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Tell us about Turkish Wikipedia

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Turkish Wikipedia

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Questionaire

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Contributors

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  • Wikimedia Statistics can be difficult to interprete. What is your impression, how many steady contributors do you have?
  • Are your contributors mostly native speakers?
  • Where do your contributors live (regions/country)?
  • How common is it that your contributors meet in real life?
  • It is not so common, Onece or twice a year I guess. --Manco Capac 08:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There was some attemps for regular meetings, however as far as I know there were only few meetings in different cities. EmreDuran 09:30, 29 August 2008 (UTC).[reply]
  • Certain contributors have become close friends in real life and hence meet pretty often. However, in the context of a "wiki-meet", we don't have many contributors who meet in real life; we often have wiki-meetings, in 2-3 different cities in Turkey, once or twice a year and generally about 5-10 contributors attend to a wiki-meet. - Noumenon 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually; there's no large wiki-meet...In 2006; 2 meets (5 'n 4 contributors joined), In 2007; 3 meets (3, 5 'n 5 contributors joined), In 2008; 1 meets (6 contributors joined)...

Other Wikipedias

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  • Do you have special contacts with another Wikipedias (maybe in related languages)?
  • Some of our users also contribute in other Turkic language Wikideias such as az, uz, tk. And their users also contribute in Turkish Wikipedia. --Manco Capac 08:12, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • A good percent of our users are also contributors in other Turkic language Wikipedias, especially in Azerbaijani Wikipedia. As a result we have good relationships with these Wikipedias and have done co-ordinated works and actions with Azerbaijani Wikipedia (especially about controversial users etc.). A good half or more of our users also contribute to English Wikipedia and we can say a so-so number of users also contribute to German Wikipedia. We often ask for help or advice from experienced users in those Wikipedias. - Noumenon 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do you translate a lot from other Wikipedias? Which ones?
  • Personally I do not like to translate from other Wikipedias, I prefer to seach for myself and read from different sources and make our Wikipedia more unique. but of course there some users in our Wikikpedia likes to translate from English, French and German and Spanish. --Manco Capac 08:12, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Many of our users prefer to translate articles from English and German Wikipedias. There are also some translation done from French and Spanish. I, personally, do not like "translating" an article as a "whole" but rather translate from 1-2 different languages and also add some content from my own knowledge and resources. However, it wouldn't be unfair to say that more than half of our articles contain at least a paragraph translated from English Wikipedia. - Noumenon 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Organization and support

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  • Is there a Wikimedia chapter in your country? How does your language relate to it?
  • Are there work groups in other organizations about Wikipedia?

Your Wikipedia and the linguistic community

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  • Is there a language institution for your language, like an Academy, or a club of people interested in your language? Do you have contact with them?
  • InTurkey we have Türk Dil Kurumu (Turkish Language Association) and when we have some doubts about one word or concept we contact to their web page and dictionaries.--Manco Capac 08:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Turkish is a language with many severe debates and conflicts, in the linguistic context. There is an official language institution/authority within Turkey, called Türk Dil Kurumu (TDK, "Turkish Language Association"); however, there are many linguists and writers who denounce most of TDK's ideas and statements. There is also a society, Dil Derneği ("Language Society"), formed by former TDK-officials; some Turkish speakers and some users from our Wikipedia prefer to follow this society's language guidelines and ideas rather than that of TDK's. We have contacted several times with both of these institutions, as well as some free-lance linguists specialised in Turkish, about certain language-related discussions for advice. - Noumenon 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Who (else) supports you?
  • How looks your public outreach for your edition? Do you have flyers, give lectures, trainings etc.?
  • As far as I know we donot have such organisations. --Manco Capac 08:23, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, one of our sysops (tr:User:Tembelejderha) conducted a lecture in 2006, as part of the "Linux and Free Software Festival" organised by the Turkish Linux Users Association. And another one was conducted by tr:User:Denisutku in 2007 for the "Galatasaray University Technology and Communication Days". A number of Turkish Wikipedians have also appeared on Turkish cable TV channels, radio programs, newspapers and tech magazines. Turkish Wikipedia also won the 2006 Golden Spider Web Award for "Best Content". --Pinar 09:09, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Certain users of our Wikipedia, especially those who are university students, have given lectures etc. in several universities, often during internet-related weeks/festivals. One example of these is given above by Pinar. We have also done several interviews with magazines and radio stations, where a few users from our Wikipedia answered questions and gave information regarding Turkish Wikipedia. In addition, due to several publicity efforts by some of our users, we have made it to several Turkish newspapers. - Noumenon 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do you get feedback from readers?
  • Sometimes they put small notes on our Village Pump pages. --Manco Capac 08:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • We get feedback through two ways: some readers post little comments, feedback and/or their thanks on the Village Pump and articles' talk pages and as a second way some readers directly reach (through e-mail or user talk page) to users who have contributed a lot to a discussion or an article, which the reader had read and was interested in. I personally have received several messages by e-mail or by my user talk page, where readers gave feedback or thanked about certain contributions and generally about Wikipedia. - Noumenon 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • What other encyclopedias exist in your language?
  • Of course we ahve all kind of paper encyclopedias such as Britanicca in our book stores. But on the web I think the Turkish Wikipedia is only one. --Manco Capac 08:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are many paper encyclopaedias but most of these paper encyclopaedias are actually translations; translations of Britannica and Larousse are the two most popular encyclopaedias in Turkish language. There is a paper encyclopaedia, made available on-line for quite some time by now, Rehber Ansiklopedisi. However, this encyclopaedia is a little-bit outdated. There are some new on-line encyclopedia projects, mostly powered by wiki software, such as Ansiklopedika. - Noumenon 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Content

