That is great Vincent. At least yours got marked for deletion. My attempt was just “speed deleted”, gone, no questions asked.
I don’t see any dutch here except for in the forum area.
Vincent, what is the difference between marked for deletion and “speed deleted”?
For what it’s worth, I added a Swedish entry several hours ago - http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/LingQ (it’s still there!)
Great stuff Jeff. Well done!
I’ve just put up a German version. Let’s see how long it’ll remain there. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LingQ
It’s already deleted. Well, it stayed for about 2-4 minutes… Would anyone else want to give a German version a try - perhaps we should translate Jeff’s text and use that for all languages?
I can only assume the reason the Swedish version has stayed up is that less people moderate it. I heard about a guy putting up a nonsense Swedish article a while ago which actually stayed there for about 6 months before being removed.
Assuming you register with an e-mail address, what is so difficult about them sending an e-mail requesting it be modified according to whatever guidelines they set out? That way, if there is no change within, say, 24 hours, it could then be deleted. It’s not as if these articles are obscene or deliberately obnoxious.
Anyway, I don’t want to start a debate here. In any case, is there a list of guidelines that must be adhered to when writing an article?
Yes there are guidelines. One point is to have reliable sources. But there is no source where LingQ is mentioned beside the LingQ-Sites itself. In the blog of Steve is a debate about this. If anyone found such a “reliable source” is a chance to get LingQ into Wikipedia.
In different countries they could deal in different manner with this subject.
Rosetta Stone for example is not mentioned in the German Wikipedia, but in the English one. Pimsleur is only as the “Pimsleur method” in the German Wikipedia.
@Chris: Yes, there is advice before posting text, there are tutorials etc which I had read beforehand. This morning I registered, put up the article and within minutes received two things on “my Wikipedia page”, ie not an e-mail to my usual address. 1. a welcome note with details of what kind of support is available and 2. a notification that my text had been deleted and that I should not re-submit it. They also mentioned one could rewrite an article and furnish appropriate sources (I had only given the LingQ site). They want a text which fits into their encyclopaedia mode.
The reason for deletion:
WEBSITES:
*Wikipedia is not meant to advertise. All articles with the purpose of advertising a website will be deleted.
*Wikipedia is not a startpage, that’s why not every website needs its own article.
*Websites deserve an article within wikipedie if it is relevant:
For instance because it is very popular and/or has won several awards.
Because it’s a milestone in de development of the internet
*Websites of companies, newspapers, etc do not get a special article.
*Relevance can be measured by the Alexa-test. The website has to be part of the first 100.000 websites.
Source: Wikipedia:Relevantie - Wikipedia (in dutch)
Steve,
Here they mention when a speed-deletion will be applied: Wikipedia:Te beoordelen pagina's/Direct te verwijderen - Wikipedia (in dutch)
In geval van werkelijke onzin of als een artikel alleen maar (grove) fouten bevat kan het hier genomineerd worden voor onmiddellijke verwijdering.
In case of real nonsense or if an article contains large mistakes, it can be nominated for speed-deletion.
I got a “relevancy check” note, so I’ve rephrased the language, added a few more external links according to the format Wikipedia wants, a few categories, added an info box (similar to what LiveMocha has)… God knows if it will stay there.
While I am not impartial, obviously, I believe that the LingQ experiment is unique and valuable for people to know about. It is one of the few places I know where a structured approach to input based learning (a la Krashen) is combined with Ivan Illitch’s concept of convivia or learning communities.
With regard to coverage in the news, Jeff, you can refer to the “in the news” link on my blog for some of the coverage LingQ has received.
whether LingQ is for profit or free is really irrelevant.
That’s great, I’ll include those links.
Another good idea might be to add on Ivan Illitch’s and Krashen’s page in a relevant area that lingq is a learning system based on what they’ve studied and produced.
Actually, the Dutch one is still there, but has “Deze pagina is genomineerd voor verwijdering”. Maybe if a Dutch speaker were to add the same links Jeff put up, the site might remain there.
I will try.
It shall be interesting to see if this “grass roots movement” eventually succeeds. Like Illuminati taking over Wikipedia without them knowing it 
(oops, I’ve read too much Dan Brown lately)
Both articles deleted! Two days ago I got banned from a blog. It seems I’m not popular…
What did you say? In any case, your contributions here are great and you are, no doubt, hugely appreciated.