Tell us about the Wikipedia of Ripuarian languages

This page belongs to the project Tell us about your Wikipedia.

Questionnaire

Contributors

• Wikimedia Statistics can be difficult to interpret. What is your impression, how many steady contributors do you have?
  • That dependes. Not counting anonymous IP contributors, currently, we have two approximately daily writers, we had at most about six or seven contributors writing more often than weekly over a considerable time period, there is likely more than a dozen infrequent contributors, who nevertheless come back regularly, and we have a pretty huge number of stready small contributions from writers of other wikipediæ feeding us interwiki links, images, minor corrections and additions, etc. --Purodha Blissenbach 20:27, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
• Are your contributors mostly native speakers?
  • yes. --Purodha Blissenbach 20:27, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
• Where do your contributors live (regions/country)?
  • As far as I know, in the Rhineland in Germany, about where Ripuarian Dialects prevail. At least two are native Rhinelanders living abroad. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:18, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
• How common is it that your contributors meet in real life?
  • Within three years, two of us have met once. --Purodha Blissenbach 20:27, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Other Wikipedias

• Do you have special contacts with another Wikipedias (maybe in related languages)?
  • Some of us write in other Wikipedias as well, I am active in all Wikipedias, plus Palatinean test, mostly writing in German, Low German, and a bit in related languages, also supportig some small Wikipedias techincally, like Amharic, Nahuatl, Napulitano, and others[1], and operating an interwiki bot in all but 3 Wikipedias[2] --Purodha Blissenbach 20:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
• Do you translate a lot from other Wikipedias? Which ones?
  • I translate from English, Standard German, Nederlands, Limburgs, and occasionally others. While I do collect disambiguations, and abbreviations, etc. from dozens of other language Wikipediæ, hardly 4% of my contributions are translated from elsewhere. I tend to translate (part of) my own stuff in several languages. --Purodha Blissenbach 20:41, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Organization and support

• Is there a Wikimedia chapter in your country? How does your language relate to it?
  • Yes. Currently, we know of each other, and that is it. --Purodha Blissenbach 20:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
• Are there work groups in other organizations about Wikipedia?
  • Not to my knowledge. --Purodha Blissenbach 20:43, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Your Wikipedia and the linguistic community

• 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?
  • Part of, several institutions. Little contact, planned to intensify. --Purodha Blissenbach 20:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
• Who (else) supports you?
• What does the public outreach for your edition look like? Do you have flyers, give lectures, trainings etc.?
  • None (yet). --Purodha Blissenbach 20:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
• Do you get feedback from readers?
  • Little. --Purodha Blissenbach 20:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
• What other encyclopedias exist in your language?
  • None known. There are dictionaries, word books, grammars, etc. for several dozens of our languages. --Purodha Blissenbach 20:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Content

• Does your edition concentrates on certain topics, like your region and language, or Latin Wikipedia on Roman history and Christianity?
• Did your edition enjoy text donations, for example from older encyclopedias?
  • No, there aren't any. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:27, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Language

• Is there a generally accepted norm about your language (spelling, dictionary, pronunciation)?
  • There are some 100 different Ripuarian languages, mostly having no clear cut spelling. Two basic traditional spelling systems, Dutch based, and German based, coexist with more phonetically orientated ones. Somes languages, such as Kölsch have a variety of spellings suggested by various academics over time. A common phonec spelling, Rheinische Dokumenta, exists but is hardly used; before it has been completely added to UNICODE, we cannot not even fully support it. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:16, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
• How do you deal with different spellings, dialects etc. (like B.E. lift and A.E. elevator)?
  • We mark most articles, or sections thereof, being in a certain dialect, and spelling, putting them in appropriate categories, too.
    For some page titles, we list other dialects/spellings in a box, if that makes sense. If ethymology justifies, we also include words with links to our neighboring language Wikipediæ, such as German, Low German, Nedersaksisch, Limburgian, Dutch, (West)-Flemish, Wallon, French, Luxemburgian, Palatinean, or Latin. When there are variants, we have them redirect to an article. Few articles exist parallel, in two dialects, or spellings. We allow links going via redirects, when an author chooses to use another dialect, or spelling, than the target article page title is in.
    There are quite a few disambiguation pages in part owed to variant spellings, or overlapping spellings between dialects.
    In discussions, and project pages, we most usually don't care to mark our contributions with a dialect spelling, though we do have the tools to do so.
    We did have harsh arguments about spellings in the past, part of which was owed to misunderstandings.
    The MediaWiki interface messages of our Wikpedia are completely localized and well maintained. We are preparing for having as many dialects/spelling variants as we find translators, and maintainers, for. --Purodha Blissenbach 22:16, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

See also

• Tell us about your Wikipedia

Links

• Main/Front page of your Wikipedia: http://ksh.wikipedia.org
• Translation statistics http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Portal:Ksh