Re: Langmaker and FrathWiki (was Re: Wikipedia:Verifiability - Mailing lists as sources)

On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 5:16 PM, Sai Emrys <sai@...> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 27, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> wrote:
>  >  You are right.  Now that I think about it, I no longer think that
>  >  merging Langmaker and FrathWiki into one is a good idea.  Langmaker
>  >  is a "third-person" database of conlangs; FrathWiki is a "first-
>  >  person" showcasing facility for conlangs as much as a repository
>  >  for encyclopedic articles on the art of conlanging.
Where are the encyclopedic articles on the art of conlanging
at FrathWiki?  There are a few such articles linked from the main
page at http://conlang.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page, but I can't
easily find such articles, if they exist, on FrathWiki.

The Conlang Wikia seems to have a lot fewer participants than
FrathWiki; maybe the handful of more or less encyclopedic
articles there would have more eyes looking at them and hands
improving them if they were migrated to FrathWiki.

There are a few such encyclopedic articles (kind of sketchy
though) at the Talideon conlang wiki, e.g.,
http://talideon.com/concultures/wiki/?doc=ConlangDesign
That wiki also seems to be less active than FrathWiki,
at least based on the total number of articles.

>  FWIW IMO: Essentially, registry, encyclopedia, and primer are indeed
>  different *functions*, but they need not be different *sites*, and
.....
>  The main article could be, essentially, Wikipedia-ish (if it worked
>  :|) NPOV, third person descriptions. Subpages from that could be the
>  full first-person elaboration and showcase, in some semi-templated
>  form so that it's consistent and well-described.
That makes sense, but as others pointed out, merging two sites that
have a lot of people invested in them is going to be hard to get
consensus about.  It would be easier to try to make interwiki
linking more pervasive.

I agree it would be good to have a site that, either as its sole
purpose or as one primary purpose among several, focused
on getting people to write reviews and commentary about
other people's conlangs (not just brief summaries as on Langmaker).
I reckon it would make more sense to start creating those kinds
of articles on one of the existing conlang wikis rather than
creating a new one for the purpose.

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry