Re: Language policy agreement in the Norwegian Wikipedia community

Sometimes Thunderbird sorts my mail in reverse chronological order; I 
wouldn't be surprised if that happened here.

Bob

On 4/1/2012 3:21 AM, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> I've certainly made that mistake before! Although, 7 years late is
> impressive... Where did you find the email?
>
> I'm curious now, does anyone know what ended up happening with the Norsk
> Wikipedias?
> On Apr 1, 2012 9:16 AM, "Gerard Meijssen"<[email protected]>  wrote:
>
>> Hoi,
>> It did not trigger me that it was that old. If I had I would not have
>> answered it.
>> Thanks,
>>     Gerard
>>
>> On 1 April 2012 02:22, M. Williamson<[email protected]>  wrote:
>>
>>> Gerard, on my e-mail this shows as a reply to an e-mail thread from 2005.
>>> Was this your intention?
>>>
>>>
>>> 2012/3/21 Gerard Meijssen<[email protected]>
>>>
>>>> Hoi,
>>>> There is a process for the start of new projects and for the start of
>> new
>>>> language versions. This is a formal process and it does not involve the
>>>> voting of people. What it does involve is the existence of languages
>>>> recognised in the ISO-639-3. As such Norwegian, or the no /nor code is
>>>> considered a macro-language and does not qualify for a new project.
>>>>
>>>> It is explicitly understood that by no.wikipedia.org we expect it to
>> be
>>>> Bokmal.
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>      GerardM
>>>>
>>>> http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Portal:No
>>>>
>>>> 2005/4/25 Bjarte Sørensen<[email protected]>
>>>>
>>>>> Dear all,
>>>>>
>>>>> Most of you would be aware of some of the discussions that have
>>> occurred
>>>>> around Wikipedia in the Norwegian languages. Since the last round of
>>>>> discussions on this list, there has been a lot of internal debate, as
>>>>> well as what seems to be a fairly widely accepted agreement following
>>>>> voting.
>>>>>
>>>>> This e-mail intends to, after a brief recap on Norwegian language and
>>>>> wikipedia issues, take those interested through the latest
>> development
>>>>> and will stake out the road ahead. It is also intended to inform the
>>>>> international community about the current agreement on no.wikipedia,
>> so
>>>>> as to prevent misunderstandings in the future.
>>>>>
>>>>> Finally, we will mention an unfortunate reaction to the vote by a
>> small
>>>>> number of users at the Norwegian Bokmål/Riksmål (no:) wikipedia who
>>> want
>>>>> to disregard the result of the voting and are planning to create a
>>>>> _third_ Norwegian wikipedia with the sole mission of mixing the
>>> contents
>>>>> of the two current Norwegian versions.
>>>>>
>>>>> == A short language history of Norway ==
>>>>>
>>>>> Spoken Norwegian ("norsk") (ISO 639-2 alpha-2 code "no") is in a
>> fairly
>>>>> unique situation compared to most other languages of the world in
>> that
>>>>> it has two widely accepted written standards, Bokmål (ISO 639-2
>> alpha-2
>>>>> code "nb") and Nynorsk (ISO 639-2 alpha-2 code "nn"). By national
>>>>> legislation they are both regarded as official written forms of
>>>>> Norwegian. In addition, many people still make a distinction between
>>>>> Bokmål and its precursor which still is in use, Riksmål.
>>>>>
>>>>> Briefly speaking, Bokmål and Riksmål are descendants of the Danish
>>>>> written language. Until the 1800s, Danish was the only widely used
>>>>> written language in Norway as a result of four centuries of union
>> with
>>>>> Denmark. With increasing independence came a wish to norwegianise the
>>>>> Danish standard, with Knud Knudsen at the forefront for changing
>> parts
>>>>> of the vocabulary and orthographics. Thus, Riksmål, and later Bokmål,
>>>>> resulted. These forms together are today probably used by about 90%
>> of
>>>>> Norway's population, or somewhere around 3,500,000 people.
