IJzeren Jan

Bine aţi venit!

Vă mulţumim că v-aţi înregistrat ca utilizator la Wikipedia. Probabil că la început veţi avea multe nedumeriri şi întrebări: cum se modifică articolele, ce putem şi ce nu putem scrie în ele, şi aşa mai departe. Am pregătit o pagină de bun venit (←apăsaţi aici) care vă poate îndruma. De asemenea puteţi să ne întrebaţi la Cafenea. Nu vă fie teamă de greşeli, suntem aici pentru a vă ajuta.

În ce domenii aţi dori să contribuiţi? Poate să fie specialitatea dumneavoastră sau un domeniu pentru care aveţi o pasiune aparte. Aveţi la dispoziţie propria pagină de utilizator (vedeţi sus de tot unde scrie IJzeren Jan) în care să vă prezentaţi pe scurt dacă doriţi.

Ca să vă semnaţi simplu — doar pe paginile de discuţii, nu şi în articole — scrieţi la sfârşitul mesajului patru tilde ~~~~ şi Wikipedia vi le va transforma automat în semnătură şi dată.

Vă aşteptăm cu primele contribuţii! — AdiJapan ☎ 14 februarie 2006 10:14 (EET)

Limba siberiană

Original text:

Limba siberiană e un proiect lingvistic naturalistic bazat pe dialectele siberiene ale limbii ruse.

Grecismele şi latinismele care compun o parte mare a limbei ruse sunt substituite în acest proiect de echivalente slave sau turcisme şi arabisme.

Prelucrarea limbii siberiene s-a început la anul 2005 pe Livejournal de un utilizator a acestuia, samir74.

---

Bună ziua. Aş dori să vă întreb ce este această limbă siberiană. Mai exact, orice articol din Wikipedia trebuie să conţină informaţii care au fost deja publicate în surse de încredere. Ce publicaţie a apărut despre această limbă?

Deocamdată am şters articolul, pentru că avea eticheta de "cercetare originală" de mai multe luni şi nu s-a sinchisit nimeni să dovedească contrariul. Articolul a fost propus pentru ştergere recent şi din nou nu s-a împotrivit nimeni. Ca atare am considerat că nu mai e nimic de făcut. Dacă veniţi totuşi cu dovezi valide putem recupera articolul. Toate cele bune. — AdiJapan ☎ 23 martie 2006 17:43 (EET)

Greetings, Adrian. I'm sorry, I don't know a word of Romanian, so I hope you don't mind if I reply to you in English. If I understood your comment correctly, you deleted the article because it is "original research", that it is not supported by any reliable source, that the tag in question apparently has been around for a while, and that nobody cared to improve the article, right?

Well then, let me first say that I know very little about this language. I don't know the person who created it, I don't know for what precise purpose the language was created, and whether or not it has ever made it to the press. However, I have been aware of its existence for quite a while now. I never really looked at it until today, after I had noticed this article had been submitted for deletion.

In all modesty, I think I can speak about constructed languages with some authority; I've studied them for years, and I've been the author of several conlangs myself. Whatever you may think about Siberian, it is a highly remarkable language. Both grammar and vocabulary are extensive and very detailed, if not huge. In addition to that, it has a very sophisticated website, full of sample texts and the like. As a conlanger I can tell you this: when it comes to quality, it is without any doubt an excellent language! Of course, that doesn't make it necessarily notable. Like I said, I don't know how well-known Siberian is outside its own circle. Besides, we don't even know the name of its creator, which in generally do not treat as a recommendation either. Yet, my gut feeling is that it is not entirely non-notable.

What I understood from one of the tags placed over the page, before it was deleted, is that there's no evidence that the languages exists at all. Well, I thought, thát can be solved easily! And so I added three links, which - I admit - do not prove that the language is notable, but which at least dó prove that it exists.

I guess it all boils down to the question how stringently you apply Wikipedia policies here on .ro. The English version is generally undecided about this, with the final result that many articles about conlangs are deleted, while there's a lot of non-notable stuff around anyway. The German version is extremely intolerant (in fact, even Quenya and Sindarin had to be merged!), while for example the Polish and many of the smaller WPs tend to be more forgiving. For what it is worth: I'm not criticising your decision to delete the article, although I can't deny that I regret it a little. Especially since this constructed languages are quite underrepresented here anyway. My take would be this: everything that was written in the article is verifiable. I personally do not think it was original research either, since the actual original research can be found elsewhere, and this article only describes it. Sure, probably not in any printed and/or edited source, but in the case of constructed languagues I believe we need to be a little tolerant with that, since conlangs rarely make it that far, and those that do make it that far are usually not the best. On the other hand, I dó think the article was way too short and stubby, and would have deserved expansion.

