Sorry for delay. As I said, I am the sole responsible person for this delay, as I had numerous tasks to do in the meantime and this is not something to be done without being fully concentrated.
== Organizational issues ==
=== Yearly meetings in Berlin ===
Yearly meetings in Berlin. We've concluded that we want to have yearly meetings during the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin. It is the most convenient place, as almost all of us are Europeans and significant number of LangCom members live in Germany.
=== New member ===
We have the new member, but that's been already known.
=== New list admins ===
Saatdeep and MF-Warburg are new list admins. Old list admins are still list admins.
=== Internal procedures ===
We should define the following internal procedures:
* Who should define the rules how we are making decisions, per our communication with Board.
* There was a question of how to call the vote and what does formal voting mean. It should be flexible, it shouldn't be necessary that everybody votes about everything, but we should definitely define it.
* We should define the rules how to remove the LangCom members. Maybe we should adopt the stewards' confirmation procedure.
=== Who, what, do ===
* MF-Warburg has created the spreadsheet [1]. All LangCom members should have access there. It's useful to know who is able to do what. (Said so, I haven't filled the info, which I should do ASAP.)
* We should create our own Timeline, to be able to follow what should be done next. (It's likely MF-Warburg and I will do that.)
== Languages Foundation ==
* We were discussing creation of the ''active'' organization, based on the Language committee members. We started talking about that on Wikimania in London 2014, we are talking about that from time to time, but at this point of time everybody either expressed active support for the idea or didn't have anything against it. I will take the next step in the form of creating a separate thread, with suggestions how to continue that. Basically, the idea is to create the organization comparable to Wiki Education Foundation [2].
* During the discussion about Wikipedias in new languages, it's been suggested that it would be good to have a wiki farm external from WMF, which would be used for small communities to write there their own knowledge, without having to follow strict Wikipedian and Wikimedian rules (NPOV, strict copyright and similar).
== Language committee and WMF ===
=== Liaison ===
We need a WMF liaison, who would take care about our needs in relation to the WMF. We've agreed with Kathrine that it would be better that it would be a WMF employee rather than a Board member, as we need operational support. She mentioned Jack (not sure about his surname), who talked with us a little bit. Although we haven't discussed that, I think the default option is just to "promote" Asaf from a "community observer" to the WMF liaison.
=== "In the name of WMF" ===
In relation to the ISO 639-3 code for Mapudungun (see below), I've asked Christophe, Board chair, if we could find the way that Language committee fill the form in the name of Wikimedia Foundation. The answer is "yes" if we communicate particular issue with the Board. It is important to know that there is such an option for the future issues and not just related with ISO 639-3.
== Linguistic issues ==
=== Mapudungun ===
Mapudungun has the code which Mapuche people treat as derogatory. My position is that we should help them and make pressure over JAC to make the change. To be honest, I am prepared to push this into much higher level than Wikimedia is, as they were able to change the codes for a language because one ethnicity is inherently racist and didn't want to be connected with the other ethnicity by ISO 639-6 code name, while JAC are not capable to address colonial and racist past of their own societies.
Said so, Michael was quite nervous about that and he will definitely vote against that when I put this on vote here.
== Technical issues ==
This is "the rest" what I have. Some of the issues have been already covered. If others have something else to add, let them do that.
=== Look & feel of Incubator ===
It was raised by, I think, Oliver (and Michael?) that Incubator looks horrible for an average user :) I mean, it looks perfectly fine for an average Wikipedian, but quite confusing to anyone who doesn't know the internal dynamics of MediaWiki pages :D
The conclusion was that it would be good to contact WMF and ask for QA help in relation to how to make Incubator pages more convenient to new users.
(I have a note "incubator and programming", but I think it's about QA help. Anyone remembers something different?)
=== Phabricator task into the project ===
Amir should convert the tracking task on Phabricator into a project. Our mailing list should be subscribed to relevant tasks/tickets/projects, making all of us informed about the state of particular request.
=== Transliteration and translation ===
Kathrine, Amir and I communicated about the transliteration and translation engines. There is a low level email communication about that. If anyone is interested in that issue, let him or her contact Amir and/or me.
In short, if transliteration engine would be made properly, it could be used for machine translation, as well.
[1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1km84QEg4MIbeWekZ4qZVibQ37pX3sd4p8qHS... [2] https://wikiedu.org/
On 17 May 2017, at 12:51, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
In relation to the ISO 639-3 code for Mapudungun (see below), I’ve asked Christophe, Board chair, if we could find the way that Language committee fill the form in the name of Wikimedia Foundation. The answer is "yes" if we communicate particular issue with the Board. It is important to know that there is such an option for the future issues and not just related with ISO 639-3.
The ISO JAC will look at arguments, not necessarily the source of a request.
=== Mapudungun ===
Mapudungun has the code which Mapuche people treat as derogatory. My position is that we should help them and make pressure over JAC to make the change.
“Pressure” doesn’t work.
To be honest, I am prepared to push this into much higher level than Wikimedia is, as they were able to change the codes for a language because one ethnicity is inherently racist and didn’t want to be connected with the other ethnicity by ISO 639-6 code name, while JAC are not capable to address colonial and racist past of their own societies.
I’m going to ignore this rhetoric.
Said so, Michael was quite nervous about that
Nonsense.
and he will definitely vote against that when I put this on vote here.
Please don’t speak for me.
I have written to the JAC to ask them what they think.
Michael Everson
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 2:08 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
“Pressure” doesn’t work.
They are humans and they will work on pressure which comes from the relevant sides. And it's better they do not piss me enough to show them that everybody has limits.
To be honest, I am prepared to push this into much higher level than Wikimedia is, as they were able to change the codes for a language because one ethnicity is inherently racist and didn’t want to be connected with the other ethnicity by ISO 639-6 code name, while JAC are not capable to address colonial and racist past of their own societies.
I’m going to ignore this rhetoric.
This is the core of the problem of every dominantly white dominantly male dominantly Western institution: Ignoring its own racism, imperialism and colonialism.
BTW, it's about ISO-639-3, not ISO-639-6 code.
On 17 May 2017, at 13:14, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
This is the core of the problem of every dominantly white dominantly male dominantly Western institution: Ignoring its own racism, imperialism and colonialism.
Kindly stop using terminology like “white”.
BTW, it's about ISO-639-3, not ISO-639-6 code.
It is an ISO 639-2 code.
Michael Everson
2017-05-17 14:51 GMT+03:00 Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com:
=== Look & feel of Incubator ===
It was raised by, I think, Oliver (and Michael?) that Incubator looks horrible for an average user :) I mean, it looks perfectly fine for an average Wikipedian, but quite confusing to anyone who doesn't know the internal dynamics of MediaWiki pages :D
The conclusion was that it would be good to contact WMF and ask for QA help in relation to how to make Incubator pages more convenient to new users.
(I have a note "incubator and programming", but I think it's about QA help. Anyone remembers something different?)
