Proposals for closing projects/General discussion about small, inactive wikis

proposal of closing latin wikipedia

I make the present proposal, based in the recent change of the rules of the language subcommittee. the new rules say that is not allowed the existence of wikipedia in ancient, classics, or death languages. the latin has the three conditions. recently the indicated subcommitee take the shamed decision of reject the opening of a wikipedia in the classiest and marvelous language of ancient greek. yes, you read it. the language of plato, is considered indigned of express itself. its flexibility, wealth, high prestigious, etc. was not considerated. one capricious change of rules had prevented.

one question, why latin can have a wikipedia and the ancient greek not? the reason say that ancient greek must have one by its own right. all historians know that the greek culture always was superior than the latin culture. it was only a poor copy of the first.

another question. why in the new rules argument that ancient languages can not have their own wikipedias because they do not have native speakers. and then support the right of artificial languages (that don't have native speakers, too) to have your own ones? that's no sense. for EQUALITY reason that rule do not must exist.

if your support the idea that latin wikipedia have stay. you support also the rigth that ancient greek must have your own one. the rules must been reversed.

if you consider that the new rule is correct. the latin wikipedia must be closed. for EQUALITY and COHERENCE.

Proposal for the deletion of all the teensy tiny wikipedias

I can't believe it's taken so seriously- just delete the damn things! Wikipedias with 10 or less articles that aren't growing should be agressively pruned. --69.175.17.193 05:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The reason they are being taken seriously is because these are all (not just Wikipedias, but other Wikimedia projects as well) projects that would be set up if but for some general interest by speakers of these languages. They are all legitimate languages (with notable exceptions that are debatable, like Klingon and Moldovian... which have discussions above dealing with those issues) and but for gathering some speakers of those languages to develop content they are no-brainers to be created. So many requests have been made to create Wikipedias in these other languages that it was simply decided to create a bunch of very small Wiki projects in all of the domains that would likly become Wikipedias and other Wikimedia projects in the future.

Based on experience I've had with some of these projects, notably with Wikibooks (for myself), having these projects already created and established is a major incentive for people to get involved and to develop content for these projects. One that I can point out right now as a major success of creating these as independent projects without having to go through a formal vote for creation is both The Tamil Wikibooks and Indonesian Wikibooks. Neither were requested for creation by formal voting processes, nor were they even listed on en.wikibooks or even the wikibooks portal page (until I listed them there myself very recently). Yet there is some very substantial content for both of these projects by native speakers of those languages.

Otherwise, you have to have somebody who speaks a major European languages (usually English) that must make a formal request to create the project and be bi-lingual to also create substantive content in the new language project. This is a huge hurdle to achieve, and a pain to create one at a time. It is much easier to create several new projects at once when you are digging through the database tables and stuff to create all of these new domains. I would oppose serious moves to delete these "minor projects" unless you can absolutely prove that far more vandalism takes place on these than real content. Besides, if you are vandalizing the Zulu Wikibooks, you are not really going to call too much attention to yourself as a vandal. It may not be reverted too quickly, but then again nobody is really going to be reading it either. --Roberth 17:12, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe it's good to delete those tiny wikipedias like Moldovan wikipedia. A wikipedia frozen with just 20 articles should be deleted. --Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti? 12:24, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

But the point is that some substantial action had to occur to freeze a Wikipedia edition in the first place. And there had to be some strong justification for doing so, such as was done for the Klingon Wikipedia, and presumably for the Moldovian Wikipedia. That is not justification for killing zu.wikibooks, for instance, just because there aren't any current active users involved with content development. Or for he.wikinews for that matter, as I stated above with its closure request. --Roberth 23:02, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The Moldovan Wikipedia is alive and well, despite the huge "go away" notice on the main page. --Node ue 11:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

NO. you lie again, it's frozen as Anthere said. You're just an Anti-Romanian vandal anyway. We got used with this.--Fratele lui Bonaparte, il cunosti? 13:49, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

General discussion about small, inactive wikis

I think we should be having this discussion on a more general basis. Fact is that many language editions were created before we had clear-cut rules about how many contributors are necessary before there can be said to be sufficient interest, and that there are therefore some projects which have

a.) neither content nor b.) any active contributors nor c.) any growth rate to speak of.

