Just an off topic, you do realize that me and the original poster of this thread are different people, right? I do ask because you kind of mixed our arguments in the last part of your post. The original poster probably has a more 'vivid' choice of words than I usually do :) .
On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 4:45 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>wrote: > Hoi, > The current policy is really objective; a request for a project will be > honoured when it complies with a set of prerequisites. > > - is the language recognised as a language in the ISO-639-3 > - is the language sufficiently unique > - is there a sufficiently large corpus in the incubator > - is there a community of a sufficient size so that we can trust the > community to do well > - are the requirements for localisation met > > When the notions of the main language group are to be considered the > criteria for new projects become less objective. At this time the fights of > what is a language are fought in the ISO. This is where people come up with > what is considered a consensus on what languages exist. This consensus is > not universally shared but the best that can be had. > > When people talk about languages, they enter a field where many things are > taken for granted that are absolutely not straight forward. A language like > Limburgian does not have one formal orthography. It consists of many > dialects and it morphs at its edges into what are arguably other dialects > of > other languages and yet we have a Limburgian Wikipedia that is doing pretty > well. When you have a languages like English, a person from Newcastle and a > person from the Bayou are unlikely to understand each other well if at all. > Given that Geordie is not considered a language, we do not allow for a > Geordie Wikipedia. The ISO-639-6 might recognise Geordie as a linguistic > entity, the ISO-639-6 will recognise at least 25.000 linguistic entities > but > does that mean that we want to consider all of them for a Wikipedia ? > > When you talk about the historical and cultural background of languages, > you > have to appreciate how that works out in our environment. When you look at > the Wikipedias in extinct languages like Anglo Saxon and Gothic, the texts > arguably do not reflect the language that is spoken in the days when they > were living languages. Gothic was not written in the Latin script and > fights > about equivalent issues are being fought on the Anglo Saxon Wikipedia. It > is > easy to argue that these Wikipedias do not teach anything that helps > understand the original texts in those languages. Are these the historical > and cultural things you want to be considered ? > > Marcus Buck mentioned that in the Arabic world the standard Arabic language > is seen as an unifying force. This is very much a political statement. > Given > that the language policy explicitly states that political arguments are not > taken in consideration, many if cultural, sociological and historical > arguments are explicitly left out of the equation. An other recurring > argument is that new wikipedias detract from the "original" Wikipedia. The > people who make this argument insist on what *others *can and cannot do. > When people want to work on Egyptian Arabic, why should they work on a > Wikipedia that they do not consider their own? > > When you talk about reasonable decisions, what is it that makes something > reasonable? The fact that people like Mohamed consider Egyptian Arabic as > ignorant makes clear their position, but is that reasonable ? The language > committee has only a remit to help new languages move along, This was to > prevent more dysfunctional projects, projects with no new articles, no > community, projects asked for by people who think Wikipedia is like a stamp > collection. > > In the end there are two arguments that Mohamed has that have some > validity; > are there sufficiently knowledgeable people in the committee and do enough > people consider issues with the process. We have already added new people > and Pathoschild indicated that he is working on proposals for change. The > current process is well structured, it is at the time of giving eligibility > that the validity of a language is considered. It is at this time when > there > were no objections from within the committee. > Thanks, > GerardM > > Only people who do make mistakes all others have a perfect record. > > > > 2009/1/11 Tomasz Ganicz <polime...@gmail.com> > > > 2009/1/11 Milos Rancic <mill...@gmail.com>: > > > > > > > So, there are two conclusions: (1) I may imagine the process which had > > > happened in relation to EA approval: no one made any serious objection > > > and it passed. (2) There are two LangCom members introduced better in > > > the linguistic issues, so the expertise level is raised and I think > > > that it will be raised more in the future. > > > > > > > Well, I think there should be not only computer-linguists experts like > > Evertype in LangCom, but you desperately need people who have good > > knowledge about culture, sociology and history of the main language > > groups, or at least you should be ready to ask relevant outside > > experts. I have a feeling that current LangCom completely ignores > > historical and cultural background related to language problems which > > is quite often a key to make resonable decissions. > > > > -- > > Tomek "Polimerek" Ganicz > > http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek > > http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ > > http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html > > > > _______________________________________________ > > foundation-l mailing list > > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > -- Best Regards, Muhammad Alsebaey _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
