Re: A proposal to bring together the conlang communities

Jim Henry wrote:
>On Jan 30, 2008 12:24 PM, ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...> wrote:
>
> > As for Wikipedia: it is useful to many (not particularly to me); but it
>is
> > not The Authority and indeed is prone to mistakes and partisanship. I
>fail
> > to see why they're being so snippy about an article on Conlanging.....
(snip)
>
>I don't think there's ever been any serious proposal to delete the main
>article on "Constructed language" or the more specialized articles on
>different kinds of conlang (though there has been discussion about
>splitting or merging or renaming them in various ways; for instance
>there used to be a "Philosophical language" article which became
>a section in an "Engineered language" article).....
Ah. Well, that shows how familiar I am with Wikipedia :-)  I guess I'd seen
the article at some point, but totally blanked it out. Actually it's pretty
much what I had in mind-- EXCEPT that, given the explosion in activity over
the past -- what, 2 decades? -- and the internet, it would now be desirable
to sort of mention the various fora, just in case anyone wanted to pursue it
further.

>...The debates are mostly
>about deleting or keeping articles on conlangs which are well-known
>within the conlang community but unknown outside of it.
That could perhaps be handled with a paragraph "Among the better known
creations within the conlang community are......" with links to their
websites. But that brings up the question, better known according to
whom???? Better might be: "For those interested in further investigation, go
to....[link to a good list of conlangs, perhaps Langmaker's, and/or one yet
to be created]".

Actually their reluctance to allow articles on individual langs. to my view
is OK. Wikipedia is not a vanity press. I seem to recall that someone posted
the entire grammar and lexicon of his IAL, then got in a snit when it was
deleted.........