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Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Akan Wikipedia

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The result of the following proposal for closing a WMF project is to KEEP the project. Please, do not modify this page.

I propose that this project be closed due to its complete inactivity and zero content. -- Phillip, 06:54 Tuesday 6 June 2006 (UTC)
I propose to close this discussion within 7 days from now, if there are no other opinions. MF-Warburg(de) 15:30, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion finished, result is KEEP. MF-Warburg(de) 11:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support (10)

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  1. Support unless at least one single speaker of Akan turns up and takes over maintenance. The problem is not just that there is virtually zero content. (I don't understand this language, but the only possibly meaningful content of this wiki are the phrases "kasa mu Wikipedia" (ak:Computer) and "Nkanee Nkyekymu" (ak:Nkontaa)). The real problem is that all the other articles are simply spam or vandalism, (see ak:Category:Candidates for speedy deletion and that there is no one in charge. Spammers can do whatever they like and often their crap will remain there for weeks and months, just because nobody cares. I cannot see how this dead corpse should evolve into an encyclopedia before the return of the Great Prophet Zarquon. Find someone who cares or close it.--Johannes Rohr 14:59, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support. Inactive wikis should be closed, and reopened only if there's sufficient interest under the new language domain request policy. —Nightstallion (?) 05:58, 7 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Support. No where near enough interest.Voice of All 05:24, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Support per above comments. Angr 20:16, 8 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Support, I think. Apparently, the Twi Wikipedia was split off because it was discovered that there were too many differences among the Akan languages. I don't think that we generally have wikis for groups of languages that diverse (again, so I've heard). Ardric47 02:52, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Not quite. The Akan and Twi wikis were set up as part of an en masse creation of Wikipedias for all languages with ISO 639-1 codes without consideration a couple of years ago. --Kwekubo 17:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Support no native speaker contributors. - FrancisTyers 15:40, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Support no articles and native speaker contributors. addional, that language is no longer a single language. -- Alpha for knowledge (Talk / Contributions) 14:15, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Support. Per English Wikipedia Akan is not a language, but the group of languages. There are two languages: Twi (with sub-languages Akuapem and Ashanti) and Fante. So, it seems that is better to have at least two separate Wikipedias (Twi and Fante). --Millosh 15:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    That's not quite true. There are several dialects under the name Akan - see my comment below. --Kwekubo 17:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Support -- Deleteur 16:27, 23 October 2006 (UTC)/ Dead wikipedia[reply]
  10. Support, If it has little or no content and can't meet the requirements to open a new language Wikipedia.--Pmsyyz 01:37, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose (17)

