Wikipedia:Conlangs/Towards consensus instead of polls

Well. Before any vote, straw poll or similar, we should first define in a way that leads to consensus which criteria should be used to decide if a constructed language is notable or not. Then a consensus on how to mesure the criteria, and finally a consensus (this last much probably vote driven) on which would be the mark.

Almafeta's original proposal of major and minor criteria has dominated the discusion... it seems we already has a consensus of using a major/minor criteria to judge notability. Also, proposed criteria are positive criteria (if a conlang does not fullfill all of them but one major, then is deemed notable).

Number of speakers of the language seems also a criterium to be important to positively stablish notability. (Not having speakers does not disqualify a language.) How to measure "speaker" has still no consensus. If it should be major, minor or the marks to determinate the major and minor limits do not have consensus yet.

Corpus in the language seems to be important, however I am not sure if we have a consensus yet. Less so how to measure corpus (printed works? ISBN printed works? translations?, etc.); nor the limits of the gauge.

Completeness of the language seems not to be a concentual result. (Probably some think that a good corpus should show enough completeness.)

People talking about the language, particularly people outside the creator(s) of the language in a series of verifiable sources, seems to be a criterium we most agree (a consensus?). We do not have agreed yet on how to measure this, but some elements are helping: books written on the language, discussion on the language in several internet phora, controversy (as stated by the press), etc. could be used.

There seems not to be any consensus about notability by proxy. Either minor Tolkien languages, languages belonging to alternative worlds like Star Treek, etc. If there would be, there should be no problem on how to mesure this.

Peer review... well, nobody seems to have support my idea of per peer review for artlangs, however Taleissin suggestions are pretty much what I had in mind.

So: my proposal

 * 1) Discuss if conlangs are worth for inclusion in English language Wikipedia.
 * 2) If consensus shows a negative response, go to the end. Else continue:
 * 3) We should create discussions on different topics to establish consensus about rather those criteria serve to measure if a language is or is not notable, or not. Numbers should not be involved in these discutions.  What exactly to measure, and how exactly to measure, should not be important in this stage to determinate if we agree or not that the criteria is worth.
 * 4) Is number of speakers important?
 * 5) Is completeness important?
 * 6) Is a corpus important?
 * 7) Are outside discussions (including controversy) important?
 * 8) Is notability by proxy a valid point?
 * 9) Is per peer review a valid criterium?
 * 10) It should be published what seems the concentual result of each discusion: "the following elements are important to judge if a conlang might be notable: ..."
 * 11) Only on those criteria judged as important, discusion should continue on each alternative to measure the criteria. For example, if having a corpus is important:
 * 12) Having books published on the language.
 * 13) Having books with ISBN published on the language.
 * 14) Having a verifiably corpus of certain size.
 * 15) Having professional media using the language.
 * 16) It should be published what seems the concentual result of each discussion: "for measuring the corpus a book with an ISBN should be enough".
 * 17) When the criteria needs a gauge mark, then a poll should be openned to stablish that mark.
 * 18) Marks should be published.

All these published results should be edited in policy format in Conlangs (with all these discussions moved to propper places. Then, every time somebody seems that a non-notable conlang is being published, can well go and review the policy, and the policy can be referred to in any VfD (or however they are now called).

This policy will not overrule policies about Original research, Vanity, etc. which can also be invocked in an VfD.

— Carlos Th (talk) 21:44, 9 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Discussion about these criteria has been going on for six or seven weeks now. We might need to work on organizing and summarizing the discussion that's taken place scattered across various subpages, so it's easier for new people to get up to speed, and on actively getting more people involved -- advertise on the Village Pump, for instance...? Otherwise, some of the structured discussion you're proposing seems  redundant with a lot of what's already been going on. --Jim Henry | Talk 00:08, 10 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I recognize the discussions with the abovementioned introduction. So we need to organize all this in order to get enough community consensus from outside the conlangers.  How would we do this?  — Carlos Th (talk) 05:12, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * PS. and, the key of the proposal is to think on these lines rather than on vote mechanics. — Carlos Th (talk) 05:17, 10 September 2005 (UTC)