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  • Does your edition concentrates on certain topics, like your region and language, or Latin Wikipedia on Roman history and Christianity?
  • User contributions cover a wide range of areas but it is fair to say that some users do seem to limit their contributions to their area of interest or expertise. Not suprisingly, Turkey-related articles take up a bulk of the list of most edited pages. --Pinar 09:19, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Most of our articles are about Turkey-related and Turkish culture-related topics; which is a little unfortunate since you can already find information in Turkish about those topics. However, we do have many articles which cover very different subjects; they just don't make up the majority. - Noumenon 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Did your edition enjoy text donations, for example from older encyclopedias?
  • Unfortunately no --Pinar 09:19, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not really in a general sense but I have personally used texts from several very old anthologies/encyclopaedic works (like Esami and Ottoman Poets of Muallim Naci, about Turkish poets both dated 1890 and in PD) in a few articles I've contributed to. Hence, there are certain old encyclopaedias and anthologies we can use, but it isn't that easy to reach them (no on-line copies are present and it is hard to find a paper copy) and as a result they haven't been used much so far. - Noumenon 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Language

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  • Is there a generally accepted norm about your language (spelling, dictionary, pronunciation)?
  • The Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu) is responsible for standardising and updating our language. Their publications are therefore our primary source of reference. For example, they recently completed a translation of English computing terms, which I find quite useful. In rare cases, we prefer to consult the Turkish Language Society (Dil Derneği) rather than the Turkish Language Association. --Pinar 09:47, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Both yes and no. There is an official authority on language (as I have mentioned previously) TDK - "Turkish Language Association" and there is a society formed by ex-TDK officials, Dil Derneği - "Language Society". Apart from these, there are several very famous and well-received dictionaries, such as Türkçe Sözlük ("Turkish Dictionary") by linguist Ali Püsküllüoğlu. So there are many different norms about Turkish language and they differ on a wide range of topics from spelling to inclusion of certain words into Turkish... In addition, there are certain language traditions/trends, started by some linguists and writers and are now very popular among Turkish-speaking community. These traditions/trends promote certain words over others, as well as offering different guidelines on spelling etc. As a result we have a lot of trouble with respect to language in Turkish Wikipedia since some users promote certain linguistic traditions/trends, institutions or linguists over others... - Noumenon 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • How do you deal with different spellings, dialects etc. (like B.E. lift and A.E. elevator)?
  • We often take into account two things: firstly, which is preferred by most of the linguists and language authorities? Secondly, which is preferred by our community and the Turkish-speaking public in general? Then our community tries to come up with a "middle path" that is both popular with the public and is supported by language authorities. Luckily, there isn't much of a dialect/pronunciation-based problem in Turkish language. But we have different kind of language-related discussion that are similar to those based on dialect-conflicts. For example, often certain synonyms are promoted by language authorities, generally due to some political agendas, but are not really that much popular with the public. We prefer keeping our wording, naming and general language use such that public will understand it fully and will be most familiar with. At the end, one must admit, sometimes we discuss for months a very very simple naming issue and we still have so many language-related discussions which couldn't be ended due to severe conflicts and controversies. - Noumenon 18:28, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See also

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