I believe that language editions to which these criteria apply (no contributors in the last X months, no new articles for X months, no article content since X months ago) should at the very least be locked, if not outright deleted until there *is* sufficient interest. What do you say? I think it'd be unfair to have these inactive language editions around but deny other small languages their wiki... —Nightstallion (?) 06:07, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I feel that it does us little good to have a project which gets no "real" edits and only attracts vandalism. Vandalism which will usually go unnoticed for long periods *because* of the lack of editors, so increasing the problem and the very poor impression they give to the non-wiki-editing public. I don't believe that any project should be deleted once it has been created, but the idea of 'locking-down' an inactive wiki (to prevent vandalism) but anyone arriving at any page on it is pointed at a message along the lines of "This wiki is currently inactive due to lack of active editors / native speakers of this language. We believe that this language should have a wiki to benefit the speakers and readers of this language; if you are able to help please click this link" where the link would let someone add their details or express their interest. By not deleting we are showing that there is no "big deal" to go through to create it - it is already here - but that we are sensible about security and maintainability. The voting above seems to mostly be a group of individuals wanting to delete all the inactives on principle, and another group wanting to save them on principle. Neither option is a solution for the long term. --Alison Wheeler 10:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

The lockdown idea sounds reasonable. However, in order to have the static message you propose, you need to identify at least one person with sufficient language skills in order to write it. This is much more than most of the above closure candidates currently have. Secondly, this will create (or at least perpetuate) a situation where you have two classes of languages: Those which already have a wiki which only has to be unlocked, and those which have to go through all of the procedures which are in place now. Above, some people have argued that it is better to keep the wikis because opening new wikis was just way too complicated nowadays. If this is the case, than it means that the rules are wrong, they need to be changed. This is better than having two classes, one to whom the rules apply and one to whom they don't. (Unless you have a scientific interest in how the results for each of the two classes compare) --Johannes Rohr 14:11, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm of two minds about this. In one respect I think that having very bad Wikipedias hurts the image of Wikipedia in general. For example, a native speaker coming to the Tajik Wikipedia, only to find it full (if you can call 30 pages full) of one liners and spam will get completely the wrong idea of what Wikipedia is about. Either they will post spam or advertising or just will not get it. If there is no good information there, there is really no incentive to add good information.

I would probably oppose locking a Wikipedia purely because what is the point of having really bad information lying around. Probably better (if it is a small language) to have a placeholder page (written in that language) directing the visitor to the Wiki's that they are likely to understand (in the case of Tajik, this would probably be Russian and Farsi) and also giving instructions for how they can re-open the Wikipedia as Alison suggests. - FrancisTyers 15:06, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Extending this a little further, where someone is willing to do the work, add such a tag to each existing article linking it directly to the appropriate article on the "big brother" wikipedia(s). If someone will develop the tag, I'll be happy to take on a stubby small Wikipedia. (Just leave me a note on my talk page).--A. B. ^(talk) 17:56, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Still another recruiting idea: posting notes and requests at WikiProjects such as en:Wikipedia:WikiProject Central Asia. Also perhaps put a tag on the talk pages of articles related to the particular language/country inviting editors to edit the little brother Wikipedia. Using the Tajik example again, you could tag the talk pages for fa:فارسی, and ru:Русский, repeating for other Tajik-related topics such as Emomali Rahmon, Dushanbe, Khujand, Amu Darya, etc.

Having said this, if active editors can't be found after an active attempt for a few months to recruit them, count me in the camp of wikipedians that believes in deletion or exile to some sort of incubator. I think this should be especially true for small wikipedias that serve a language so close to some big brother language that speakers may be drawn away to the larger wikipedia both to read and edit. An example would be French and Quebec French (if we had a separate Quebec French wikipedia). --A. B. ^(talk) 19:16, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Think of it as the reverse of GIGO, if we are publishing crap, we should expect to be receiving crap. - FrancisTyers 15:09, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Historically, this hasn't been the case. Most huge Wikis today started out as spam traps. --Node ue 15:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I think we should lock inactive wikis, but definitely not close them. Completely agree with Alison. Archer7 15:58, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

and to What is the point of having Wikipedias with dubious (if we don't speak the language how can we tell what it is) content, and presenting it as an encyclopaedia. Surely if we have no-one who speaks the language it would be better to retire the Wiki (keep the info so it can be restored if there is sufficient interest) but leave a placeholder page explaining how to reopen the Wiki. - FrancisTyers 16:42, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

At this point I would like to draw your attention to something we are working on: Creation of new languages for existing projects - the sense of this (one multilingual wiki for "small projects") is to prevent exactly the problems you list and to give also a very small group of people the possibility to work on articles in their language. In this way they can grow a community - and having many admins on such a project will help to avoid vandalism. At the same time they will grow better thanks to the interaction with other small communities which face the same problems. I don't want to repeat the whole article here, but it would be interesting to know your thoughts. Please also have a look at the discussion page. The wikis should not be closed, but I would protect them from edits and then migrate the contents to such a multilingual mediawiki. Well, please let me have your thoughts - maybe on the discussion page of the "Creation of new languages..." page. Ciao! --Sabine 21:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I have contacted Africa Culture Rhein-Neckar (e.V.) to contribute some articles to the ig:wikipedia. One should give them time to react. --Cethegus 19:10, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

As I have had no reaction from Africa Culture Rhein-Neckar (e.V.) I now favour Sabine's idea of Creation of new languages for existing projects --Cethegus 19:17, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Alison Wheeler's lockdown idea, and strongly disapprove of any instances of entirely deleting wikis (unless they were created in bad faith, which our process is unlikely to allow). --Gray Porpoise 18:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

...or if it's otherwise nonsensical (e.g. a carbon copy of an existing Wikipedia without any meaningful editing). --Gray Porpoise 19:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Alison Wheeler's idea. The problem is rather that there are too few Wikipedias. Having a possible infrastructure for potential languages will make the threshold for creating a real Wikipedia. As an example, I wonder why there is no Mari (Cheremis) Wikipedia, and having a dummy one, with text explaining how to fill it (e.g. written by some pioneers of other lg versions), in some nearby lingua franca, in this case in Russian, would be helpful. So: Keep the inactive Wikipedias locked in some way, but easy to open as soon has there is interest. We need more, not less. Starting a new Wikipedia from scratch is harder than contributing to an existing one. Trondtr 19:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC).

There was also a discussion on ikiaource.org as we had some bad experiences with too small inactive subdomains (not only because of vandalism, but they have "forgotten" text on the main domain..., see here); one of the proposals was that every subdomain must have one or two admins who have some experience. I remember also on the case of the Breton Wikipedia some 2 or 3 weeks ago, where a bot deleted a great part of the domain, having been stopped by a steward later, as there is no admin on the Wikipedia. Our idea was not to close inactive wikisources but to take them back to the wikisource.org, where there are enough admins to watch them and where we can see how they work *if you close a subdomain, so you probabl cannot judge this). What about move such Wikipedias back to the incubator? -jkb- 09:08, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

To start, create the Main page and the interface in the native language, not in English. That way, they understand how to work it. This is especially true in these smaller wikis.User:Jorge Taveras

Spam, Spam, Spam

The main reason why I would like to see smaller wikis such as hz:, ve: and kr: closed ASAP is that they are getting abused on a regular basis. The picture is uniform on all of them. They day before yesterday I cleaned up all the crap that had been accumulated on kr:. Now, two days later look at kr:Special:Allpages (hint: except for kr:Main Page it is all spam.

It is just 100% pointless to offer spammers our precious resources. It is irresponsible to keep a plethora of wikis open that aren't taken care of by anyone. Please put an end to this! --Johannes Rohr 06:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree being spammed is a real problem, however I don't think closure is the best solution. I propose for locking those wikis with a note and a link to a certain page on meta. In such a manner, native speaker(s) could find their own language wiki better than in case of simple closure and removal. --Aphaia 06:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

That might be appropriate in cases, where minimal initial content is already present. But have a look at kr:: It does not even have a single word in Kanuri on the main page. What is the point of locking down a wiki devoid of any content?