By complete coincidence, I created this earlier today, and it's quite related: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T165585
To clarify: * This is a big and long-term task. * The fact that it's filed does not by itself mean that the WMF is committed to assigning a budget to it. It's just a convenient (at least to me) way to write down ideas. * What is written there at the moment are my own impressions and my own suggestions for improvement. Other people here and elsewhere may have different ideas.
=== Phabricator task into the project ===
Amir should convert the tracking task on Phabricator into a project. Our mailing list should be subscribed to relevant tasks/tickets/projects, making all of us informed about the state of particular request.
It should be easy, but can you please remind me which one?
I can think of these two, which are already on the way to conversion: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T18976 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T21986
(Although once the conversion is completed, they should be organized as workboards. I'll be happy to that.)
Are there any other tasks that need this handling?
I received a response from a member of the JAC regarding “arn":
We received and considered a request for this about 5 years ago. I don't believe there was a formal vote, but it was generally disfavored by all on the JAC. I do not expect it would be approved in a second round of discussion, but they are welcome to submit it.
Michael
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 2:28 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
On 17 May 2017, at 13:14, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
This is the core of the problem of every dominantly white dominantly male dominantly Western institution: Ignoring its own racism, imperialism and colonialism.
Kindly stop using terminology like “white”.
Sorry, but I won't be *that* kind in the political discourse.
BTW, it's about ISO-639-3, not ISO-639-6 code.
It is an ISO 639-2 code.
Even worse! They don't want to change the least sensible set of codes.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 2:30 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
I received a response from a member of the JAC regarding “arn":
We received and considered a request for this about 5 years ago. I don't believe there was a formal vote, but it was generally disfavored by all on the JAC. I do not expect it would be approved in a second round of discussion, but they are welcome to submit it.
Fine. I don't think that one 80% white male 80% WASP institution should be in charge for something that affects the whole world.
On 17 May 2017, at 15:23, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
BTW, it's about ISO-639-3, not ISO-639-6 code.
It is an ISO 639-2 code.
Even worse! They don't want to change the least sensible set of codes.
What are you on about? It is the same code, in both ISO 639-2 and 639-3.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 2:30 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
I received a response from a member of the JAC regarding “arn":
We received and considered a request for this about 5 years ago. I don't believe there was a formal vote, but it was generally disfavored by all on the JAC. I do not expect it would be approved in a second round of discussion, but they are welcome to submit it.
Fine. I don't think that one 80% white male 80% WASP institution should be in charge for something that affects the whole world.
The membership of the ISO 639 JAC is specified in the standardization documents and has nothing to do with skin colour, sex, or religion. This sort of rhetoric is just bullshit in the present context.
The code was assigned a long time ago. Standardizers are reluctant to change codes because the stability of standards is important. Your trying to whip this up into some sort of institutional or cultural prejudice against the speakers of Mapuche is unacceptable.
Michael Everson
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 4:46 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
On 17 May 2017, at 15:23, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
BTW, it's about ISO-639-3, not ISO-639-6 code.
It is an ISO 639-2 code.
Even worse! They don't want to change the least sensible set of codes.
What are you on about? It is the same code, in both ISO 639-2 and 639-3
Because SIL is at least sensible enough to have the policy to change derogatory codes, while Congress Library is too white to be able to comprehend that.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 2:30 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
I received a response from a member of the JAC regarding “arn":
We received and considered a request for this about 5 years ago. I don't believe there was a formal vote, but it was generally disfavored by all on the JAC. I do not expect it would be approved in a second round of discussion, but they are welcome to submit it.
Fine. I don't think that one 80% white male 80% WASP institution should be in charge for something that affects the whole world.
The membership of the ISO 639 JAC is specified in the standardization documents and has nothing to do with skin colour, sex, or religion. This sort of rhetoric is just bullshit in the present context.
The code was assigned a long time ago. Standardizers are reluctant to change codes because the stability of standards is important. Your trying to whip this up into some sort of institutional or cultural prejudice against the speakers of Mapuche is unacceptable.
Michael, I will respond to this, but, please, keep in mind that you are just embarrassing yourself by forcing this issue.
The fact that you are ignoring the fact that it *matters* who is making *political* decisions is the part of not just ignorance, but of very white and very racist "expert" narrative. If you are not able to recognize that, just trust me that you should stop with that line of argumentation.
Guys!
I can't believe that you're writing in public what you've been writing here. Will you please refrain from cluttering the mailing list with these unworthy diatribes? Anyone can construe an argument of anything being racist but honestly, Miloš, that's not a way to get anything done among civilized folks. *ShakingMyHead*
In the hope to see this list return to sensible behaviour, Oliver
On 17-May-17 18:13, Milos Rancic wrote:
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 4:46 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
On 17 May 2017, at 15:23, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
BTW, it's about ISO-639-3, not ISO-639-6 code.
It is an ISO 639-2 code.
Even worse! They don't want to change the least sensible set of codes.
What are you on about? It is the same code, in both ISO 639-2 and 639-3
Because SIL is at least sensible enough to have the policy to change derogatory codes, while Congress Library is too white to be able to comprehend that.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 2:30 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
I received a response from a member of the JAC regarding “arn":
We received and considered a request for this about 5 years ago. I don't believe there was a formal vote, but it was generally disfavored by all on the JAC. I do not expect it would be approved in a second round of discussion, but they are welcome to submit it.
Fine. I don't think that one 80% white male 80% WASP institution should be in charge for something that affects the whole world.
The membership of the ISO 639 JAC is specified in the standardization documents and has nothing to do with skin colour, sex, or religion. This sort of rhetoric is just bullshit in the present context.
The code was assigned a long time ago. Standardizers are reluctant to change codes because the stability of standards is important. Your trying to whip this up into some sort of institutional or cultural prejudice against the speakers of Mapuche is unacceptable.
Michael, I will respond to this, but, please, keep in mind that you are just embarrassing yourself by forcing this issue.
The fact that you are ignoring the fact that it *matters* who is making *political* decisions is the part of not just ignorance, but of very white and very racist "expert" narrative. If you are not able to recognize that, just trust me that you should stop with that line of argumentation.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. http://www.avg.com
Hoi, Milosh stop. Thanks, GerardM
On 17 May 2017 at 18:13, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 4:46 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
On 17 May 2017, at 15:23, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
BTW, it's about ISO-639-3, not ISO-639-6 code.
It is an ISO 639-2 code.
Even worse! They don't want to change the least sensible set of codes.
What are you on about? It is the same code, in both ISO 639-2 and 639-3
Because SIL is at least sensible enough to have the policy to change derogatory codes, while Congress Library is too white to be able to comprehend that.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 2:30 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com
wrote:
I received a response from a member of the JAC regarding “arn":
We received and considered a request for this about 5 years ago. I
don't believe there was a formal vote, but it was generally disfavored by all on the JAC. I do not expect it would be approved in a second round of discussion, but they are welcome to submit it.
