Jesse Plamondon-Willard wrote:
Andrew Dalby wrote:
Sorry to come along late but I think a correction is needed here: so far as I can discover, the exclusion of ancient languages was not proposed through the community and was not discussed by the subcommittee. I could find no record that the amendment by which it was introduced was even noticed by the subcommittee. Please correct me if I'm wrong here!
The policy itself was originally passed through the community, and a slightly modified version was approved by the subcommittee. The amendment excluding ancient languages was later agreed upon by the subcommittee (there is no community consensus either way on the amendment).
You can read subcommittee discussion at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_subcommittee/Archives (those archives are opt-in, so messages from two members are censored).
While I'm not at this moment ready to comment on the matter of ancient languages, the question of "slightly modified versions" is a persistent problem for policy pages. Cumulative slight modifications can result in policies that are quite different from what is intended. If a community approves of a policy, committees should be reticent to change policies on their own without community approval; this should also apply to small changes that do not fall into strict pre-approved guidelines for changes.
I don't know whether the original community approved version included or excluded ancient languages, but any amendment to change the situation should be community approved. If a proposed amendment fails to meet community approval criteria it fails, and that's the end of it. It is not the mandate of a subcommittee to override that. I am well aware of the problem of inadequate community participation, but community silence does not mean consent, and without a predetermined minimum level of community participation no policy or policy amendment should be considered as approved.
Ec