Wikipedia:Conlangs and User:Chevre/Crazy Goat: Difference between pages

Revision as of 18:26, 28 July 2005

Revision as of 14:43, 6 November 2005

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{{Football club infobox |

{{proposal}}

clubname = Crazy Goat |

image = [[Image:Crazy Goat Hattrick.png|120px|logo]] |

The purpose of this page is to form a concensus. Since the foundation of Wikipedia, a number of articles (almost 200) about constructed languages have been written, but not everyone agrees on how notable a conlang must be in order to be kept. On one camp, there are people who think all conlang articles should be deleted (although a generous few of them would let us keep an article on [[Esperanto]] to merge all conlang articles to); on the other extreme, there are those who think how 'notable' an [[artlang]] is should not be criteria for exclusion, as opposed to its 'quality'. We need to set a bar somewhere, or else conlang articles (and conlang VfDs) are going to continue on without rhyme or reason.

fullname = Crazy Goat |

nickname = ''Kozy'', ''Clintonki'' |

The discussion will continue one month from this page's creation, unless discussion is still ongoing. Then, we will vote on proposed criteria for one week.

founded = [[2002]] |

ground = Pastwisko,<br/>[[Poznań]], [[Poland]] |

==Almafeta's original suggestions==

capacity = 66,600 |

These were the original suggestions from my userspace. Don't discuss them in this section; this is for reference.

chairman = [[User:Chevre|Maciej Meller]] |

manager = [[User:Chevre|Maciej Meller]] |

*If at least two of these <b>minor</b> conditions can be met, a conlang is notable:

league = [[Polish V.192|V.192]] |

**Has at least 50 speakers. Few constructed languages get to this mark; this would put it in the top 2% of conlangs.

season = Season 15 |

**A book <i>with an ISBN</i> has been published <i>about</i> the language. That prevents many small-press and unsupported languages (other than those who think it's a good idea) from having articles.

position = 5th |

**A book <i>with an ISBN</i> has been published <i>in</i> the language about a topic other than the language itself. That shows that it's used.

pattern_la1=|pattern_b1=_blackstripes|pattern_ra1=|

**Older than usual. According to [http://www.langmaker.com/db/conlangwebsurveysoftware.htm Langmaker.com], 1950 (post-WWII) was when the personal constructed language really exploded; there are only 78 known conlangs before then, and those should be considered notable for predating the 'conlang explosion.'

leftarm1=A10000|body1=A10000|rightarm1=A10000|shorts1=000000|socks1=FFFFFF|

**Among the 100 most popular conlangs, as determined in [http://www.langmaker.com/conlang.htm Langmaker.com].

pattern_la2=|pattern_b2=_whitestripes|pattern_ra2=|

*If any of the following <b>major</b> conditions can be met, a conlang is notable:

leftarm2=A10000|body2=A10000|rightarm2=A10000|shorts2=FFFFFF|socks2=A10000|

**Been mistaken for a real language.

}}

**Caused controversy. For example, [[Adjuvilo]] was created by an Esperantist to ferment dissent in the Ido movement.

**Has (or had) at least 500 speakers. That would put it in the top 0.5% of conlangs.

**Has an ISO code in any of [[ISO 639-1]], [[ISO 639-2]], or [[ISO 639-3]].

**Inspired a conlang that was notable by one of the major conditions. For example, [[Occidental language|Occidental]] directly inspired [[Interlingua]].

**Has a Wikipedia. I mean, really.

:-- [[User:Almafeta|Almafeta]] 14:28, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

==Webcomics==

Over on [[WP:COMIC]], the suggested criteria include at least 33 weeks of 'active production' of strips, and at least 100 comics. This was seen as being sufficiently selective to prevent each and every brand new webcomic from making its own Wikipedia article.

Should the criteria for conlangs be similar -- i.e., excluding all the innumerous conlangs that were created in one day's or one week's time, but allowing for efforts that have had a significant effort in development and 'finishing'? [[User:Almafeta|Almafeta]] 14:28, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

:I'm not sure that development time would be a good way of choosing whether a conlang is Wikipedia-worthy or not. My conlang has been developed for years now, but no-one knows about it except for some forum users (and myself, of course). I think that Almafeta's "original suggestions" are very good, and probably the ones I'd support the most, unless someone else comes with a good suggestion.<br> However, '''very''' high grammar notability has to be respected in some way. But if a conlang is notable due to unique stuff, it will probably gain reputation, which would make it known. /[[User:Tehvata|Tehvata]] 17:30, 28 July 2005 (UTC) ([http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Tehvata Special:Contributions/[e-mail]])

:The idea expressed in Almafeta's second paragraph is excellent, however it does not feel like the guidelines at the top of this page really allow that (the bias is too much towards auxiliary languages which are intended for use - few languages made for the maker's own amusement will ever gain so much as bilingual speakers, let alone native ones). A key point here is that of permanence - how long has a conlang been around? If a conlang appears on Monday and disappears on Friday, obviously not enough time has passed for the language to be developed.