Fine. I don't think that one 80% white male 80% WASP institution should
be in charge for something that affects the whole world.
The membership of the ISO 639 JAC is specified in the standardization
documents and has nothing to do with skin colour, sex, or religion. This sort of rhetoric is just bullshit in the present context.
The code was assigned a long time ago. Standardizers are reluctant to
change codes because the stability of standards is important. Your trying to whip this up into some sort of institutional or cultural prejudice against the speakers of Mapuche is unacceptable.
Michael, I will respond to this, but, please, keep in mind that you are just embarrassing yourself by forcing this issue.
The fact that you are ignoring the fact that it *matters* who is making *political* decisions is the part of not just ignorance, but of very white and very racist "expert" narrative. If you are not able to recognize that, just trust me that you should stop with that line of argumentation.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
On 17 May 2017, at 17:13, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Because SIL is at least sensible enough to have the policy to change derogatory codes, while Congress Library is too white to be able to comprehend that.
You do not have any idea what you are talking about.
Fine. I don't think that one 80% white male 80% WASP institution should be in charge for something that affects the whole world.
The membership of the ISO 639 JAC is specified in the standardization documents and has nothing to do with skin colour, sex, or religion. This sort of rhetoric is just bullshit in the present context.
The code was assigned a long time ago. Standardizers are reluctant to change codes because the stability of standards is important. Your trying to whip this up into some sort of institutional or cultural prejudice against the speakers of Mapuche is unacceptable.
Michael, I will respond to this, but, please, keep in mind that you are just embarrassing yourself by forcing this issue.
You have raised issues of racism and imperialism and you have made baseless accusations about the RA for ISO 639.
The fact that you are ignoring the fact that it *matters* who is making *political* decisions is the part of not just ignorance, but of very white and very racist "expert" narrative. If you are not able to recognize that, just trust me that you should stop with that line of argumentation.
Melanin helps to protect us from UV radiation and to permit the production of Vitamin D.
I have explained to you MANY TIMES. Most of the ISO 639-2 codes were made many years ago. No one was trying to insult anyone. No one was trying to push an imperialist agenda. No one was looking at skin tone variation in Chile. They were trying to tag data for libraries. Do you understand this?
I have explained to you MANY TIMES as well that reluctance to change codes on the part of the JAC has to do with a concern for stability in encoding.
I ave informed you that I have spoken to the JAC, and I have supplied to you their response. They looked at this 5 years ago and were not minded at that time to destabilize encoding. They also said they would consider an application if one were submitted.
You persist in arguing with ME about it and all I have done is explain facts to you.
Learn.
Michael
PS. If you author anything, anything at all that attacks the JAC as you have done here, I will put my foot down on it going out with LangCom or WMF blessing.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 8:42 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
On 17 May 2017, at 17:13, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Because SIL is at least sensible enough to have the policy to change derogatory codes, while Congress Library is too white to be able to comprehend that.
You do not have any idea what you are talking about.
Obviously. However, at least they understand that there are offensive language names [1]. Although, thanks for the information, they are also too white, as well, to recognize that there is a need to change the code if it's been based on offensive name.
Melanin helps to protect us from UV radiation and to permit the production of Vitamin D.
I have explained to you MANY TIMES. Most of the ISO 639-2 codes were made many years ago. No one was trying to insult anyone. No one was trying to push an imperialist agenda. No one was looking at skin tone variation in Chile. They were trying to tag data for libraries. Do you understand this?
I have explained to you MANY TIMES as well that reluctance to change codes on the part of the JAC has to do with a concern for stability in encoding.
I ave informed you that I have spoken to the JAC, and I have supplied to you their response. They looked at this 5 years ago and were not minded at that time to destabilize encoding. They also said they would consider an application if one were submitted.
You persist in arguing with ME about it and all I have done is explain facts to you.
You are still embarrassing yourself. Nobody told here that there are bad intentions. (Just to remind you, Cold War ended ~30 years ago :P ) I told you that you are perpetuating institutional racism [, filled with absolutely good intentions].
If you want to understand what I am talking about, please start with this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism
[1] http://archive.ethnologue.com/16/ethno_docs/introduction.asp
<GRRRRR>
On 17 May 2017 at 21:05, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 8:42 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
On 17 May 2017, at 17:13, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Because SIL is at least sensible enough to have the policy to change
derogatory codes, while Congress Library is too white to be able to comprehend that.
You do not have any idea what you are talking about.
Obviously. However, at least they understand that there are offensive language names [1]. Although, thanks for the information, they are also too white, as well, to recognize that there is a need to change the code if it's been based on offensive name.
Melanin helps to protect us from UV radiation and to permit the
production of Vitamin D.
I have explained to you MANY TIMES. Most of the ISO 639-2 codes were
made many years ago. No one was trying to insult anyone. No one was trying to push an imperialist agenda. No one was looking at skin tone variation in Chile. They were trying to tag data for libraries. Do you understand this?
I have explained to you MANY TIMES as well that reluctance to change
codes on the part of the JAC has to do with a concern for stability in encoding.
I ave informed you that I have spoken to the JAC, and I have supplied to
you their response. They looked at this 5 years ago and were not minded at that time to destabilize encoding. They also said they would consider an application if one were submitted.
You persist in arguing with ME about it and all I have done is explain
facts to you.
You are still embarrassing yourself. Nobody told here that there are bad intentions. (Just to remind you, Cold War ended ~30 years ago :P ) I told you that you are perpetuating institutional racism [, filled with absolutely good intentions].
If you want to understand what I am talking about, please start with this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism
[1] http://archive.ethnologue.com/16/ethno_docs/introduction.asp
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
A couple comments:
I agree that pressuring the JAC to adopt a less offensive code is futile. There are national libraries and government-funded software systems that use these codes that cannot be updated in any kind of timely way. Lots of countries would like representations that more closely resemble the native language names. I can’t remember the issue, but I have been up against something like this before and gave up, as interop and compatibility with legacy systems was paramount. 639-2 codes are not likely to change for that reason.
I also think allowing a particular organization to take ownership of a wiki might result in more politicized wikis. Seems like a good idea, but might come back to haunt us. Did a particular request prompt this?
I do not know enough of the inner circle to know who should be the liaison to the board. I’ll leave that to the rest of you.
Which spreadsheet — the table of group members or something else?
Regards,
Karen Broome
On May 17, 2017, at 12:22 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
<GRRRRR>
On 17 May 2017 at 21:05, Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com mailto:millosh@gmail.com> wrote: On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 8:42 PM, Michael Everson <everson@evertype.com mailto:everson@evertype.com> wrote:
On 17 May 2017, at 17:13, Milos Rancic <millosh@gmail.com mailto:millosh@gmail.com> wrote:
Because SIL is at least sensible enough to have the policy to change derogatory codes, while Congress Library is too white to be able to comprehend that.
You do not have any idea what you are talking about.
