Just read the entire proposal and discussion thread - yikes! Looks like a matter of politics and personal issues to me, neither of which will be solved by the closure of a WMF project. I don't see a) any reason why we should support this request and b) any opportunity to communicate openly and rationally with Marrovi as he does not seem to accept any critical voice, or any non-Nahuatl voice for that matter (and to make matters worse, he seems to be the only one defining who counts as Nahua).

My advice: Oppose the closure and don't waste any more time on Marrovi. (But support indigenous Nahuatl wikis, by all means!)

Fwiw,
Oliver


On 10-Oct-17 22:47, Milos Rancic wrote:
Forwarding Marcos' email.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Marcos Williamson" <node.ue@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 10, 2017 10:37 PM
Subject: Re: [Langcom] Request for closure of Nahuatl Wikipedia
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee" <langcom@lists.wikimedia.org>, "Milos Rancic" <millosh@gmail.com>
Cc:

(not sure I have the ability to post here but I wanted to comment although I am not a member of the committee)

This raises some issues that have been bubbling up since the beginning of NAH Wikipedia. In Mexico there is a very particular type of racism or prejudice where classical indigenous cultures and languages are upheld as ideals to aspire to, while modern indigenous cultures and people are minimized. This seems to have been the theme since the beginning. Over one million people are native speakers of Náhuatl. This Wikipedia was never intended for them, and any and all input from native speakers or people advocating for modern indigenous perspectives to be considered has been summarily ignored and excluded. Non-speakers (NAH-0 and NAH-1) have been so rigid in their insistence on adherence to Classical Náhuatl norms (which they are, ironically, not proficient in anyways) that I once got into an edit war with a user who insisted on changing the orthography loanword "rock" (as in "rock n roll") to "rocq", which is more extreme than even Spanish (the source of Classical Náhuatl orthography) and unknown by actual Náhuatl speakers.

Mexico and Central America have large indigenous populations that include prolific and active writers in indigenous languages. It is a shame that Wikipedia has not been able to be part of strategies for indigenous language maintenance in this region, in spite of serious efforts from Yucatec Maya speakers to create a Wikipedia and repeated attempts of Náhuatl speakers to influence the direction of the "Náhuatl Wikipedia"


On Oct 10, 2017 12:32 PM, "Maor Malul" <maor_x@zoho.com> wrote:

Hello,

We have received a request for closure of the Nahuatl Wikipedia:

https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects/Closure_of_Nahuatl_Wikipedia_2

Interestingly, the user who is requesting it has been blocked from it in 2016, as well from other three Wikipedias.

--
"Jülüjain wane mmakat ein kapülain tü alijunakalirua jee wayuukanairua junain ekerolaa alümüin supüshuwayale etijaanaka. Ayatashi waya junain."
Maor Malul
Socio, A.C. Wikimedia Venezuela | RIF J-40129321-2 | www.wikimedia.org.ve
Member, Wikimedia Israel | www.wikimedia.org.il
Vice-Chair, Wikimedia Foundation Affiliations Committee
Phone: +972-52-4869915
Twitter: @maor_x

Libre de virus. www.avast.com

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