Personally I see some urgency in this, given that all the wikis at the end of List of Wikipedias seem to be hit by the same phenomenon: An ever increasing number of vandals has discovered those orphaned wikis as their personal playground. As I said, I did some cleanup on three wikis during the last few days, but just one or two days later, the spam keeps coming in again. Whatever solution is chosen in the end, I would urge to take a decision rather sooner, than later. These debates keep dragging on for months and months, with no action in sight. --Johannes Rohr 09:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Due to the regular spam I have taken over temporary adminship for some inactive African Wikis: hz:, kr:, ng:, ts: and ve:. However, I feel increasingly uncomfortable with the situation: I have no command of either of those languages, neither do I have any contact with native speakers. While 95% of the spam are easily recognizable, there are also border cases which are more difficult, mostly articles in made-up fantasy languages that may look like legitimate content in the first moment. Therefore, the above noted issue, that we cannot verify whether or not some content is legitimate or not, has become increasingly real for me. We cannot even guarantee, that some content is in a certain language. This puts me into a dilemma: On the one hand, we are grateful for any single line of native language content we receive. On the other hand we clearly do not want to host fantasy babble, vandalism, hate-speech or whatever else these articles may or may not contain.

I cannot but conclude, that the presence of an admin with at least basic knowledge of the respective language should be made a mandatory prerequisite for the continuation of those wikis. --Johannes Rohr 20:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Defense of Small Wikis

Unlike the apparent list of grievences that seem to be made against some small wikis, I've seen some of them actually get developed and take off in ways that for me was completely unexpected. And this is not just one isolated instance, but I've seem a great many seem to spring to life in ways that I had no idea what was to be happening.

One in particular I'd like to point out is the Hungarian Wikibooks, which has seemingly come out of nowhere and suddenly become not only a fairly healthy and active project, but indeed one of the fastest growing of all of the Wikibooks projects in any language.... passing even en.wikibooks in terms of absolute growth in the number of pages in the past couple of months. This is some very serious content creation for what I would have thought to have been a very small and inactive wiki until very recently.

Another Wikibooks project I saw that was truly one of these "dead" projects that was litereally dead with no content, in fact not even linked from en.wikibooks or even listed on the main list of Wikibooks until I noticed this, was the Indonisian Wikibooks project. I'm still not sure if there are any participants on that project who speak English or other European langauges, but this has taken off and grown from zero to the current 350+ pages of content by native speakers of the language. I consider this project in particular to be a very specific example of how Brion's creation of the plethora of small wikis for nearly every "legitimate language" really made a big difference. The participants of this wiki did not have to fight the project creation process, but merely had to roll up their sleeves and just start adding content.

I would suggest that perhaps a project like Zulu Wikibooks does have a place in Wikimedia projects, even if at the moment there is zero content for this website and just a spam magnet. I would also have to strongly ask if a spammer gets into that wiki, what have they really accomplished? Very little in fact, and they aren't really going to be getting too much attention (other than I've used this wiki several times in the past as an example of a small Wikibooks project). If anything, spammers and vandals simply are trying to get on the nerves of stewards and those who perhaps patrol these small projects, as a sort of game.

Those project that perhaps need to be looked at more closely are those that do have somebody who is trying to add some content, but are getting overwhelmed with spammers and can't fight back. But this still isn't a rationale to close the wiki just because of the size, they just need some extra help blocking spammers until they can get enough active users helping with content development and protection.

Projects that perhaps did need to be closed legitimately are those that had a few editors who pushed real hard for a couple of months and created a bunch of legitimate content, but that activity has droped and is currently sitting dormant. Even then, the project should be "frozen" and "unfreezing" the project should be a very trivial matter if somebody wants to come along and start adding legitimate content. A simple e-mail should be more than sufficient, or a modest request on Meta, even if it is just a single person making the request. --Roberth 08:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

