1. (previously (3) ) I would go with SIL's expertise with the
languages of New Guinea. It looks like the Solomonic solution for our
needs.
2. I agree with Michael that it's hard to find such areal experts,
that we are need for Southeast Asian languages, meaning that I would
go with asking André Müller to join us.
If nobody objects two proposals above, I would conclude them on
February 18th as our decision.
3. (previously (1) ) We still need an areal expert and hopefully
Wikimedian and hopefully a native person for Central and South
American languages. If we have no better idea till February 18th, I
would publish our request on wikimedia-l.
It would be nice if the LangCom member, who has taken care about
creation of the particular project, writes at least a article about
the language and culture (and possible previously created projects)
and send it to wikimedia-l and to Wikimedia PR to publish it on
blog.wikimedia.org.
It doesn't have to be, but it would be definitely nice.
If the member who has lead the project up to creation doesn't
want/like/whatever writing such an article, please let us know and
somebody else could take that task.
One issue: membership.
== Membership ==
* Accepting any new member would still require consensus of those who
expressed their opinion. (Nothing has changed.)
* LangCom members should read messages in a timely fashion (at least
twice per week), and to contribute on such decisions, where
appropriate, within the deadline, or otherwise presumably at least
once per month (this could be a simple +1). Lapses in participation
would result in a "warning" after three months, and revocation of
membership after six. (Note: This is actual proposal for the policy
change!)
* At this moment of time we have 17 members. One of them has very
specific role (Zadiak, Wikiversity). I don't remember if I heard at
all three of them. Five of them are quite quiet during the last few
years.
While it's good to create a general limit of 10-15 members, I think it
is not useful at the moment, as we don't have all necessary expertise
inside of the committee. However, on the long run, we could limit
accepting new members from already covered areas.
In relation to Wikimedia and computers in general we are pretty strong
and I see no reason to increase the number of LangCom members based on
those types of expertise.
However, we lack in expertise and connections related to, most
importantly, South (and Central) America and Southeast Asia (including
Austronesian languages). It would be good to have somebody for the
languages of New Guinea (~1500 of them).
I would also like to see a little bit of ethnnolinguistic diversity
inside of the committee. At the moment we are 16/17 native
Indo-European speakers and just two members are not of European
ancestry. In other words, I think another African member should be
welcome, as well.
My proposal (so, please, comment this paragraph if you don't agree or
you want to make addition or change!) is to publish on wikimedia-l
that we are searching for three member profiles, which should be,
ideally, similar to Oliver: (1) A Wikimedian and expert in South and
Central American indigenous languages; (2) A Wikimedian and expert in
Southeast Asian (including Austronesian) languages; (3) A Wikimedian
and expert in New Guinea languages.
That would raise the number of LangCom members to 20 and from this
point of time, we should wait to lose at least 7-8 members before
adding any new.
Hi everyone,
I have earlier tried to push this request but could not see it later on. Khowar community has been consistently contributing to develop Khowar Wikipedia in Wikimedia Incubator.
Here is the request on meta:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Khowar
Catanaylsis shows at least 3 editors for more than 2 years:
https://tools.wmflabs.org/meta/catanalysis/index.php?cat=0&title=wp/khw&wik…
While there have been more than 3 editors during some months as well. I believe the creation of Khowar Wikipedia will give the necessary boost the whole community and the members who have stopped editing in the past will resume editing.
All the required messages have been translated on translatewiki. Hence, I propose the creation of Khowar Wikipedia.
--
Regards
Satdeep Gill
Based on the input from the previous couple of days, I am listing
them. Some of them are in the form of the request for comment, some of
them are in the form of the proposal. So, please, comment if you
disagree with some of the items.
== Membership ==
* Accepting any new member would still require consensus of those who
expressed their opinion. (Nothing has changed.)
* LangCom members should read messages in a timely fashion (at least
twice per week), and to contribute on such decisions, where
appropriate, within the deadline, or otherwise presumably at least
once per month (this could be a simple +1). Lapses in participation
would result in a "warning" after three months, and revocation of
membership after six. (Note: This is actual proposal for the policy
change!)
* At this moment of time we have 17 members. One of them has very
specific role (Zadiak, Wikiversity). I don't remember if I heard at
all three of them. Five of them are quite quiet during the last few
years.
While it's good to create a general limit of 10-15 members, I think it
is not useful at the moment, as we don't have all necessary expertise
inside of the committee. However, on the long run, we could limit
accepting new members from already covered areas.
In relation to Wikimedia and computers in general we are pretty strong
and I see no reason to increase the number of LangCom members based on
those types of expertise.
However, we lack in expertise and connections related to, most
importantly, South (and Central) America and Southeast Asia (including
Austronesian languages). It would be good to have somebody for the
languages of New Guinea (~1500 of them).