>>>>>
>>>>> Parallel to this development, a new written standard was created by
>>> Ivar
>>>>> Aasen. He travelled extensively throughout Norway, and based his new
>>>>> language, landsmål, on the grammar and vocabulary of dialect samples
>>>>> from around the country. This was later renamed Nynorsk. Modern
>> Nynorsk
>>>>> differs significantly from modern Bokmål, and may be linguistically
>>>>> looked upon as as different (or as similar if you like) as Swedish is
>>> to
>>>>> Danish. For English or Dutch/German speakers, the differences may be
>>>>> likened to those between (Lowland) Scots and English or Low German
>> and
>>>>> Dutch. Today it is estimated that about 500,000-600,000 people have
>>>>> Nynorsk as their first written language.
>>>>>
>>>>> More information about the Norwegian language history can be found in
>>>>> English, German, French, Spanish or Portuguese on the website of the
>>>>> Norwegian Language Council:
>>>>> http://www.sprakrad.no/templates/Page.aspx?id=653
>>>>>
>>>>> == A short history of Wikipedia in Norwegian ==
>>>>>
>>>>> The first Norwegian wikipedia started 26 November 2001 on the
>> subdomain
>>>>> no.wikipedia.org. As most wikipedias, its contributor and article
>>> count
>>>>> started really picking up around the end of 2003. At the time, it
>>>>> accepted all written standards of Norwegian, although the amount of
>>>>> Nynorsk was minimal. There were already several debates about the
>>>>> feasibilty and appropriateness of keeping the two languages united on
>>>>> one Wikipedia. On 31 July 2004 a Wikipedia for Nynorsk was created.
>>>>>
>>>>> The creation of nn:, however, split the community at no: wikipedia.
>>> Many
>>>>> felt that given that Nynorsk now had its own wikipedia, no: should
>>>>> become a Bokmål/Riksmål Wikipedia only. Others disapproved and
>> claimed
>>>>> that there was no need to change and that it should continue its
>>>>> language policy of accepting all and keep its interwiki link name of
>>>>> "Norsk".
>>>>>
>>>>> Nynorsk Wikipedia soon proved a success, as it within the next few
>>>>> months gathered several people who had felt uncomfortable in the
>>>>> (mainly) Bokmål environment at no:. The name displayed in interwiki
>>>>> links became "Norsk (nynorsk)" (languages are not spelt with upper
>> case
>>>>> in Norwegian). To date it continues to be one of the fastest growing
>>>>> wikipedias, with a steady article increase, now at over 6000 articles
>>>>> and>50 editors with more than 10 edits since arrival.
>>>>>
>>>>> == Votes ==
>>>>>
>>>>> The issue of no:'s language policy has come up time and again, and a
>>>>> vote was held in March ([[:no:Wikipedia:Målform]]) as to which policy
>>> to
>>>>> adapt. Independent of the method of the tally (whether or not to
>>> include
>>>>> new contributors etc.) there was a majority for switching to a
>>>>> Bokmål/Riksmål only language policy (50% for Bokmål/Riksmål, 43.2%
>> for
>>>>> Bokmål/Riksmål/Nynorsk/Høgnorsk, and 6.8% for the official variants
>>>>> Bokmål/Nynorsk only).
>>>>>
>>>>> Following this result, there is now going to be a vote on which
>>>>> interwiki link name will most appropriately reflect the current
>>> language
>>>>> policy of no:. The result of this vote will most likely be either
>>> "Norsk
>>>>> (bokmål)" or "Norsk (bokmål/riksmål)".
>>>>>
>>>>> Understandably, there has also been a debate as to whether the
>>> subdomain
>>>>> should change from "no" to "nb", as this is the correct
>> representation
>>>>> of Bokmål according to ISO 639-2. However, there is some resentment
>>>>> towards such a move and currently a general acceptance in letting the
>>>>> Bokmål wikipedia stay at "no". The alternative some have suggested
>> is a
>>>>> server-side redirect from "no" to "nb", in the same way that "nb"
>> today
>>>>> is a server-side redirect to the equivalent page on "no".
