yet come forth).

Returning to Hiri Motu: You are of course welcome to look for potential contributor, however, the chance that you will find them is marginal at best. Hiri Motu is used by an estimated 120,000 in Southern Papua-New Guinea. It is not a vernacular language, but a lingua franca. Of those who speak it, only a small fraction is literate in it (if I understand correctly, what is said in de:Hiri Motu). Furthermore, it is increasingly loosing ground to Tok Pisin as the dominant national language. --Johannes Rohr 22:00, 16 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Tuvan Incubator has more articles in Tuvan than this has in Hiri Motu.--Jdavid2008 08:33, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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