Best regards, IJzeren Jan 23 martie 2006 22:51 (EET)

Hi Jan, and thanks for explaining the situation in detail. I'm afraid, however, that I don't have good news. We have at ro.wp the same strict policy as en.wp in what concerns subject notability and source reliability.

Here is how things are in my perspective -- which I believe is a less subjective one, because I don't have a particular interest in conlangs and I look at all articles with the same eyes:

• Of the three sources mentioned in the article before deletion two were clearly below our reliability standards: LiveJournal is a forum where anyone can post anything anonymously, and "Wikipedia in Siberian" is almost just as bad (actually it is not Wikipedia, but a Wikicities site). In short, a source is considered reliable if it is published by an organization that has some sort of contents checking mechanism. (From this point of view I might add that Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source.) The third source, Сибирска вольгота, was made by the same samir74 (introducing himself as Ярослав Золотарев), and still doesn't qualify as a reliable source, because it doesn't seem to have have that checking mechanism. So your claim that everything that was written in the article was verifiable doesn't stand: Verifiability and source reliability are tightly linked.

• As you certainly know, Wikipedia is here to gather and provide human knowledge. The question of what human knowledge actually means can be sometimes tough, but most cases are pretty straightforward. We rely on experts' published opinions on writing our articles, and I don't see any proof that a linguist has actually published a single word about this Siberian language.

• Original research at Wikipedia is theories, comments, interpretations, etc., that appear in articles without having been previously published in reliable sources. As such, even if a Wikipedia article just repeats information published in a non-reliable source, it still amounts to original research.

• You're asking for tolerance in the field of conlangs, but I don't see why this field would be special and would require an exception to the way we apply the policy. There are plenty of other fields in the same situation, and I believe we should be just as strict everywhere: young poets and writers, new companies, newly created music groups, and so on.

This doesn't mean to say that I don't believe this is a beautiful conlang. It may well be. All I say is that for now it does not qualify to be present at Wikipedia. If Esperanto were invented last year, most probably it wouldn't qualify either. We need to first have an expert's published opinion about any concept before we have an article on it. I'm sorry to disappoint you. Cheers. — AdiJapan ☎ 24 martie 2006 06:42 (EET)

Hi, Adi. As for the three sources, I agree with you about the unreliability of LiveJournals. The text "Wikipedia in ..." was entirely my fault, due to the fact that I don't know Romanian.

The tolerance I'm asking for in the field of conlangs is fairly limited, and mostly restricted to the problem of "printed sources". Thing is, conlanging is not the same as poetry or music. Every art discipline has its own pecularities, and so our policy should take them into consideration. And that's exactly what Wikipedia.en does, see for example this policy discussion. In any case, there seems to be consensus that, although printed references dó add considerably to a language's notability, there are other things that can contribute to it as well. And the fact remains that printed sources about constructed languages are rare, and usually not of the best quality. It's that simple: a young poet will go to a publishing house to get his work published, and so will a beginning rock group with its first samples. But no publishing house will ever publish a grammar of a constructed language, and so, conlangers will much rather publish their work via the net; it's not the money they're after anyway. In other words, where books and other printed sources may be a reliable quality check for music and poetry, they definitely aren't for conlangs.

But look, I'm by no means trying to criticise or revert your decision. I've have no connection at all with the language in question. I'm just offering a neutral point of view and some expertise, that's all. My actual point was that I'm not decided yet as to the notability of this particular language. Best, IJzeren Jan 24 martie 2006 20:08 (EET)

We don't require printed sources. Any reliable source is good. In fact, we prefer online sources because they're easier to access. But they do have to pass the reliability requirements.

Look, I can create a conlang myself, I might even enjoy it. I can mix the few languages I speak and give the result language a nice phonology, an exotic grammar, a never-before-seen writing system, and then publish it, anonymously or not, on the internet. If I do that, does it mean I have created human knowledge? I don't think so. A conlang must be more than that to deserve a mention in Wikipedia. It must be in some way significant. And how do we measure significance? By obtaining an expert's opinion. Hence the need of verifiability. — AdiJapan ☎ 25 martie 2006 02:45 (EET)

Okay, then I think we are in agreement. Of course, I wasn't saying that ány web reference to a conlang would be enough to make a language notable. Far from that! Of course, expert opinions are not always available, but in that case counting google hits will usually give an impression. And from that point of view I'm not convinced yet that Siberian at this point deserves an article. But I do have a gut feeling that at some point in the not-too-distant future it will! ;) Cheers, IJzeren Jan 25 martie 2006 17:11 (EET)

Sure thing, when the Siberian language will become notable / verifiable I'll be glad to have an article on it. — AdiJapan ☎ 25 martie 2006 17:55 (EET)