When trying to draw conclusions from analogy, you should bear aware of the dimensions. Bahasa Indonesia is the official language of the World's forth most populous state. It has some 200 million speakers. The fact that Indonesian wikibooks has taken off says nothing about, say, Herero with an estimated 160,000 speakers, of which presumably an overwhelming majority does not have any Internet access. Wikis like kr:, ve:, ts:, ng: and hz: have not just generated few content over the last few years, but just about zero. Kanuri has Zero content. Venda has one article on the South African National Languages Service and ve:Mukhuwa, the theme of which I cannot identify, XiTsonga has three image-only articles. Herero has a listing of the books of the bible and hz:Orupa, which does not look like an article, as it starts with a greeting and a question. All these wikis have been around for more than two years. ATM I try to keep them spam-free, I observe that especially kr: is subject to daily vandalism. I seriously doubt, that this makes any sense at all. --Johannes Rohr 11:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Would it then make sense, using this example of Bahasa Indonesia as a positive example, that perhaps languages over a certain threshold (say 50 million native speakers, for example) be allowed to exist even if at the moment the activity on those Wikimedia projects is practically zero? It is a place to start, and certainly a core set of Wikimedia projects could even perhaps be created for all such languages (if they don't already exist), such as Wikipedia, Wikibooks, and Wikisource. Wiktionary has its own set of problems with an attempt at a solution being worked on by some participants and I'll leave that to dedicated Wiktionarians. Wikiversity and Wikinews both have unique language proposal criteria, and both also need some substantial and regular activity in order to keep going that I don't think it is wise to create language versions in either of those major projects without a substantial body of people willing to be involved. The point here is that this does give some room to allow these projects, and something other than "nobody is editing yet" as the only criteria for closure. --Roberth 21:03, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Can the Wiki Principle work for small Wikis?

The most frequent argument against closure of small wikis is that some day, contributors will turn up and the Wiki will finally take off. However, the longer I follow events on meta and the development of those wikis, the less likely this seems to me. As I understand the Wiki principle, its most fundamental prerequisite is quantity: The more contributors there are, the more collective knowledge will be accumulated and the higher quality will be achieved. The absence of professional editors is compensated through the sheer number of contributors (even though individual expert authors certainly play a role, too).

If this really is "the wiki principle", then it is highly unlikely, is going to work for small speaker communities. You need a sufficient number of people with plenty of free time who have access to computers and internet, inexpensive enough to be wasted on a project that offers no material reward.

It is unsurprising that the positive examples of successful projects that where cited during this discussion relate to languages with tens of millions of speakers, be it Tamil, Indonesian or Hungarian. At the same time, I see no examples of successful Wiki development in cases, where the number of speakers is lesser by order of magnitude. Languages, which are spoken by, say, some 150,000 people or less, where socio-economic conditions are so unfavourable, that Internet access is still a luxury that few can afford. --Johannes Rohr 10:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, just because those were the only cases that were CITED does not mean they are the only cases in existence. Roberth seems only to be familiar with Wikibooks. There have been many similar cases on Wikipedia, such as Faroese with less than 100,000 speakers, Divehi with also relatively few speakers, Bambara and Twi with nearly 0 internet connectivity in the target community... perhaps you have not been around inactive Wikis for a very long time. I have been for several years now. In the beginning, my hopes were very modest. I hoped that maybe just half of them would have maybe 100 pages by now. The Central Asian languages (Kazakh, Tajik, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Azeri, Turkmen) were all dead when I started, and I had hoped that maybe two or three of them would really take off. But lo and behold, they all have plenty of content today. Same with Panjabi, Divehi, Sardinian, Yoruba, Twi, Ewe, Bambara, Lao, Khmer, Ndonga, and over one hundred others. But I was overwhelmed with surprise constantly at first as one Wiki after another became active over the months that passed. The ones I thought would stay dead forever became active one by one. Perhaps some of the Wikis I listed are not the fullest or the best today, but they have content, even if just a little bit, something they were entirely lacking when I started with them. Now, I have faith in the process. Someday - maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not even in two months, but sometime in the relatiely near future (less than 2 years, hopefully less than 1), I expect each and every one of the Wikis you are complaining about now to have content. While you were busy complaining, it already happened to one! Take a look at ve:, which has begun to flourish as you complained about it!! Sit back and watch them grow, don't complain about their existence. If you don't want to clean the vandalism yourself, don't, let it sit there. Eventually, somebody else will clean it.