Obviously. However, at least they understand that there are offensive language names [1]. Although, thanks for the information, they are also too white, as well, to recognize that there is a need to change the code if it's been based on offensive name.
Melanin helps to protect us from UV radiation and to permit the production of Vitamin D.
I have explained to you MANY TIMES. Most of the ISO 639-2 codes were made many years ago. No one was trying to insult anyone. No one was trying to push an imperialist agenda. No one was looking at skin tone variation in Chile. They were trying to tag data for libraries. Do you understand this?
I have explained to you MANY TIMES as well that reluctance to change codes on the part of the JAC has to do with a concern for stability in encoding.
I ave informed you that I have spoken to the JAC, and I have supplied to you their response. They looked at this 5 years ago and were not minded at that time to destabilize encoding. They also said they would consider an application if one were submitted.
You persist in arguing with ME about it and all I have done is explain facts to you.
You are still embarrassing yourself. Nobody told here that there are bad intentions. (Just to remind you, Cold War ended ~30 years ago :P ) I told you that you are perpetuating institutional racism [, filled with absolutely good intentions].
If you want to understand what I am talking about, please start with this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism
[1] http://archive.ethnologue.com/16/ethno_docs/introduction.asp http://archive.ethnologue.com/16/ethno_docs/introduction.asp
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org mailto:Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
This is response to Oliver, as well.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 10:30 PM, Karen Broome klbroome@pacbell.net wrote:
I agree that pressuring the JAC to adopt a less offensive code is futile. There are national libraries and government-funded software systems that use these codes that cannot be updated in any kind of timely way. Lots of countries would like representations that more closely resemble the native language names. I can’t remember the issue, but I have been up against something like this before and gave up, as interop and compatibility with legacy systems was paramount. 639-2 codes are not likely to change for that reason.
Here is the background of the story...
This is not about "closer representation", but about replacing the code based on *offensive* language name. Replacing code names because of more trivial (and racist reasons, BTW) have happened in at least in the case of ROM=>RON change. (Poor Romanians were offended because the code had a meaning of a member of Roma ethnicity.) Allowing a racist-based change requested by white people and not allowing offensive-name-based change by indigenous people is a typical institutional racist behavior, no matter of particular excuse
I know there are always pretty valid excuses as long as it's not about interests and money of white people. We could, for example, see that in relation to not fixing many scripts inside of Unicode because of "reasons", while adding tons of nonsense emoticons afterwards because "it's cool".
It is not about ISO 639-2, but about ISO 639-3. We are using ISO 639-3 codes. If there is the rule which fixes ISO 639-3 to ISO 639-2, that's definitely unfortunate and requires changes of the rules inside of JAC to avoid widespread institutional racism.
A note to Oliver: First, thank you for really reading the document and finding the relevant part.
At the other side, can we or not JAC's and Unicode's behavior put under the definition "The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people."?
If *you* think not, please send me a private email with the reasons. I would be happy to be convinced by you in opposite and will apologize here. If convinced, will do that partially for JAC, as well, because I think that it's not possible to defend Unicode's institutional racism.
I also think allowing a particular organization to take ownership of a wiki might result in more politicized wikis. Seems like a good idea, but might come back to haunt us. Did a particular request prompt this?
It's not about ownership and it is about Wikimedia chapters or closely affiliated organization. It is about making organizational efforts to make people working on particular Wikimedia projects. For example, Wikimedia Australia is organizing editathons among particular indigenous ethnic group and they have in their yearly budget money reserved for outreach to that group.
Which spreadsheet — the table of group members or something else?
It's a working spreadsheet. I am not sure if you have write permissions, but you could see it by clicking here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1km84QEg4MIbeWekZ4qZVibQ37pX3sd4p8qHS...
You could just write here, via email, what you can do in LangCom. You could see that it's about various responses.
On 17 May 2017, at 22:14, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
This is response to Oliver, as well.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 10:30 PM, Karen Broome klbroome@pacbell.net wrote:
I agree that pressuring the JAC to adopt a less offensive code is futile. There are national libraries and government-funded software systems that use these codes that cannot be updated in any kind of timely way. Lots of countries would like representations that more closely resemble the native language names. I can’t remember the issue, but I have been up against something like this before and gave up, as interop and compatibility with legacy systems was paramount. 639-2 codes are not likely to change for that reason.
Here is the background of the story…
Some of us were actually there.
This is not about "closer representation", but about replacing the code based on *offensive* language name.
What about code stability in a widespread international standard?
Replacing code names because of more trivial (and racist reasons, BTW) have happened in at least in the case of ROM=>RON change.
When do you think that change was made? What evidence do you have for it?
In 1996, a ballot went out where some language codess were changed. The ballot had gd gae/gdh for Scottish Gaelic, ga iri/gai for Irish, and nothing for Manx. Ireland lobbied for gd/gla, ga/gle, and gv/glv which were accepted. On that ballot at that time the codes for Romanian were already rum/ron. 1996. TWENTY YEARS AGO.
(Poor Romanians were offended because the code had a meaning of a member of Roma ethnicity.)
ROM is now used in ISO 639 as a macrolanguage term for the Romany languages.
Allowing a racist-based change requested by white people
Kindly stop this racist bullshit. The very concept of “white” vs “non-white” is largely meaningless in South America, compared to the use of those categories in North America. In Europe we do not share the baggage that they do in the United States, and encouraging it as you are doing is not constructive.
The correct terms to use are “endonym” and “exonym”. You maintain that at least some Mapuche dislike an exonym so much that they refuse to use a Wikipedia prefixed with “arn”. They live in Chile, right? In a region called Araucanía. They may call it something else in their language, but it would appear that this term would be widespread and visible everywhere.
and not allowing offensive-name-based change by indigenous people is a typical institutional racist behavior, no matter of particular excuse
What about code stability in a widespread international standard?
I know there are always pretty valid excuses as long as it's not about interests and money of white people.
This has nothing to do with melanin content of human beings of indigenous and European extraction in Chile.
We could, for example, see that in relation to not fixing many scripts inside of Unicode because of "reasons", while adding tons of nonsense emoticons afterwards because "it's cool”.
Whatever are you on about? “Fixing” scripts implies that some are “broken”. The addition of characters of all kinds proceeds every year. I just got 84 characters approved for Fairy Chess, an important intellectual activity to some humans.
Please note that ISO/IEC 10646 and ISO 639 are unrelated standards.
It is not about ISO 639-2, but about ISO 639-3. We are using ISO 639-3 codes. If there is the rule which fixes ISO 639-3 to ISO 639-2,
I don’t think you understand the relation between the standards. Firstly, ISO 639-2 is essentially fixed and frozen. No additional codes are to be added to it. This is for stability of the code set, which is implemented in billions of devices worldwide.
that’s definitely unfortunate and requires changes of the rules inside of JAC to avoid widespread institutional racism.
Stop using this terminology. Clearly you don’t know how to do so.
A note to Oliver: First, thank you for really reading the document and finding the relevant part.