:I suggest therefore that the limits for conlang articles be set as extensiveness of lexicon, completion of phonology and morphology (a highly subjective distinction; I shall bring the topic up on a conlang forum and see what emerges there) and notoriety outside its "foster" environment (for [[Verdurian]], for instance, the foster environment is the Zompist.com ___domain and accompanying IRC chat and forum). The latter requirement eliminates any bias caused by the magnitude of the community immediately surrounding the language. [[User:ThomasWinwood|ThomasWinwood]] 16:05, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

==Artlangs, ficlangs, and loglangs==

What sort of provisions should be made for conlangs that are primarially artistic (like Eklektu), fictional (like Quenya), logical (like Loglan), or philosophical (like Toki Pona)? Right now, my guidelines aren't good enough for those sorts of languages. (For example, if we made a notability criteria having a certain number of words -- such as the often-quoted 2,500 words needed to achieve conversational fluency in English -- we'd ignore languages like Basic English, Toki Pona, and Baza, all of which are designed to work around an extremely restricted set of words.)

Does anyone have a good idea what would make one of the four above types of conlang notable? [[User:Almafeta|Almafeta]] 18:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

==General Discussion==

What about notability? Would a conlang that's trying to do something interesting and unique be notable despite lack of completion? (Though notoriety outside its environment might cover this.) [[User:DenisMoskowitz|DenisMoskowitz]] 17:21, 2005 July 28 (UTC)

We could set some criteria about completeness of the language's description - lexicon size, whether a certain list of basic questions about its grammar and phonology are answered, etc. I would also propose a minimum corpus size criterion: are there multiple texts written in the language, with some significant total wordage. A language with several thousand words in its lexicon may not really be very complete if the only text available is a few sample sentences in the grammar document, and maybe the Tower of Babel story or the Lord's Prayer. On the other hand, a language designed for lexical parsimoniousness should not be penalized for its small lexicon, if the amount of text written in the language proves that this language is more powerful than its small lexicon would suggest. Corpus size counts extra if some significant part of was written by people other than the creator of the language.

I would also suggest that the minimum number of speakers in Almafeta's criteria should be reduced. 500 speakers are certainly plenty to prove notability, but I think 50 are plenty even without one of the other "minor" criteria; having even 10 or 20 speakers is pretty notable for a naturalistic conlang that was not designed (like most auxlangs) to be easy to learn. --[[User:Jim Henry|Jim Henry]] | [[User talk:Jim Henry|Talk]] 17:37, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

:I guess that depends on the definition of notablity, which I grant is somewhat of an "eye of the beholder" problem. However, let's say I create a board game. I don't get it published or distributed. Me and 20 or so of my friends play it from time to time. If I created a wikipedia article about it, it would likely (and rightly IMO) be deleted. Or take a more common hobby, such as music. We routinely delete articles on non-notable local bands, even though some of them probably have 20-50 people who know about them and see them from time to time at a pub or cafe. Furthermore, I don't speak [[Klingon language|Klingon]], [[Ido]], or [[Westron]], but I've ''heard'' of them. Of course, just as there are hundreds of notable, record-contracted, hit-making bands I've never heard of, I'm sure there are many conlangs I've never heard of that are still notable in some way. I think [[user:Almafeta|Almafeta]]'s criteria are a good standard for establishing that notability. -[[User:Satori|Satori]] 18:06, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

::Well... I don't. That's why I started this discussion. ^^; [[User:Almafeta|Almafeta]] 18:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

:I originally had them at 10 and 100, not 50 and 500; however, this made the possibility of a conlang that is only spoken by one family (or one D&D group for that matter) being considered 'notable'. I arbitrarially bumped the numbers of speakers up by fivefold to make it require more speakers than the creator's closest friends. [[User:Almafeta|Almafeta]] 18:26, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I would like to note that #almea and the KutjaraWiki are not managed by or linked by any way to zompist. #almea hardly ever discusses Verdurian, and the Wiki is not run by Mark. [[User:Cctoide|Cctoide]] 18:23, 28 July 2005 (UTC)