I just checked three of the Wikis you called "flourishing". By all due respect: The Ndonga wiki is empty. It has three articles. The Twi wiki has 14 articles - partially bible spam, partially in English and most of the rest: sub-stubs. The Ewe edition has 12 articles per ee:Special:Statistics, again, half of it bible spam. Concerning the Venda edition - yes there has been a surge in activity after I opened the closure proposal. It lasted from 17 to 19 February. On 14 March ve:User:Ralinala did some minor edits. I wouldn't seriously call this "flourish". --Johannes Rohr 15:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The Wiki Principle cannot work for small Wikis, especially the African Wikis because many of those speakers are illiterate in their own language. Many of those oral languages only became written languages when Western missionaries wrote Bibles in their native tongue. Also, many of them do not yet have access to the computer or internet, unless they are living and studying overseas in more developed countries. --Philip J 21:54, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Alert to Wikipedia Foundation: Warning with microlobbies!.

Excuse me, please, my poor english.

Preview: To persons and actions that i comment, please, do not consider this paragraphs as a personal attack against you, only use such cites as examples to describe my arguments illustrating. Which themselves, probably, no corresponding to the description of what i consider a perversion of the system, but let me show similar positions even by casual circumnstances. Thanks for your consideration, and perdon if i disgust you.

Proposal: there would be a WF supervision before the close of a project, to guarantee it is according to policy of the WF, independently to the polled votes or the discussion and arguments exposed.

Nearly all criteria can be correct under a special circumstances, but not under others. Id est, the criterium to close a project could be support at a moment, and not in other, perhaps change ethic aspects in policy, may be there will be another universe of voters.

The criteria adopted now can be good, and supported with a majority of participants. Of course, in the best of their intentions.

But (please see list of vote in the proposals of close) the number of users that participate in the votation is in some cases ridiculous, indeed irrelevant communly compared with the hundreds, thousands, of users, members that collabote in WP. It is possible that opinion of majority polling no correspond with real majority of all.

The criterion adopted is sometimes in function of less than ten votes, and minor in differences between options; i really hope their qualities justify the decision. But statistically do not hold up it (statistics would required a sample bigger than 30 if were selected randomized).

The problem, to revert a wrong decision is more difficult. It is laborious start a project, more hard to restarting it; because the close is like a headstone over.

The question is how many persons have to participate in the defunct?. Because in the other hand to the fewer voters are a critical number of active opposition. For example, Moldovan or Siberian WP has more than sixty votes oppose to close; well, if all of them want to continue collaborating with this project, i don't understand wich is the objection to let them do it. Seem a sufficient number of users to work.

A group of persons can agree in the legitimate close of a project, of course. They, conscience and kindhearted, propose successives closers with success (or no in the opposite option). It is possible they think the same but they don't need to be friends. The result is equal, they act such as a lobby; if the number is reduced a microlobby, but great enough to the common objective. It is an ideological or political lobby. And in fact this is kidnapping the govern to the majority. Perhaps wrong.

The message we send in internet is: if we accept your idea, you need a group of friends, you have expend time enough, you have to work with regularity, you need developed 1.000 articles in one or two years. If yo cannot do it, we will throw your work to the dump and delete all the project (does anyone know where the five Kanuri articles listed are?). Great, i am anxious to start!.

What is the number of users minimun? and who decide it?. Which the diary work demanded?. How many articles produced for a lobby permit a project exist? and in how many time?. In other words: how many of the projects one group of opinion has idea of erase and make disappear?.

Don't forget that all the WP begin at zero. The homogeneity of the rules is good; the strict application being ignorant of the particular conditions of else, in this project, a form of cultural discrimination. If WF decide to be the encyclopedia of the important projects, like a ONU, there will be to create a new Foundation to the no ONU Peoples. I think that is not the original spirit.

We can not expect that the speed of growth in the english WP was similar to the swati one, for example. Not only in regularity or in number of users, articles, etc., in quality too. Moreover, indeed, in the expected time for its develop. So, the valuation of outcome will be drastically different.