I would also like to see a little bit of ethnnolinguistic diversity
inside of the committee. At the moment we are 16/17 native
Indo-European speakers and just two members are not of European
ancestry. In other words, I think another African member should be
welcome, as well.
My proposal (so, please, comment this paragraph if you don't agree or
you want to make addition or change!) is to publish on wikimedia-l
that we are searching for three member profiles, which should be,
ideally, similar to Oliver: (1) A Wikimedian and expert in South and
Central American indigenous languages; (2) A Wikimedian and expert in
Southeast Asian (including Austronesian) languages; (3) A Wikimedian
and expert in New Guinea languages.
That would raise the number of LangCom members to 20 and from this
point of time, we should wait to lose at least 7-8 members before
adding any new.
== Voting ==
This is also proposal, so read it and comment if you don't agree or
you want any addition.
1) No voting
1.1) According to the Closing projects policy [1], particular member
of the committee analyzes discussion and, if decides that the project
should be closed, sends the request to WMF Board.
1.2) Clear-cut situations for making a language eligible for Wikimedia
projects: the language has a valid ISO 639-3 code, there are no
significant issues in relation to the language itself, the population
of speakers is significant, request made by a native speaker. In this
case, any committee member can mark language / project eligible.
1.3) Approval without obvious formal requirements. No project will be
approved without them.
2) Simple majority (of those who expressed opinion)
2.1) Eligibility of a language with a valid ISO 639-3 code, but
without significant population of native speakers. (Note: this covers
ancient, constructed, reviving and languages with small number of
speakers.)
2.2) Eligibility of a language without a valid ISO 639-3 code, but
valid BCP 47 code. (Note: this covers Ecuadorian Quechua.)
2.3) Eligibility of a language with significant collision between
prescriptive and descriptive information. (Note: this covers
"macrolangauges".)
2.4) Project approval if not 1.3.
3) 2/3 majority (of those who expressed opinion)
3.1) Any change of the rules, including the committee's role in
possible changes of the Language proposal policy [2] and Closing
projects policy [1].
4) Consensus (of those who expressed opinion)
4.1) A new member of the Language committee should not be opposed by
any of the current committee member.
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Closing_projects_policy
[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Language_proposal_policy
> Also, unlike a decade ago, LangCom has expert legitimacy and integrity
> now, as well as a decade of experience. That's the reason why I don't
> think that any group would use majority as a tool to push unreasonable
> decisions.
Speaking of which... Would it be possible for me to apply for membership of
the Langcom? I've been following the discussions on this mailing list for
about two years now, and I hope I might be helpful to you.
A short introduction:
My name is Jan van Steenbergen, I'm 46 years old and I live in IJmuiden,
the Netherlands. I work as a professional translator and interpreter Polish
<> Dutch. Linguistics is both my work and my hobby. My main fields of
interest are Slavic languages, constructed languages, Cyrillic and Eastern
Europe. My "language package" can be found on my user page:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:IJzeren_Jan (mind, the languages
listed there are those that I have actually learned to some degree – there
are dozens of other languages I can understand, or know the basics of).
I've been editing Wikipedia sporadically since 2003 as an anonymous user,
and have been more active after I created my first user account in 2004. My
home wiki is nlwiki, where I am currently an admin. I've been editing
several other language versions as well, but less frequently.
As I already explained in my post about Lingua Franca Nova, when it comes
to the question whether a language should be allowed to have its own wiki
or not, my primary criterion would be viability/sustainability. In other
words, does a potential project have good perspectives for success?
Obviously, a large community of native speakers is a good thing to start
with, but if a language has 50 mln. speakers and there is nobody willing to
work on a wiki, then the project is doomed to become a failure anyway. What
we surely want to avoid is dead wikis where practically every article is
just three or four words. On the other hand, if a language has no native
speakers at all, yet it is still able to generate a prospering wiki, then I
am all for it. Even a wiki in a language without native speakers can become
a success, provided that the language is well-documented, stable and
complete, and provided that there are enough people willing to work on it.
As far as I am concerned, if a language is doing well in the Incubator for
a longer period, that means it has passed the exam.
Best regards,
Jan van Steenbergen
There is a request for Wikipedia in "Lingua Franca Nova", which is a
constructed language with an ISO 639-3 code. <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Lingua…>
I'm bringing it up because there is currently a very active contributor on
Incubator.
A previous request was rejected in 2008. Of course, the Language Proposal
Policy says:
If the proposal is for an artificial language such as Esperanto, it
must have a reasonable degree of recognition as determined by discussion
(this requirement is being discussed by the language committee).
What are your opinions about the degree of recognition? Can the language be
eligible or should it be rejected? I have never heard of this language
before, but I am of course only a linguistic layman.
I've rejected request for Wikipedia in "Chamuyet". They say it's the
"real Cantonese". No article on Wikipedia with that name, ~160 hits on
Google, request page on meta is the fifth. I would bet on trolling. I
left the message to them to come back with ISO 639-3 code.
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Chamyu…