You might thank him too for pointing out your error.
At the other side, can we or not JAC's and Unicode's behavior
Unicode has NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH THIS.
put under the definition "The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.”?
Their language has been recognized and given a three-letter identifier which serves to identify texts written for the benefit of the 260,000 native speakers.
If *you* think not, please send me a private email with the reasons. I would be happy to be convinced by you in opposite and will apologize here. If convinced, will do that partially for JAC, as well, because I think that it's not possible to defend Unicode's institutional racism.
Miloš Rančić, I hereby request an immediate formal apology from you right now, here, in public, for having attacked the Unicode Consortium as perpetrating “institutional racism”. The Unicode Consortium, along with ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2, maintains the Universal Character Set, known as the Unicode Standard and ISO/IEC 10646. This standard has nothing whatever to do with the language codes of ISO 639.
It appears to me that you do not understand the development of these international standards.
Michael Everson
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 1:43 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
The correct terms to use are “endonym” and “exonym”. You maintain that at least some Mapuche dislike an exonym so much that they refuse to use a Wikipedia prefixed with “arn”. They live in Chile, right? In a region called Araucanía. They may call it something else in their language, but it would appear that this term would be widespread and visible everywhere.
Do we want to talk about Mapudungun issue and do the best to fix their problem or we want to continue the general discussion?
Miloš Rančić, I hereby request an immediate formal apology from you right now, here, in public, for having attacked the Unicode Consortium as perpetrating “institutional racism”. The Unicode Consortium, along with ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2, maintains the Universal Character Set, known as the Unicode Standard and ISO/IEC 10646. This standard has nothing whatever to do with the language codes of ISO 639.
Willing to do that if I see constructive approach in the case of Mapudungun.
On 18 May 2017, at 12:56, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 1:43 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
The correct terms to use are “endonym” and “exonym”. You maintain that at least some Mapuche dislike an exonym so much that they refuse to use a Wikipedia prefixed with “arn”. They live in Chile, right? In a region called Araucanía. They may call it something else in their language, but it would appear that this term would be widespread and visible everywhere.
Do we want to talk about Mapudungun issue and do the best to fix their problem or we want to continue the general discussion?
I have ALREADY TOLD YOU what can be done. I told you and the Chilean representative in Berlin. I told you just yesterday. I wrote to the JAC mentioning the pronblem. They responded. I forward their response here. There isn’t anything else LangCom can do about it.
If Chileans wish to petition the ISO 639 JAC again about this matter, the JAC will consider it.
I do not believe that LangCom or WMF should sponsor such a petition.
Miloš Rančić, I hereby request an immediate formal apology from you right now, here, in public, for having attacked the Unicode Consortium as perpetrating “institutional racism”. The Unicode Consortium, along with ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2, maintains the Universal Character Set, known as the Unicode Standard and ISO/IEC 10646. This standard has nothing whatever to do with the language codes of ISO 639.
Willing to do that if I see constructive approach in the case of Mapudungun.
You should do it out of shame.
Michael
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 2:08 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
On 18 May 2017, at 12:56, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 1:43 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
The correct terms to use are “endonym” and “exonym”. You maintain that at least some Mapuche dislike an exonym so much that they refuse to use a Wikipedia prefixed with “arn”. They live in Chile, right? In a region called Araucanía. They may call it something else in their language, but it would appear that this term would be widespread and visible everywhere.
Do we want to talk about Mapudungun issue and do the best to fix their problem or we want to continue the general discussion?
I have ALREADY TOLD YOU what can be done. I told you and the Chilean representative in Berlin. I told you just yesterday. I wrote to the JAC mentioning the pronblem. They responded. I forward their response here. There isn’t anything else LangCom can do about it.
If Chileans wish to petition the ISO 639 JAC again about this matter, the JAC will consider it.
I do not believe that LangCom or WMF should sponsor such a petition.
Miloš Rančić, I hereby request an immediate formal apology from you right now, here, in public, for having attacked the Unicode Consortium as perpetrating “institutional racism”. The Unicode Consortium, along with ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2, maintains the Universal Character Set, known as the Unicode Standard and ISO/IEC 10646. This standard has nothing whatever to do with the language codes of ISO 639.
Willing to do that if I see constructive approach in the case of Mapudungun.
You should do it out of shame.
So, we are stuck.
I was looking at https://ak.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twi and have discovered that at least half of the letters which should be encoded as LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN O have been written as HEBREW LETTER KAF. Clearly keyboard standards would help Akan users edit the Wikipedia. But in the meantime, can at least the data be fixed?
Michael Everson
Will do that.
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 2:05 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
I was looking at https://ak.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twi and have discovered that at least half of the letters which should be encoded as LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN O have been written as HEBREW LETTER KAF. Clearly keyboard standards would help Akan users edit the Wikipedia. But in the meantime, can at least the data be fixed?
Michael Everson _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Done.
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 2:07 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Will do that.
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 2:05 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
I was looking at https://ak.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twi and have discovered that at least half of the letters which should be encoded as LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN O have been written as HEBREW LETTER KAF. Clearly keyboard standards would help Akan users edit the Wikipedia. But in the meantime, can at least the data be fixed?
Michael Everson _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
Done also on two other pages (Yaa Asantewaa and Ỳesu Asafo Ankasaankasa) with AutoWikiBrowser. All the project was checked, no other pages used the kaf.
Cdlt, ~nicolas
For the record: I'm opposed to changing arn to qmp for the reasons given by Gerard and Michael already.
Otherwise, I have no time to follow the unacceptable exchanges. I do expect appropriate apologies from Milos. For now, I will remain silent on LangCom until proper behaviour has returned.
Oliver
On 18-May-17 13:43, Michael Everson wrote:
On 17 May 2017, at 22:14, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
This is response to Oliver, as well.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 10:30 PM, Karen Broome klbroome@pacbell.net wrote:
I agree that pressuring the JAC to adopt a less offensive code is futile. There are national libraries and government-funded software systems that use these codes that cannot be updated in any kind of timely way. Lots of countries would like representations that more closely resemble the native language names. I can’t remember the issue, but I have been up against something like this before and gave up, as interop and compatibility with legacy systems was paramount. 639-2 codes are not likely to change for that reason.
Here is the background of the story…
Some of us were actually there.
This is not about "closer representation", but about replacing the code based on *offensive* language name.
What about code stability in a widespread international standard?
Replacing code names because of more trivial (and racist reasons, BTW) have happened in at least in the case of ROM=>RON change.
When do you think that change was made? What evidence do you have for it?
In 1996, a ballot went out where some language codess were changed. The ballot had gd gae/gdh for Scottish Gaelic, ga iri/gai for Irish, and nothing for Manx. Ireland lobbied for gd/gla, ga/gle, and gv/glv which were accepted. On that ballot at that time the codes for Romanian were already rum/ron. 1996. TWENTY YEARS AGO.
