Michael-
Yes, but until today, every time I've looked at the list of subscribers, Jimbo's email was marked as having list delivery disabled.
I didn't know that and I didn't change the settings, maybe Jimbo did.
our behavior gives the impression of Jimbo as a MeatBall:GodKing.
.. which he effectively is. He has, however, gradually relinquished power to open decision making processes. Until all the necessary processes exist and are sanctioned by the Board, we should continue to bring important developments to the attention of Jimbo/the Board to assure at least some basic legitimacy.
foundation-l and wikipedia-l are multilingual to allow people to communicate who otherwise could not
Now that I look closely I see you added something similar to [[Wikipedia:Mailing lists]] a couple months ago, and apparently nobody objected. That seems like a pretty restrictive formulation to me, as if we're only allowing multilingual discussion as a sort of concession, and you _must_ use English unless you cannot.
The point of language is to communicate. When we use language, we should use the one which allows us to communicate best. If a plausible argument can be made that in this instance, and in others, French was a better way to communicate than English, then I'm open to hearing it. It seems to me that the much more realistic explanation is that some people prefer to switch to a language which they think other people won't understand when they want to make comments which they don't want other people to read. And that, it also seems to me, is clearly against the spirit of open communication.
It's like when you're in a cafe with a bunch of friends, and suddenly two of them start having a conversation in Russian. Notably, only one of the people involved in the conversation is actually Russian. You don't speak Russian, nor do most of your friends, and the couple provides no explanation for switching languages; you only hear a few words you know and can deduce that the conversation is a direct continuation of the earlier English one.
Is such an unexplained switch courteous? Is it useful as a "demonstration of the multilingual nature of the meeting"? Or is it irritating, perhaps even hostile, to others? Using English as our language of choice is not some imperialist dictate. It is a choice that is made purely for pragmatic reasons. I am not a native English speaker, but I support this choice because I want *open* *communication*. I would appreciate it if we could all agree to make our conversations as open as possible. When that is not desired, there is always e-mail.
Regards,
Erik