Hoi,
There is a request for a Wikipedia in Ancient Greek. This request has so far
been denied. A lot of words have been used about it. Many people maintain
their positions and do not for whatever reason consider the arguments of
others.
In my opinion their are a few roadblocks.
- Ancient Greek is an ancient language - the policy does not allow for
it
- Text in ancient Greek written today about contemporary subjects
require the reconstruction of Ancient Greek.
- it requires the use of existing words for concepts that did
not exist at the time when the language was alive
- neologisms will be needed to describe things that did not
exist at the time when the language was alive
- modern texts will not represent the language as it used to be
- Constructed and by inference reconstructed languages are effectively
not permitted
We can change the policy if there are sufficient arguments, when we agree on
a need.
When a text is written in reconstructed ancient Greek, and when it is
clearly stated that it is NOT the ancient Greek of bygone days, it can be
obvious that it is a great tool to learn skills to read and write ancient
Greek but that it is in itself not Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek as a
language is ancient. I have had a word with people who are involved in the
working group that deals with the ISO-639, I have had a word with someone
from SIL and it is clear that a proposal for a code for "Ancient Greek
reconstructed" will be considered for the ISO-639-3. For the ISO-639-6 a
code is likely to be given because a clear use for this code can be given.
We can apply for a code and as it has a use bigger then Wikipedia alone it
clearly has merit.
With modern texts clearly labelled as distinct from the original language,
it will be obvious that innovations a writers needs for his writing are
legitimate.
This leaves the fact that constructed and reconstructed languages are not
permitted because of the notion that mother tongue users are required. In my
opinion, this has always been only a gesture to those people who are dead
set against any and all constructed languages. In the policies there is
something vague "*it must have a reasonable degree of recognition as
determined by discussion (this requirement is being discussed by the language
subcommittee <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_subcommittee>)."* It
is vague because even though the policy talks about a discussion, it is
killed off immediately by stating "The proposal has a sufficient number of
living native speakers to form a viable community and audience." In my
opinion, this discussion for criteria for the acceptance of constructed or
reconstructed languages has not happened. Proposals for objective criteria
have been ignored.
In essence, to be clear about it:
- We can get a code for reconstructed languages.
- We need to change the policy to allow for reconstructed and
constructed languages
We need to do both in order to move forward.
The proposal for objective criteria for constructed and reconstructed
languages is in a nutshell:
- The language must have an ISO-639-3 code
- We need full WMF localisation from the start
- The language must be sufficiently expressive for writing a modern
encyclopaedia
- The Incubator project must have sufficiently large articles that
demonstrate both the language and its ability to write about a wide range of
topics
- A sufficiently large group of editors must be part of the Incubator
project
Thanks,
GerardM
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Hello all!
Next Thursday's office hours will feature Véronique Kessler, the
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Office hours on Thursday are from 2100 to 2200 UTC (3:00 PM - 4:00 PM PDT).
If you do not have an IRC client, there are two ways you can come chat
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nickname, select irc.freenode.net from the top menu and
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It should be all right.
Please feel free to forward (and translate!) this email to any other
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Hi everyone,
The next strategic planning office hours are:
Wednesday, 04:00-05:00 UTC, which is:
-Tuesday (8-9pm PST)
-Tuesday (11pm-12am EST)
There has been a lot of tremendous work on the strategy wiki the past
few months, and Task Forces are finishing up their work.
Office hours will be a great opportunity to discuss the work that's
happened as well as the work to come.
As always, you can access the chat by going to
https://webchat.freenode.net and filling in a username and the channel
name (#wikimedia-strategy). You may be prompted to click through a
security warning. It's fine. More details at:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
Thanks! Hope to see many of you there.
____________________
Philippe Beaudette
Facilitator, Strategy Project
Wikimedia Foundation
philippe(a)wikimedia.org
mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454)
Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
This is a reminder. The deadline for applications is on February 22 (in
about 1 week). Please forward this call to people you might think to be
interested and might make a good candidate.
Kind regards,
Lodewijk
=====
Dear all,
As some of you will know, the Chapters Committee [1] is a Wikimedia
Foundation board-appointed committee that is mainly responsible for
the preparation of approval of new chapters. Currently, there are six
members in the committee, and we are asking for candidates to increase
the membership again.
The chapters committee mainly reviews applications for the forming of
a chapter on legibility and viability and reviews the bylaws of the
organization. This requires communication with chapter candidates all
over the world. Sometimes are applications straight forward and is the
job mainly about reviewing the bylaws and ensuring stability in the
long term that way, sometimes it involves more complex conversations
about whether there are for example enough people involved in the
candidate chapter. At the end of the process, the committee advices
the board of the WMF on the decision to approve the chapter or not.
The board makes the formal decision, but usually follows the advice.
Key skills/experience that we are looking for in new members, are typically:
* willing to work in a sometimes bureaucratic process (reviewing
bylaws is boring)
* 1-2 hour per week (on average) available
* internationally oriented
* Good communication skills in English
* Communication skills in other major world languages are a plus
* able to work and communicate with other cultures
* a strong understanding of the structure and work of both
chapters and the WMF
* experience with or in an active chapter
* an active position in a chapter is a plus
The number of applications is increasing and help is wanted! You can
send your applications with your name, contact data, experience and
motivation to the ChapCom email address, chaptercommittee-l AT lists
DOT wikimedia DOT org before February 22. The applications will be
considered by the current members (in cooperation with the WMF) and
the proposal for the new membership will be reviewed by the Board
before acceptence. I hope for many suitable applications. If you have
any questions, please don't hesitate to email me privately.
With kind regards,
Lodewijk Gelauff
Member, Chapters Committee
[1]: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Chapters_committee
Hi everyone,
The next strategic planning office hours are:
Tuesday from 20:00-21:00 UTC, which is:
Tuesday, 12-1pm PST
Tuesday, 3pm-4pm EST
There has been a lot of tremendous work on the strategy wiki the past
few months, and Task Forces are finishing up their work.
Office hours will be a great opportunity to discuss the work that's
happened as well as the work to come.
As always, you can access the chat by going to
https://webchat.freenode.net and filling in a username and the channel
name (#wikimedia-strategy). You may be prompted to click through a
security warning. It's fine. More details at:
http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours
Thanks! Hope to see many of you there.
____________________
Philippe Beaudette
Facilitator, Strategy Project
Wikimedia Foundation
philippe(a)wikimedia.org
mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454)
Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in
the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Hi,
The Werner Icking Music Archive has announced it's no longer capable of
coping with the large amount of visitors to the site. They are
considering hosting the content somewhere else.
This archive contains much sheet music of public domain music. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Icking_Music_Archivehttp://icking-music-archive.org
I'm not sure if the content they published is in the public domain or
under a free license (by WMF's definition), but it seems worthwhile to
examine this in detail. Perhaps even offering to (temporarily?) host the
website (readonly or allow editing?) or convert it into a new Wiki
project (which – without doubt – would be a huge amount of work).
What do you think?
Regards,
--User:Church of emacs