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  1. Strongest Oppose I am a native speaker of Akan (and by the way, there is an "Akan" orthography for writing all the languages called "Akan". At our scale, it would not make sense to create wikipedias in what will be the equivalent in English of British, American, Australian, Indian accents). Naturally I do not think it should be closed. I started putting up content and relaxed because there are other localization battles we (kasahorow.org) are fighting on the free time we do have. For example we just got "Akan" accepted into OOo 2.03 so now we can say to other Akan literates, hey, there is a great word processor that accepts your language so no excuse--start writing! We're soon going to release a language pack for OOo spelling/hyphenation to make that even easier. Of course we'd like to maintain all the West African languages and find people to beef it up to the level that will be sufficiently interesting for other contributors to want to reduce whatever bias we may introduce. There are more fundamental problems that need solving before even text input can become easy to do for regular people. So patience, we'll get to fixing Akan. Or if it's easier to reopen a project than to close it, sure, close it for now, we'll reopen it as soon as we have the capacity to maintain it.
You have not contributed any articles in that wiki at all - this proves that you are not a native speaker! --132.181.7.1 22:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Update -- Kwekubo, you're on track. In fact, Akan is "the" language, "Twi", "Akuapem", "Fanti", etc are really "speech forms". Ethnologue.com already acknowledges this. PS: Non-contribution of articles proves little about my NL abilities :) But as GerardM notes, we are working on getting a sustainable content-generation scheme for the Akan Wikipedia. You'll see fruits shortly. -- paa.kwesi
  1. Oppose I don't see the logic behind closing a wiki down because there aren't much content, less content means less usage and much less server load, these wikis being of a language with a small native online population, means that it is exactly these wikis that need the most help. --Shibo77 09:28, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Node ue 05:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC) Why should we close wikis? we have pretty much unlimited space. we should keep them around for the time when someone decides to contribute[reply]
  3. Strong oppose See my comment for Inupiaq language wikipedia Kneiphof 19:19, 22 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Oppose on the grounds that in the short future, I will be funding for translating some English Wikipedia articles into Akan. That way, Akan Wikipedia will be less of an embarrassment. Messedrocker 19:48, 4 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose. See comment below. --Kwekubo 17:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oppose Koavf 17:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Oppose. Wait. Maybe enough native users will arise. Hégésippe | ±Θ± 16:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Oppose As per Hégésippe. Regards, --Klemen Kocjančič (Talk - Fast reply) 23:14, 21 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Oppose Counterproductive to shut down because of inactivity: how's the wiki supposed to get active if it doesn't exist? /The Phoenix 08:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oppose 1. The potential user/contributor community is quite large, but not yet well connected. 2. Akan speakers with connections and time/interest to contribute may not be aware of the need/potential here. 3. The particular issue of Akan and constituent tongues (can I say that?) is one that is not unlike the situation of many African languges and is one that needs to be worked through (see comments below). A12n
  11. Oppose closing. I refer to the first poster's and Messedrocker's comments. --Lumijaguaari 19:39, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Oppose GerardM 13:54, 10 September 2006 (UTC). I am busy breathing life in this project. This is going to happen, including the localisation into Akan.[reply]
  13. Strong oppose A native Akan speaker has stepped up to edit and maintain the site. Other Akan speakers are now being recruited and trained to contribute. Given these developments, this discussion should be terminated immediately. Malangali 14:48, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Oppose. To put up material for a wiki requires thorough research and since people are tasked to get work done there is no need to cut out their interest. African languages and not only Akan form part and parcel of the Akan wiki. Most people on the project now are partimers/freelancers and with time their labours will yield fruit. We are sure to tell our own stories as lions but not from the viewpoint of the hunter. --user:dfee
  15. Oppose. Kazak 03:13, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Oppose Just because there are not many users there now does not mean there will ever be users. Instead maybe we should wait a few years, and if it still is very inactive then we should delete it. That is my oppinion. Peace:) --La gloria è a dio 19:17, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Oppose. There may be users in the future that speak the language. Give it a couple more years. Sr13 07:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion

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  1. Control Necessary In principle I am in favor to keep it open, because is no expense at all, however it seems necessary to exerce some control over it, because the contents of that wiki is shameful. It doesn't seem to exist a single article with any contents at all. A couple of them have titles in portuguese (which I speak) and I suppose a few others are not in Akan (which I wouldn't be able to recognize). Without some moderation I find it very difficult that actual Akan speakers may start to contribute seriously to that wiki. --Guioc 13:01, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Comment. Akan is something of a special case. It is made up of several (more than ten - not two as stated above) major dialects spoken throughout central and southern Ghana, which are all mutually intelligible and none of which are more 'standard' than the others; while some have proposed a standard version of Akan (cf links on the English Wikipedia Akan article), this remains only an academic proposal and is not actually spoken. So, to provide content for Akan speakers, we would either need one Wikipedia which contains articles written in many dialects (which I imagine would be unworkable - consider style guides etc), or we would need a separate Wikipedia for each dialect. I would propose we make ak.wikipedia.org a portal for Akan Wikipedias, and then set up Wikipedias for the dialects according to demand. --Kwekubo 17:47, 12 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. The larger picture. 1. There is an effort to develop a common orthography for Akan languages/dialects, and to treat it as a single language with variants (this is how I understand some of the work of the Kasahorow project). Not sure how this would affect the portal idea, but it may be that any solution should be considered as evolutionary and designed to be flexible. 2. Akan is also a case similar in some respects to what one finds with a number of African languages. There are often languages with variant forms (dialects) for which there is not a clear standard, and also very closely related tongues for which entirely separate wikis mihgt not make sense. Ultimately this is for user communities (speakers in general, activists) and language specialists (linguists, planners [though language policy/planning wrt African languages is often not getting much attention in African governments]) to work this out, but Wikipedia, by its positive & inclusive approach to language diversity is kind of in the middle of things. There's no backing out, though: Maybe the process of working out an approach to Akan, Twi, Fante and others in the group can contribute not only to a functional approach for that language (or "metalanguage" as Ethnologue likes to put it) but also for other African tongues. A12n 31 July 2006
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