Wikipedia talk:Conlangs/Alternative proposal

message: In the recent course of discussions, I've been infulenced back in the direction of the point I made earlier that there are as many ways for a conlang to be notable as there are conlangs. This, to some extent explains why we've got so many suggested criteria. To a large extent, we're chasing our own tails by trying to enumerate a hard and fast set of criteria. On the other hand, we do need something we can use to put a stop to the recent wave of rampant deletionism. I'm suggesting that a conlang should have an article if there are verifiable reasons why it is potentially of interest to persons other than its creator. These reasons should be elaborated in the article, with reference to sources. Our suggested criteria should be given as a list examples of reasons why a conlang might be of interest, with the caveat that this list is not considered exhaustive, merely illustrative. If an article fails to verifiably demonstrate that the conlang is of interest, the first recourse should be to attempt to improve it or to find somebody who can. Only if this is found to be impossible should deletion be considered.
If somebody can draw up a full draft on the lines of what I've writtten above, we can all hack at it until we're happy with the wording, and then release it as the policy.
While I'm at it, can anybody add anything to the articles I've creted for Teonaht, Kélen and Lingua Ignota? All worthy languages.
Pete Bleackley --132.185.132.12 09:34, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I like this idea a lot. DenisMoskowitz 16:06, 2005 August 31 (UTC)
I pretty much sympathise with what you write, Pete, but I don't think it is workable. Paradoxically, it is essentially the same thing as the current status quo. Don't get me wrong: I'm not at all that happy with the whole concept of conlang notability. But we are building and maintaining an encyclopedia here, we want to have a good, healthy conlang section, and therefore we need to draw a line somewhere. And we better make that line objectively verifiable, otherwise we keep having the situation that anybody can yell "non-notable, conlang", and no matter what counterarguments are brought in, people who don't care for conlangs will join the choir. Mind, "notable" means in this case: suitable for inclusion in wikipedia; it says nothing about the quality of a language. 
Furthermore, I can't agree with your proposal to allow anything that MIGHT be interesting to somebody else but the conlanger him/herself. That brings us in conflict with several of the WP pillars (like "WP is not an art gallery", "WP is not a soapbox", etc.). Any auxlanger who just reinvented Esperanto will argue that his project is going to save the world; and any artlanger who just created the weirdest of all weird languages will argue that his project could be interesting to people who like weird languages. 
Another thing is that I disagree with several of the criteria mentioned in the list. For example, the "has a unique script" criterion IMO has no influence at all on the importance of a language. The list was basically an inventory of criteria proposed by several people.
I do however agree with your remark that an article should always mention WHY the language is important or interesting. In all conlang articles that I wrote for the Dutch wikipedia, that's what I have tried to do anyway. 
BTW, Pete, why don't you take a user name? Now your votes and arguments are constantly ignored by anyone who doesn't like what you are saying. Frankly, with your state of service you deserve better!
--IJzeren Jan 20:15, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm fairly new to wikipedia, so I wanted to find my feet a bit before creating an account. But since people seem to be valuing my contributions ... --PeteBleackley 10:33, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Let's use them all

message: Okay, I looked at the various questions in my proposal, specifically from the point of view in how far they can be gamed by the creator of a conlang. This is what I think:
Number of speakers. Not very easy to manipulate. But it's pretty hard to get reliable data about the number of speakers of a language. Not only because we'd first need to define what level of proficiency of required, but also because it is virtually impossible to check it (esp'lly without original research). All in all, if someone claims more than 10 speakers, I think he or she better come up with some evidence.
Completeness. Well, if you build a conlang, you create words and expand the grammar. That's normal. I can't see how this would be "gaming the system".
:For the non-conlangers out there: creating a complete grammar that isn't a clone of the grammar of your native tongue is very hard work! As for words, it is rather easy to spot a dictionary made with a random generator and a wordlist. Such conlangs even have a name (that I personally consider rather pejorative in fact): relex. This is why the "haha only serious" made up words that have occured in comments and in various RfDs are so ridiculous, only serving to prove that the commenters don't know what they are talking about. Words in a language never exist in a vacuum. If they aren't part of a system, it's not a language. In fact, if anyone managed to create a language whose words did exist in a vacuum, that in itself would be so notable that it alone would be a good enough reason for inclusion! Oh, and we should arrange for some way to send flowers to the asylum the inventor was locked up in, or ask him/her to repeal the third law of termodynamics while he/she was still on a roll. --Kaleissin 14:15:57, 2005-09-01 (UTC)
Uniqueness. All these things belong to the character of the language. I honestly cannot see how one would create a unique script, solely in order to score here. Besides, I personally have some doubts in how far uniqueness can really contribute to notability. To me personally, only the "exponent of a particular genre" is a valid criterion. And that's not something that can be gamed.
:There are however people that only create scripts... and for some funny reason they usually have one set of 26 letters or two sets of 26 letters each... not copying your native system is hard. --Kaleissin 14:15:57, 2005-09-01 (UTC)
Publication. Yes, this can be manipulated by the creator himself. We have both editions without an ISBN, and editions with an ISBM that belong to the so-called "vanity press". But frankly, even those DO in my opinion add up to a language's notability. If you think that's not enough to warrant inclusion, then simply vote "MINOR".
Reputation.
*The Top-200 at Langmaker.com - I don't know precisely how this works, and I understand why Jeffrey doesn't want to give details. All in all, I dó think it can be gamed, although I'm not sure to which degree; I have the impression that it requires quite some work for a new conlang to get it into the Top-100.
*Caused controversy - Even if the creator dóes manage to cause controvery, I think this adds up to notability.
*Googlehits, Independent discussions - Very easy to manipulate. But a little research can unmask quite of lot of creator-inspired discussion, if necessary.
*Attention in the popular/scientific media - Hard to manipulate. Of course, an artist who does nothing to make his work known will probably have less success than someone who does. But that's normal and not restricted to conlanging.
*Inspired other conlangs - As a means of gaming the system? No.
*Established notability inside and/or outside of the conlanger community - To a certain degree perhaps. But this might just be where the Conlang Panel we discussed comes in.
Year of creation. No, impossible.
ISO code. I know far too little about ISO 639-3. The shortish list of conlangs that have an ISO 639-3 code looks pretty haphazard to me. And apparently it hasn't been worked on for years. The way it looks now, there is no way of manipulating this. Once the list gets some form, we might reconsider this point. But for now, I doesn't hurt.
Wikipedia. At present, it is so difficult to create a new wikipedia even in a natlang with few speakers, that I don't think there's anything to fear here. Should that change, so that anybody can have a wikipedia for any language, we could of course change the rules. But in the meantime, gaming this is completely impossible.
Notability by proxy. I honestly can't see how the creator of a conlang can manipulate this.
All in all, I think it's not at all that bad. Only Publication and Google Hits can really be manipulated by a conlang creator into some kind of fake notability. In all other cases I believe an "increase notability" is real. --IJzeren Jan 12:07, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Gaming the criteria