Vicipaedia:Gravitas

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Gravitas^? (Anglice: relevance; Theodisce: Relevanz)

Index 1 Quaestiones 2 Core articles 3 Disputationes 4 Vide etiam 5 Nexus externi

[recensere] Quaestiones

• What is relevance?
• What is relevance for the Latin Wikipaedia?

Hard to answer without answering the first question. But I definitely think we can afford to be a little more lenient with what is relevant, due to the paucity of our contributors, ad the pauciority of our long, well written articles...--Ioshus ^(disp) 16:11, 17 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

• Are there differences to other Wikipedias?

Yes, some; I think partly because Latin is no one's mother tongue. It's a language of culture and communication. There may be topics about which no one has ever communicated in Latin: it is less likely that people will want to read an encyclopedia article in Latin about such topics.

At first I kind of agreed with you. But I have been wondering if that is really the case... I've read PLENTY about history and culture, and a bit about mythology and religion in Latin. It gets boring... For me, it is much more fun to read/write articles like Pong cervisiale or Aeroplanum chartaceum.--Ioshus ^(disp) 16:07, 17 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

Vicipaedia (like so many of the other-language Wikipedias) can be, and is, ahead of the trend: we can deal with topics that have never yet had any printed material in Latin, and why not? But we probably waste our time if we take on too many topics that are very far distant from what people expect to read about in Latin.

I don't if it's really 'wasting time. Providing lucid, legible, well informed content on modern topics is a great way to show that latin isn't dead...it just smells funny...--Ioshus ^(disp) 16:07, 17 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

In addition, it's difficult to write about technical topics for which Latin has no vocabulary, and it's difficult to read and understand the result. The effort may sometimes be unproductive. Andrew Dalby 15:47, 17 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

Good lord is this ever the case. The first thing I ever wrote here was E=mc² and it was hard as hell to find vocabulary for the laws of general relativity...--Ioshus ^(disp) 16:07, 17 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

I am sounding much more negative than I intended. E=mc² was a great contribution, and, what's more, it's so central to life, the universe and everything that Vicipaedia would look ridiculous without it! That was worth the effort; all major science belongs in Latin, of course it does. I was thinking of technical topics far lower down among the scale of what matters. There are some, among en:Wikipedia's 1,500,000, of which (I think) we are unlikely ever to have Latin equivalents. I'll give a couple of examples, then, from the "Latest changes" on Wikipedia: en:Sheet metal gauges; en:Nexus air card.

I'm really just pondering on the issues posed here ... and meanwhile thinking of doing a couple of articles on comics (or bandes dessinées, as my neighbours call them) ... Andrew Dalby 16:50, 17 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

Re: "There are some, among en:Wikipedia's 1,500,000, of which (I think) we are unlikely ever to have Latin equivalents. I'll give a couple of examples, then, from the "Latest changes" on Wikipedia: en:Sheet metal gauges."—Well, 'gold leaf' in my 18th-century dictionary is aurum bracteatum, foliaceum, vel in folia extensum. So pick one and you've got, say metallum bracteatum, and the "gauges" are actually measures of thickness, so just copy the "Tabula Crassitudinum Metalli Bracteati" and you've got an article almost as complete as en:'s. Ha! IacobusAmor 03:48, 21 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

Is sheet metal really the same as gold leaf? Bractea is certainly traditional for leaf, though I am told that in antiquity it refered to a small thin sheet of precious metal. At the conventiculum it is frequently used for "foil." --Iustinus 07:48, 21 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

[recensere] Core articles

Any respectable big & general encyclopedia will have, say, 10,000 core articles. Probably more than 5,000 of Vicipaedia's current articles are outside an ideal core, but Vicipaedia is making progress, though many core articles remain mere stubs. In music, it has an article on J. S. Bach, but not one on Arnold Schoenberg; in painting, it has Michelangelo, but not Caravaggio, and it has Monet, but not Manet. For music, the list of composers is a start, but even that list is inflated with the names of composers who wouldn't appear on any knowledgeable specialist's "core list" of the 100 most influential composers. Such spottiness is almost a given for a wiki. For example, in Islamic affairs, we have an article on Abdul Rahman, a symbolic nonentity, but nothing on Sayyid Qutb, a highly influential scholar, and nothing on hundreds of Islamic personalities historically more influential than Rahman. Right now, we have many articles on German & Italian towns & cities, but few on East Asian & South Asian towns & cities. And so on. ¶ In addition, a Latin encyclopedia could excel in having articles about Latinists, deeds done by native Latin-speakers, and works & concepts originally produced in Latin or relating to Latin. In that regard, it lags behind the wikis in several other languages, but I think it will catch up as time goes on. IacobusAmor 16:25, 17 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

Some interesting points there. I think other Wikipedias get a lot of place-name articles in using an automated method. Is that true? Should we do it? Would it be useful here? Andrew Dalby 17:08, 17 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

Small nitpick: we DO have an article on Caravaggio. As usual, I have a note on Latin names in the talk page that has gone unanswered ;) Not that any of this affects your point, but I just thought it should be mentioned. --Iustinus 18:33, 17 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

Then something may be wrong with the search facility. When I type "caravaggio" into the box and click on "Quaerere," no article specifically about him turns up; likewise when I click on "Ire," and the message is "Nulla pagina cum titulo "Caravaggio" exacto existit. Potes eam creare." IacobusAmor 19:32, 17 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, I'll fix the ire thing, but I don't know what we can do about the quaerere thing: wikipedia searches are always a bit faulty. Sometimes you just ahve to resort to Google. --Iustinus 19:47, 17 Ianuarii 2007 (UTC)

[recensere] Disputationes

• Disputatio_Usoris:IacobusAmor#Christopher_Benfey
• Disputatio:Christopher Benfey
• Disputatio:Mehmet Murat İldan

[recensere] Vide etiam

• Vicipaedia:Aestimatio
• Vicipaedia:Pagina_desiderata#The_rank_game
• Vicipaedia:Deletio
• Vicipaedia:Praefatio

[recensere] Nexus externi

• m:Incrementalism
• m:Eventualism
• en:Yongle Encyclopedia