(Poor Romanians were offended because the code had a meaning of a member of Roma ethnicity.)
ROM is now used in ISO 639 as a macrolanguage term for the Romany languages.
Allowing a racist-based change requested by white people
Kindly stop this racist bullshit. The very concept of “white” vs “non-white” is largely meaningless in South America, compared to the use of those categories in North America. In Europe we do not share the baggage that they do in the United States, and encouraging it as you are doing is not constructive.
The correct terms to use are “endonym” and “exonym”. You maintain that at least some Mapuche dislike an exonym so much that they refuse to use a Wikipedia prefixed with “arn”. They live in Chile, right? In a region called Araucanía. They may call it something else in their language, but it would appear that this term would be widespread and visible everywhere.
and not allowing offensive-name-based change by indigenous people is a typical institutional racist behavior, no matter of particular excuse
What about code stability in a widespread international standard?
I know there are always pretty valid excuses as long as it's not about interests and money of white people.
This has nothing to do with melanin content of human beings of indigenous and European extraction in Chile.
We could, for example, see that in relation to not fixing many scripts inside of Unicode because of "reasons", while adding tons of nonsense emoticons afterwards because "it's cool”.
Whatever are you on about? “Fixing” scripts implies that some are “broken”. The addition of characters of all kinds proceeds every year. I just got 84 characters approved for Fairy Chess, an important intellectual activity to some humans.
Please note that ISO/IEC 10646 and ISO 639 are unrelated standards.
It is not about ISO 639-2, but about ISO 639-3. We are using ISO 639-3 codes. If there is the rule which fixes ISO 639-3 to ISO 639-2,
I don’t think you understand the relation between the standards. Firstly, ISO 639-2 is essentially fixed and frozen. No additional codes are to be added to it. This is for stability of the code set, which is implemented in billions of devices worldwide.
that’s definitely unfortunate and requires changes of the rules inside of JAC to avoid widespread institutional racism.
Stop using this terminology. Clearly you don’t know how to do so.
A note to Oliver: First, thank you for really reading the document and finding the relevant part.
You might thank him too for pointing out your error.
At the other side, can we or not JAC's and Unicode's behavior
Unicode has NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH THIS.
put under the definition "The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.”?
Their language has been recognized and given a three-letter identifier which serves to identify texts written for the benefit of the 260,000 native speakers.
If *you* think not, please send me a private email with the reasons. I would be happy to be convinced by you in opposite and will apologize here. If convinced, will do that partially for JAC, as well, because I think that it's not possible to defend Unicode's institutional racism.
Miloš Rančić, I hereby request an immediate formal apology from you right now, here, in public, for having attacked the Unicode Consortium as perpetrating “institutional racism”. The Unicode Consortium, along with ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2, maintains the Universal Character Set, known as the Unicode Standard and ISO/IEC 10646. This standard has nothing whatever to do with the language codes of ISO 639.
It appears to me that you do not understand the development of these international standards.
Michael Everson _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. http://www.avg.com
I share the view of Oliver, Gerard, and Michael for all the reasons stated. Gerard’s statement was compact and to the point.
Regards,
Karen Broome
On May 18, 2017, at 2:42 PM, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
For the record: I'm opposed to changing arn to qmp for the reasons given by Gerard and Michael already.
Otherwise, I have no time to follow the unacceptable exchanges. I do expect appropriate apologies from Milos. For now, I will remain silent on LangCom until proper behaviour has returned.
Oliver
On 18-May-17 13:43, Michael Everson wrote:
On 17 May 2017, at 22:14, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
This is response to Oliver, as well.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 10:30 PM, Karen Broome klbroome@pacbell.net wrote:
I agree that pressuring the JAC to adopt a less offensive code is futile. There are national libraries and government-funded software systems that use these codes that cannot be updated in any kind of timely way. Lots of countries would like representations that more closely resemble the native language names. I can’t remember the issue, but I have been up against something like this before and gave up, as interop and compatibility with legacy systems was paramount. 639-2 codes are not likely to change for that reason.
Here is the background of the story…
Some of us were actually there.
This is not about "closer representation", but about replacing the code based on *offensive* language name.
What about code stability in a widespread international standard?
Replacing code names because of more trivial (and racist reasons, BTW) have happened in at least in the case of ROM=>RON change.
When do you think that change was made? What evidence do you have for it?
In 1996, a ballot went out where some language codess were changed. The ballot had gd gae/gdh for Scottish Gaelic, ga iri/gai for Irish, and nothing for Manx. Ireland lobbied for gd/gla, ga/gle, and gv/glv which were accepted. On that ballot at that time the codes for Romanian were already rum/ron. 1996. TWENTY YEARS AGO.
(Poor Romanians were offended because the code had a meaning of a member of Roma ethnicity.)
ROM is now used in ISO 639 as a macrolanguage term for the Romany languages.
Allowing a racist-based change requested by white people
Kindly stop this racist bullshit. The very concept of “white” vs “non-white” is largely meaningless in South America, compared to the use of those categories in North America. In Europe we do not share the baggage that they do in the United States, and encouraging it as you are doing is not constructive.
The correct terms to use are “endonym” and “exonym”. You maintain that at least some Mapuche dislike an exonym so much that they refuse to use a Wikipedia prefixed with “arn”. They live in Chile, right? In a region called Araucanía. They may call it something else in their language, but it would appear that this term would be widespread and visible everywhere.
and not allowing offensive-name-based change by indigenous people is a typical institutional racist behavior, no matter of particular excuse
What about code stability in a widespread international standard?
I know there are always pretty valid excuses as long as it's not about interests and money of white people.
This has nothing to do with melanin content of human beings of indigenous and European extraction in Chile.
We could, for example, see that in relation to not fixing many scripts inside of Unicode because of "reasons", while adding tons of nonsense emoticons afterwards because "it's cool”.
Whatever are you on about? “Fixing” scripts implies that some are “broken”. The addition of characters of all kinds proceeds every year. I just got 84 characters approved for Fairy Chess, an important intellectual activity to some humans.
Please note that ISO/IEC 10646 and ISO 639 are unrelated standards.
It is not about ISO 639-2, but about ISO 639-3. We are using ISO 639-3 codes. If there is the rule which fixes ISO 639-3 to ISO 639-2,
I don’t think you understand the relation between the standards. Firstly, ISO 639-2 is essentially fixed and frozen. No additional codes are to be added to it. This is for stability of the code set, which is implemented in billions of devices worldwide.
that’s definitely unfortunate and requires changes of the rules inside of JAC to avoid widespread institutional racism.
Stop using this terminology. Clearly you don’t know how to do so.
A note to Oliver: First, thank you for really reading the document and finding the relevant part.
You might thank him too for pointing out your error.
At the other side, can we or not JAC's and Unicode's behavior
Unicode has NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH THIS.
put under the definition "The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people.”?
Their language has been recognized and given a three-letter identifier which serves to identify texts written for the benefit of the 260,000 native speakers.