The simple being of this project is important for the multilingual dream of 6.500 lenguages' encyclopedias. But more important, to the cultural project, WF has one of the scarcity web page in some language (such in swati, an article from WP:ss figure in the "Language Museum" [1]). Does someone Know the number existing of encyclopedias in that idiom?. Can someone value how this project can help to the develop of this language and in the acces to the world of the culture to its speakers?. Can we vote deletion?, yes, likewise other questions, but perhaps would be aberrant.

If in a future englih WP acquire a next to perfect develop, then we have possibly no activity in a long time term. In such status, Will the rule say that we must close the project?.

In short, an ideoligical minigroup could act injuring seriously the WF general project, deleting an important specific tiny projects, slowly developed, in a irreparable way. With serious consequences to its future.

Such conduct is more near to vandalism than to wiki. Some voters are more active in the destruction of the projects they want close than in the work to develop these ones. Even, occasionally, sysop make a labour, not to praise, obstructing the work of the community (e. g.) or deleting the main architecture of a project. Happening before the votes conclude, moreover, before the proposals of close exist (see "WP Deletion log in proposals", for examples all tiny ones: Choctaw, Kanuri, SiSwati...).

Being deleted, perhaps with excess of zeal: templates, categories, help pages and other "Wikipedia:" pages, stubs, community portals, redirections, members or content of pages to empty these ones (then will be unnecessary)... All that configure a basis to edifitate a project. Those actions are explained argueing: "only images", "page with -words- in other language to the project" , "only one contributor to this page", "empty page, so unnecessary", "nobody need it", "the content is irrelevant"... (Be care, translators. But, how can a person that don`t know a language or its culture say it?. I shake).

I am worried because a same sysop was the solitary one in the most of the tiny wikiprojects, that is not a good idea, I think either to him.

Sorry if i extend. I would like you understand why i am worry about, success would justify a long text. Thanks and regards.--Jatrobat 04:42, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I have severe difficulties understanding what you are complaining about. Nobody intends to "destroy" anything. My sole interest is to tackle the issue of spam and vandalism on orphaned and dead wikis. When there is no community, a wiki, almost by definition, cannot exist. However, as soon as native contributors come forth, we will all be happy so see it reopened. While you dwell on the importance of Wikis in languages such as SiSwati, Choctaw or Kanuri - everybody would be happy to see flourishing Wikipedias in those and many other languages. However, at the moment, these Wikis simply cannot be called encyclopaedias, as they have zero content. Concerning deletions - you really don't have to know Choctaw to understand that a page in the Choctaw Wikipeda that reads "And my penis is big" is not in Choctaw and ought to be deleted. --Johannes Rohr 05:46, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for a moratorium on closing African language projects

A new Proposal for a moratorium on closing African language projects may be of interest as it overlaps partly with the subject of small wikis.--A12n 18:36, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

azb wiki is Unclear

azb wiki articles are Unclear and unmeaning for 99% of south azerbayjani speakers. many of articles are writen in north azerbayjani or turkish or even ottoman turkish and we dont could understand them. how we could change or if no close this ?--Alp Er Tunqa (talk) 17:49, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Can you show statistics for your claim of azb wiki being unclear for 99% of the speakers, because if its unclear and written in other languages then how can you and these users[2] use and edit articles and join discussions on azb wiki?! The Use of references which are written in south azerbaijani (such as this articles reference) shows what language azb wiki is. --Ilğım (talk) 04:07, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

The only difference between North & South Azerbaijani Turkish is in scripts. North Azerbaijanis write in Latin script and we are typing in Arabic script. The user AlpErTunqa claims by his words that 99% of South Azerbaijanis (Iranian Turks) do not understand the language of people of North Azerbaijan or Turkey!! --Arda Arpaçaylı (talk) 05:44, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

I think the user Alp Er Tunqa is not speaking based on facts and evidence. All the users in Azb Wiki are native Azb speakers and they are writing articles in their own language. Contradictions are obvious in his claims. We should not forget that mentioned languages (North Azerbaijani, Turkish and Ottoman Turkish) are linguistically more than 70% same. Possibly the claim is a misunderstanding by the user Alp Er Tunqa.--Arslanteginghazi (talk) 06:28, 2 June 2016 (UTC)