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Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Yiddish Wikipedia

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Kept it's clear where this is going, the project won't be closed. Yonatanh 00:52, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since the discussion activity has come to a standstill, I would like to propose to declare this discussion officially closed within seven days from now. --Johannes Rohr 08:36, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I propose to delete the Yiddish Wikipedia. There is no bureaucrat, no admins (except three external admins who are there to solve the many disputes[1]) and it also apears that there are no trustworthy potential admins. Also, and most importantly, it seems like the active members of this site don't know what Wikipedia is all about as each user has is own agenda. There disputes and arguments have recently reached the talk pages on the Hebrew Wikipedia. These discussion say one thing, and one thing only: Close this Wiki now. I therefore

Arguments in favour

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  1. Support. Yonidebest 14:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Support. --אלזוז 16:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Arguments against

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  1. Oppose. we have 3 admins. the hebrew wiki must be closed they have abuse of power from its admins our admins are respected users from meta and he and English. Danny Wool who used to work fro the foundation is one of our founders and still leads us all 3 sysops were elected unanimously by our community. the only reason it has reached the he pages is because 2 of those admins are active members and admins on hebrew this is no reason to close it. Every wiki has edit wars this is the fuel and vibe and lively community with difering opiniuons. Not a reason to delete the project, but to get active and give it more admins.--יודל 14:26, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Oppose. Premature proposal, this issue is still under thorough discussion. There are many existent projects smaller than the Yidish-Wiki and I do believe, from what the Yidish-wikipedians have said recently, that there's still hope for this project. Indeed there already are quite valuable pieces of information in the Yiddish-Wiki. The Relativity of The Truth 14:36, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Oppose. most of the 3,500 articles on the Yiddish Wiki are totally encyclopedic. anyway is important to choose some new sysops who speake the Yiddish language. Election for new sysops --Jiddisch 16:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC).[reply]
  4. Oppose. The language clearly deserves its own Wikipedia. Kph 23:35, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Oppose - I don't believe that conflicts, however big, in a project, merit the closure of the project. "it seems like the active members of this site don't know what Wikipedia is all about as each user has is own agenda" is true for *many* projects and wouldn't merit the closure of them all. Yonatanh 15:32, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  6. This is an active Wikipedia with thousands of good articles. It is the high of irresponsibility to propose closing an active project because of internal disputes. The internal problems can be worked out just like in any Wikipedia. This proposal is absolutely ridiculous and should be speedily rejected. Dovi 18:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  7. --MF-Warburg(de) 19:09, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Oppose -- are you kidding? This is an active project. Also, somebody's doing a good job keeping it clearer of spam than virtually all of the other wikipedias from smallest to largest. Recently, I've been investigating several crosswiki spam rings that have spammed across most of the 250+ wikipedias. By the time I get the domain blacklisted and then go to clean up links, they're always already gone from the Yiddish wikipedia. Somebody's doing something right. --A. B. (talk) 19:51, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Oppose. This request was clearly made with a malicious intent; the fact that there is no "Yiddish" sysop doesn’t make it a candidate to be closed. This is an issue that should be dealt with ASAP, but proposing that it should be closed is completely non sense and absurd. This request should be deleted. --(yi)Jeo100 03:25, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment Comment: We do have 3 respected sysops. [2] And all 3 of them do indeed understand Yiddish. Please don't lie. Danny is even our founder and first user.--יודל 03:36, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment Comment It is not nice from you to attack me when the whole proposal is based on the fact that we don’t have our own sysops, only 3 “external” sysops. This is another example of a abuser.--Jeo100 21:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    They are not external at all, they were elected with more votes then all sysops in our history. and danny is a user in yiddish from day one.--71.249.41.23 22:54, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Oppose. It will get there (with all other good wp) although it needs a lot of work.--Shmaltz 05:18, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  11. Oppose. There are many good articles and I plan on adding much more in the near future - --Ylebovits 06:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Oppose. There is only ONE truboulemaker. I am confident we can make him harmless, if the Yiddish speaking editors can have one of their own as SYSOP, we can flurish and blossom again with harmony and peace and a lot of useful informaton.--אלץ ווייסער 20:07, 3 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Oppose. A solution must be found, like Regulations and policies need to be tightened etc.--Joel.m 19:53, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Oppose--Yiddish wikipedia 15:17, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  15. Oppose Unjustified and unreasonable proposal for closure. Yiddish is spoken by Three Million people and the Wikipedia edition already has Three-thousand Six-hundred and Five articles. --Philip J 21:32, 5 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