If *you* think not, please send me a private email with the reasons. I would be happy to be convinced by you in opposite and will apologize here. If convinced, will do that partially for JAC, as well, because I think that it's not possible to defend Unicode's institutional racism.
Miloš Rančić, I hereby request an immediate formal apology from you right now, here, in public, for having attacked the Unicode Consortium as perpetrating “institutional racism”. The Unicode Consortium, along with ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2, maintains the Universal Character Set, known as the Unicode Standard and ISO/IEC 10646. This standard has nothing whatever to do with the language codes of ISO 639.
It appears to me that you do not understand the development of these international standards.
Michael Everson _______________________________________________ Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
This email has been checked for viruses by AVG. http://www.avg.com
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 11:42 PM, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
For the record: I'm opposed to changing arn to qmp for the reasons given by Gerard and Michael already.
Otherwise, I have no time to follow the unacceptable exchanges. I do expect appropriate apologies from Milos. For now, I will remain silent on LangCom until proper behaviour has returned.
Appropriate apologies could come exclusively if I see that there is an effort in addressing institutional racism. Instead of that, I could see just denial and clique "voting". Thanks for that.
This issue will have long-term consequences and it is not going to disappear over night.
Hoi, You have painted yourself in a corner by being abusive. Your bullying and insistence on being on the moral highground damaged us as a group.
What did you achieve? Who did you serve? Why should I take you serious after all this? Thanks, GerardM
Op vr 19 mei 2017 om 01:54 schreef Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 11:42 PM, Oliver Stegen oliver_stegen@sil.org wrote:
For the record: I'm opposed to changing arn to qmp for the reasons given by Gerard and Michael already.
Otherwise, I have no time to follow the unacceptable exchanges. I do
expect
appropriate apologies from Milos. For now, I will remain silent on LangCom until proper behaviour has returned.
Appropriate apologies could come exclusively if I see that there is an effort in addressing institutional racism. Instead of that, I could see just denial and clique "voting". Thanks for that.
This issue will have long-term consequences and it is not going to disappear over night.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 2:20 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
You have painted yourself in a corner by being abusive. Your bullying and insistence on being on the moral highground damaged us as a group.
What did you achieve? Who did you serve? Why should I take you serious after all this?
Sorry. The problem of institutional racism is much more serious than any damage made to our group. And I am sorry because three dear people to me do not understand that.
Institutional racism is a problem.* Changing a lang code on WP to be out of sync w/ ISO won't change that problem, and will introduce new problems. (For instance: this list would become a new forum for anyone whose ISO requests were rejected.)
Sam
* So is institutional bnox. Please don't be That Guy.
On Thu, May 18, 2017 at 8:23 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 2:20 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
You have painted yourself in a corner by being abusive. Your bullying and insistence on being on the moral highground damaged us as a group.
What did you achieve? Who did you serve? Why should I take you serious
after
all this?
Sorry. The problem of institutional racism is much more serious than any damage made to our group. And I am sorry because three dear people to me do not understand that.
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 2:37 AM, Samuel Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Institutional racism is a problem.*
Thank you with astersik! <3
Changing a lang code on WP to be out of sync w/ ISO won't change that problem, and will introduce new problems. (For instance: this list would become a new forum for anyone whose ISO requests were rejected.)
The hordes of unsatisfied language code seekers will rise from the Mordor and attack the castle of the Language committee!
Come on :)
Milos, please, stop.
בתאריך 17 במאי 2017 10:06 PM, "Milos Rancic" millosh@gmail.com כתב:
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 8:42 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
On 17 May 2017, at 17:13, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Because SIL is at least sensible enough to have the policy to change
derogatory codes, while Congress Library is too white to be able to comprehend that.
You do not have any idea what you are talking about.
Obviously. However, at least they understand that there are offensive language names [1]. Although, thanks for the information, they are also too white, as well, to recognize that there is a need to change the code if it's been based on offensive name.
Melanin helps to protect us from UV radiation and to permit the
production of Vitamin D.
I have explained to you MANY TIMES. Most of the ISO 639-2 codes were
made many years ago. No one was trying to insult anyone. No one was trying to push an imperialist agenda. No one was looking at skin tone variation in Chile. They were trying to tag data for libraries. Do you understand this?
I have explained to you MANY TIMES as well that reluctance to change
codes on the part of the JAC has to do with a concern for stability in encoding.
I ave informed you that I have spoken to the JAC, and I have supplied to
you their response. They looked at this 5 years ago and were not minded at that time to destabilize encoding. They also said they would consider an application if one were submitted.
You persist in arguing with ME about it and all I have done is explain
facts to you.
You are still embarrassing yourself. Nobody told here that there are bad intentions. (Just to remind you, Cold War ended ~30 years ago :P ) I told you that you are perpetuating institutional racism [, filled with absolutely good intentions].
If you want to understand what I am talking about, please start with this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism
[1] http://archive.ethnologue.com/16/ethno_docs/introduction.asp
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
I feel deeply offended, Milos, on behalf of JAC by your accusations of institutional racism. I have followed your suggestion
If you want to understand what I am talking about, please start with this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism
and actually read that article. From which it becomes clear to me that JAC's actions and decisions are an appropriate and professional service to minority groups and hence the opposite of institutional racism as defined in the 1999 Lawrence report: "The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture, or ethnic origin. It can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people." It is your accusations which are embarrassing, and I concur with the other LangCom members in this discussion who have urged you to stop this!
Respectfully, Oliver
On 17-May-17 21:05, Milos Rancic wrote:
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 8:42 PM, Michael Everson everson@evertype.com wrote:
On 17 May 2017, at 17:13, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Because SIL is at least sensible enough to have the policy to change derogatory codes, while Congress Library is too white to be able to comprehend that.
You do not have any idea what you are talking about.
Obviously. However, at least they understand that there are offensive language names [1]. Although, thanks for the information, they are also too white, as well, to recognize that there is a need to change the code if it's been based on offensive name.
Melanin helps to protect us from UV radiation and to permit the production of Vitamin D.
I have explained to you MANY TIMES. Most of the ISO 639-2 codes were made many years ago. No one was trying to insult anyone. No one was trying to push an imperialist agenda. No one was looking at skin tone variation in Chile. They were trying to tag data for libraries. Do you understand this?
I have explained to you MANY TIMES as well that reluctance to change codes on the part of the JAC has to do with a concern for stability in encoding.
I ave informed you that I have spoken to the JAC, and I have supplied to you their response. They looked at this 5 years ago and were not minded at that time to destabilize encoding. They also said they would consider an application if one were submitted.
You persist in arguing with ME about it and all I have done is explain facts to you.
You are still embarrassing yourself. Nobody told here that there are bad intentions. (Just to remind you, Cold War ended ~30 years ago :P ) I told you that you are perpetuating institutional racism [, filled with absolutely good intentions].
