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