I am sorry to write this email in this way and I sincerely ask that you consider it in good faith, I am not attempting to cause trouble, but I would like you to consider it carefully and thoroughly, and come back with a substantive and not knee-jerk response.

This I think needs attention from the committee Board liason, as some of the issues go beyond LangCom’s remit, and also reflect on LangCom’s transparency commitments made to the Wikimedia Board.

However, it appears that the Committee was under a great deal of pressure at the time, and there may not have been any public consultation or transparency about why this policy took place, unlike for the Language Proposal policy as a whole, which was discussed.

While there may have been no requirements at the time to provide a rationale, people who feel the policy is not set in exactly the right place are left with no formal explanation as to why the Language Committee devised the rules as it did.

At least, nobody has responded to my requests for documentation from 2007 showing how the decision was made. If it is or can be made available, that would be great. I have listed what I know at

The Committee’s Charter states that "The whole set of activities of the language committee is public, and any advice from the community is welcome”. This commitment to transparency is laudable, however as matters stand we do not have transparency as to the reasons why the Ancient Language policy is set as it is.

Instead, justifications for it can only be considered to be the Committee member’s opinion about why people in 2007 set set where it is, as the justification for it made at the time appears to be unavailable, undocumented, or lost.

This is a problem in itself, but I think is also a large factor in the upset felt by people who find their projects are declined. There is a policy, but it is not explained. the justifications are communicated to them adhoc and it is extremely hard for people understand why Wikimedia has this policy, as it is in fact, unexplained in any formal document. Instead, people whose projects are turned down are asked to accept the adhoc explanations of Wikimedia volunteers. This is bound to cause friction and grievance.

Clarity about the future of Ancient Languages on Wikimedia

A number of well established Ancient Language Wiki (ALW) projects may be neglected in policy terms, as they are regarded as something of an abberation. They are not allowed new Wikis; they are not eligible, This and other structural issues such as a lack geographical focus may cause them should also be considered, not least to reduce the prospect of problems emerging with them in the future. It would be useful for Wikimedia as a whole to reflect on the role and value of ALWs.

Wikimedia as a whole I am sure is committed to evidence-based policy and consultation. I am sure this Committee likewise much prefers to deal with decisions on the basis of evidence, and has to process many complex problems involving difficult to solve issues. This work is extremely important and no doubt carried at well, despite the multiple complexities.

The discussions surrounding the Ancient Language policy are difficult to solve. They also may result in little change, affecting few wikis if any. This is understandably going to feel like a low priority for the Committee.

However, the current policy probably lacked an application of evidence gathering and consultation when it was created; furthermore there is also a large body of evidence on the performance and potential relevance of these projects to be had, should Wikimedia wish to gather it. I have written an outline of what evidence I think should be gathered before deciding a policy and have had a little feedback on it.

Publish if available, but do not engineering the 2007 decision: I do not think the committee should now reverse engineer the reasons for the 2007 decision, if it turns out to be unavailable, especially as it probably was made without much public consultation or evidence gathering.

If the documentation does turn up, it is still twenty years old and there is still a need to take a look at the performance of the current ALWs and think about how they should be best supported.

Pause before looking again at the recommendations made on the current RFC. Rather I think there should be a period of evidence gathering and reflection about ALWs. Once this evidence is gathered, some observations and recommendations can flow back to the RFC process.

Meta shoud be used to a small open committee to gather evidence. Ideally, one or two LangCom members who are interested in the future of these projects could work with some of the people from the current ALWs to try to gather enough evidence to produce some reasonable basis to move forward. This should also involve some external ancient language and linguistics experts with a background in ancient languages to help shape the evidence gathering and help draw conclusions.