If you want to understand what I am talking about, please start with this article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism
[1] http://archive.ethnologue.com/16/ethno_docs/introduction.asp
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
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On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 2:18 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
=== Phabricator task into the project ===
Amir should convert the tracking task on Phabricator into a project. Our mailing list should be subscribed to relevant tasks/tickets/projects, making all of us informed about the state of particular request.
It should be easy, but can you please remind me which one?
I can think of these two, which are already on the way to conversion: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T18976 https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T21986
(Although once the conversion is completed, they should be organized as workboards. I'll be happy to that.)
Are there any other tasks that need this handling?
That was your idea :) I think it was about following the requests for wiki creation. However, feel free to convert any of them if you think it's relevant.
Hoi, I am not comfortable with Asaf in an official role. His summarily dismissal of any research in the rise of the Cebuano Wikipedia / the use of bot created articles makes him only acceptable in a role of observer but that is the extend of it. Thanks, GerardM
On 17 May 2017 at 13:51, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Sorry for delay. As I said, I am the sole responsible person for this delay, as I had numerous tasks to do in the meantime and this is not something to be done without being fully concentrated.
== Organizational issues ==
=== Yearly meetings in Berlin ===
Yearly meetings in Berlin. We've concluded that we want to have yearly meetings during the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin. It is the most convenient place, as almost all of us are Europeans and significant number of LangCom members live in Germany.
=== New member ===
We have the new member, but that's been already known.
=== New list admins ===
Saatdeep and MF-Warburg are new list admins. Old list admins are still list admins.
=== Internal procedures ===
We should define the following internal procedures:
- Who should define the rules how we are making decisions, per our
communication with Board.
- There was a question of how to call the vote and what does formal
voting mean. It should be flexible, it shouldn't be necessary that everybody votes about everything, but we should definitely define it.
- We should define the rules how to remove the LangCom members. Maybe
we should adopt the stewards' confirmation procedure.
=== Who, what, do ===
- MF-Warburg has created the spreadsheet [1]. All LangCom members
should have access there. It's useful to know who is able to do what. (Said so, I haven't filled the info, which I should do ASAP.)
- We should create our own Timeline, to be able to follow what should
be done next. (It's likely MF-Warburg and I will do that.)
== Languages Foundation ==
- We were discussing creation of the ''active'' organization, based on
the Language committee members. We started talking about that on Wikimania in London 2014, we are talking about that from time to time, but at this point of time everybody either expressed active support for the idea or didn't have anything against it. I will take the next step in the form of creating a separate thread, with suggestions how to continue that. Basically, the idea is to create the organization comparable to Wiki Education Foundation [2].
- During the discussion about Wikipedias in new languages, it's been
suggested that it would be good to have a wiki farm external from WMF, which would be used for small communities to write there their own knowledge, without having to follow strict Wikipedian and Wikimedian rules (NPOV, strict copyright and similar).
== Language committee and WMF ===
=== Liaison ===
We need a WMF liaison, who would take care about our needs in relation to the WMF. We've agreed with Kathrine that it would be better that it would be a WMF employee rather than a Board member, as we need operational support. She mentioned Jack (not sure about his surname), who talked with us a little bit. Although we haven't discussed that, I think the default option is just to "promote" Asaf from a "community observer" to the WMF liaison.
=== "In the name of WMF" ===
In relation to the ISO 639-3 code for Mapudungun (see below), I've asked Christophe, Board chair, if we could find the way that Language committee fill the form in the name of Wikimedia Foundation. The answer is "yes" if we communicate particular issue with the Board. It is important to know that there is such an option for the future issues and not just related with ISO 639-3.
== Linguistic issues ==
=== Mapudungun ===
Mapudungun has the code which Mapuche people treat as derogatory. My position is that we should help them and make pressure over JAC to make the change. To be honest, I am prepared to push this into much higher level than Wikimedia is, as they were able to change the codes for a language because one ethnicity is inherently racist and didn't want to be connected with the other ethnicity by ISO 639-6 code name, while JAC are not capable to address colonial and racist past of their own societies.
Said so, Michael was quite nervous about that and he will definitely vote against that when I put this on vote here.
== Technical issues ==
This is "the rest" what I have. Some of the issues have been already covered. If others have something else to add, let them do that.
=== Look & feel of Incubator ===
It was raised by, I think, Oliver (and Michael?) that Incubator looks horrible for an average user :) I mean, it looks perfectly fine for an average Wikipedian, but quite confusing to anyone who doesn't know the internal dynamics of MediaWiki pages :D
The conclusion was that it would be good to contact WMF and ask for QA help in relation to how to make Incubator pages more convenient to new users.
(I have a note "incubator and programming", but I think it's about QA help. Anyone remembers something different?)
=== Phabricator task into the project ===
Amir should convert the tracking task on Phabricator into a project. Our mailing list should be subscribed to relevant tasks/tickets/projects, making all of us informed about the state of particular request.
=== Transliteration and translation ===
Kathrine, Amir and I communicated about the transliteration and translation engines. There is a low level email communication about that. If anyone is interested in that issue, let him or her contact Amir and/or me.
In short, if transliteration engine would be made properly, it could be used for machine translation, as well.
[1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1km84QEg4MIbeWekZ4qZVibQ37pX3s d4p8qHSAyxqZos/edit?usp=sharing [2] https://wikiedu.org/
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:41 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
I am not comfortable with Asaf in an official role. His summarily dismissal of any research in the rise of the Cebuano Wikipedia / the use of bot created articles makes him only acceptable in a role of observer but that is the extend of it.
OK. Do you have any suggestion? But, let's move this discussion to our private list. This list shouldn't be used for discussing personal details, but just for personal attacks :P
Hoi, In the mail it says that our director made a suggestion.
When you see fit to present someone publicly you invite response. The private mailing list is also applicable for this.
On a different observation; I do not attack Asaf. I think he does great job. It is just that this task is not for him and I am open about my reasons. Thanks, GerardM
On 17 May 2017 at 19:51, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:41 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
I am not comfortable with Asaf in an official role. His summarily
dismissal
of any research in the rise of the Cebuano Wikipedia / the use of bot created articles makes him only acceptable in a role of observer but
that is
the extend of it.
OK. Do you have any suggestion? But, let's move this discussion to our private list. This list shouldn't be used for discussing personal details, but just for personal attacks :P
Langcom mailing list Langcom@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 7:59 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
In the mail it says that our director made a suggestion.
When you see fit to present someone publicly you invite response. The private mailing list is also applicable for this.
Yes, Kathrine suggested Jack, but maybe you (or anyone else?) has in mind maybe somebody more appropriate or preferred. That's why I think it would be good to move the discussion to the private list.
On a different observation; I do not attack Asaf. I think he does great job. It is just that this task is not for him and I am open about my reasons.
I was referring to my personal attacks on Michael.
On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 1:51 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
=== Internal procedures ===
We should define the following internal procedures:
- Who should define the rules how we are making decisions, per our
communication with Board.
Who => We