>>>>>
>>>>> == Summary of the problem ==
>>>>>
>>>>> Unfortunately, a small group of users (who all write Bokmål/Riksmål)
>>> are
>>>>> ignoring the results from the vote, and are claiming they want to
>>>>> re-establish a wikipedia for all written standards of Norwegian. They
>>>>> claim they have been in touch with people centrally in Wikimedia
>>>>> (developers? stewards?) and that they have so far received positive
>>>>> comments. With this email, we would like to state the fact that there
>>>>> have been no official decisions about creating a third Norwegian
>>>>> wikipedia containing both Bokmål and Nynorsk, it is merely an
>>> unofficial
>>>>> initiative from a small group of users which started a sign-on list
>> at
>>>>> [[:no:Bruker:Norsk_Wikipedia]]. A spontaneous list with signatures
>>>>> against this activity was immediately created at
>>>>> [[:no:Wikipedia-diskusjon:Fellesnorsk]]. The process of creating a
>>> third
>>>>> Norwegian wikipedia has not gone through a voting process in any of
>> the
>>>>> two existing Norwegian wikipedias (no: and nn:) and can not be
>>>>> considered as a decision by the Norwegian Wikipedia community.
>>>>>
>>>>> We believe the creation of a third wikipedia under the Wikimedia
>>>>> foundation would have a serious and unfortunate impact on the
>> existing
>>>>> wikipedias in Norwegian, no: and nn:, and would undermine Wikipedia's
>>>>> reputation in Norway. This being said, we are all for extensive co-
>>>>> operation between the four Scandinavian language wikipedias
>> (including
>>>>> Swedish and Danish), as evident by the recent creation of
>>>>> [[:meta:Skanwiki]], the Scandinavian meta-pages, and the use of
>>> featured
>>>>> articles from neighbour wikipedias.
>>>>>
>>>>> == Conclusion ==
>>>>>
>>>>> Hopefully, this letter will help people better understand the
>>>>> complicated language situation of the Norwegian Wikipedia community,
>> so
>>>>> as to give a background on which discussion can take place on this
>> list
>>>>> in the future, such as the inevitable debate following a possible
>>>>> request for a re-establishment of the common (and third!) Norwegian
>>>>> Wikipedia.
>>>>>
>>>>> > From the community of no.wikipedia.org and nn.wikipedia.org,
>>>>>
>>>>> Bjarte Sørensen [[:meta:User:BjarteSorensen]]
>> (Administrator/bureaucrat
>>>> on
>>>>> nn:)
>>>>> Lars Alvik [[:no:User:Profoss]] (Administrator/bureaucrat on no:)
>>>>> Øyvind A. Holm [[:no:User:Sunny256]] (Administrator on no:)
>>>>> Onar Vikingstad [[:no:User:Vikingstad]] (Administrator on no:)
>>>>> Jon Harald Søby [[:no:User:Jhs]] (Administrator on no:)
>>>>> Chris Nyborg [[:no:User:Cnyborg]] (Administrator on no:)
>>>>> Guttorm Flatabø [[:no:User:Dittaeva]] (Administrator on nn:)
>>>>> Gunleiv Hadland [[:meta:User:Gunnernett]] (Administrator on nn:)
>>>>> Jarle Fagerheim [[:nn:User:Jarle]] (Administrator on nn:)
>>>>> Øyvind Jo Heimdal Eik [[:en:User:Pladask]] (Administrator on nn: and
>>> no:)
>>>>> Kristian André Gallis [[:nn:User:Kristaga]]
>>>>> Vegard Wærp [[:no:User:Vegardw]]
>>>>> Nina Aldin Thune [[:no:User:Nina]]
>>>>> Thor-Rune Hansen [[:no:User:ThorRune]]
>>>>> Claes Tande [[:no:User:Ctande]]
>>>>> Arnt-Erik Krokaa [[:no:User:AEK]]
>>>>> Rune Sattler [[:no:User:Shauni]]
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Wikipedia-l mailing list
>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>>>>>
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