General discussion

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  • Not sure. I'm one of the three admins on loan as "regents" from he-wiki to yi-wiki. Yi-wiki is very troubled. It has many dire problems. It is ridden by horrible relations between warring sides. One of these sides appears to be one person who goes by many names and has a very strong feeling of ownership about the project. But there are sociological reasons above and beyond this which fail this wiki. Here's my own analysis of the subject:
  1. It is too small to allow for a functioning, varied and independent community. There are a handful of active users, many of them lacking the peaceful and optimistic personality that makes for good wikipedians.
  2. More importantly, because of the unique situation of the Yiddish language and the community of its speakers, it is in special trouble. One could roughly say that Yiddish is spoken worldwide by two groups of people: the first is ultra-Orthodox Jews, mainly in the USA and in Israel, who refuse to use Hebrew. The second is a very small group of young, educated people, mostly Jewish, who are interested in resurrecting the language "artificially" and restoring Yiddish culture to its past glory. There are also other Yiddish speakers elsewhere, mainly old or very old, and we cannot expect much of them. The first group I mentioned is ideologically very far from wanting to develop an encyclopedia even remotely resembling any of the big wikipedias. This point is EXTREMELY important and I'm not sure the foundation realizes it. For whatever religious or ideological reasons, they are not interested in non-Jewish, "secular" issues in any depth, and are also often lacking the Weltanschaaung and the knowledge to write on such topics. Even on religious, Jewish issues they refrain from writing, because they perceive it as a kind of religious taboo or faux pas to write about such issues on the internet. So the only subjects of interest left are what I would call "community news" - writing on topics of very limited, non-encyclopedic scope, mainly inside their very closed communities. The other group I mentioned, that of those interested in a renaissance of the language, is too small to make a difference. They would, in theory, if undisturbed by the first group, be able to very slowly build an exemplary encyclopedia over a long period of time. They are difficult to locate, mobilize and are generally not very well organized or knowledgeable of the wikipedia. Harel 14:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes Yiddish is closed primitive religious and very very small but keep in mind we are from the first hundredth biggest wikipedia out of the 250 and in speakers we are probably the smallest amount of people. this shows success and unbelievable growth relative to our situation. I beg u harel please believe in the future. the wole idea of wikimedia foundation is not to give the knowledge to those who have it already our goal is to give it mostly and more importent then everything to the language that needs it. please reconsider your hopes on us i told u i do own nothing and i am willing to listen to u dont try to close us.--יודל 14:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Usually, project closures are proposed, when a project is inactive, has no content, no community and/or when the distinctiveness and legitimacy of the language is disputed (see Siberian and Moldovan). Here, however, the proposer suggests to close a Wiki, which

  1. has content;
  2. has a community (else, there would be no conflicts);
  3. is in a language, which is generally recognised as a distinct linguistic entity

This is way beyond the scope of what WM:PCP has dealt with so far. I feel WM:PCP is the wrong place to solve your dispute. Things would be different if there was a Meta Arbitration Committee. However, since this is not the case, opening a closure proposal equals moving to yet another battleground, nothing more. Please look at Proposals for closing projects/Closure of Siberian Wikipedia, if you don't believe me... --Johannes Rohr 14:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agree this page was opened by a Hebrew admin that is abusive to new users there he hates us beacouse the Yiddish wiki is growing to be the biggest jewish competition to his closed wiki that all new users get blocked rite away. please delte this page. its not a legitimate request to silence a whole community because a one guy from an other languge has a problem with other wikipedians inflating his project--יודל 00:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi there, you just put ==Please delete this page== into the middle of my above comment. Please don't do that. --Johannes Rohr 14:54, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
since your comment has diverted the discussion to close this page rather away from its original privies discussion about closing the yi wiki i felt it proper to divide it in a different category. Don't think i meant to hurt u or the discussion. I am very sorry that this was a action against your wish. it is my learning here i wont do it again.--יודל 14:59, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
O.K., never mind. It's just a golden rule to never modify other people's comments, especially so, since there is no technical protection against such modifications.
Apart from that, I didn't even propose to delete the page, as I know that this is not going to happen. Once such a proposal is there, you have to deal with it. Typically, controversial closure proposals drag on for month and they do not result in any action, in one way or the other. The core problem is, that there is no-one with the formal authority to take decisions on closure requests. Furthermore, there seems to be no-one willing to assume such responsibility, therefore, such proposals typically lead nowhere. I just wanted to warn everyone in advance... --Johannes Rohr 15:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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