On Sun, Feb 20, 2011 at 21:51, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com> wrote: Yes. Because of the same reason we won't meet during the WM CON, which was the initial plan. Not yet, but we'll create it soon. A couple of us already have ideas about the agenda.

On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 06:55, Bishakha Datta <bishakhadatta(a)gmail.com> wrote: In principle yes, but... [1] Linguistic qualifications for becoming a LangCom member are not so simple. After a couple of years in LangCom, I may say that many professors of linguistics don't fit. And the main reason is not their knowledge, but attitude toward languages. Or, to be more precise, their boldness. For example, LangCom tasks require from one Indo-Europeanist to give expertize on any Indo-European language, but many of them would say that the classification of, let's say, Kurdish languages is not the part of their job, but the part of the job of an expert in Iranian languages. Such expert in LangCom is basically useless. It is even worse if we are talking about, let's say, an expert in solely Hindi or Tamil. We have Wikipedias in both languages and we don't need further expertize for those languages. Besides that, English is widely spoken lingua franca of South Asia and we can communicate with interested parties. Unlike, let's say, the situation in former USSR or Latin America, where many speakers of indigenous languages primarily speak Russian or Spanish as their lingua franca. So, if we need to cover some area with a fluent speaker of lingua franca, our primary goal should be Spanish for now. At the other side, a linguist with combined knowledge of a couple of languages from different primary groups would be very helpful. For example, a Hindi linguist who is expert in Austro-Asiatic languages and who is familiar with SIL and Wikimedia. But, more than that, if it is about person with good connections at some larger Indian or Chinese university (or, at least, a not so shy student of linguistics) and who is familiar with SIL and Wikimedia -- it would be quite good. We've already started to get requests for projects in not well known languages. For example, this one [2][3] is very well described, thanks to the fact that university exists there [4]. So, at this point of time, for the primary job of LangCom, we need at least partially extraordinary linguists. And, again, not by expertise, but by attitude. Ideally, someone like Joseph Greenberg [5]. However, this was about present tasks of LangCom and we are not going to Berlin to talk [just] about them. We could talk about those issues via mailing list. Except having fun while thinking is there any reachable expert for some language and being happy to see new project alive, LangCom tasks are quite boring. The most of the requests are about new Wikimedia projects in a language which already has at least one project (usually Wikipedia). And, because of the numbers, at some point, number of Wikimedia languages will reach a stable number. It is not likely that we will have projects in languages with ~100 speakers or even ~1000. If such language has writing system -- which is not likely --, and if there are literate people with such language as native -- which is not likely -- they have much more important tasks to do than to write an encyclopedia: to gather linguistic and ethnological heritage of a culture which probably won't exist in 50 years. But, there are sets of tasks which Wikimedia is able to do and which LangCom should initiate. And for those sets of tasks we'll need more people all over the world, no matter what is their linguistic knowledge. Some of them are: 1) Active approach in creation of Wikimedia projects for languages with writing system and more than ~100.000 of speakers. Those languages are very living, but it is usually a matter of Internet access and living conditions why they don't have Wikipedia yet. BTW, there are a couple of 1M+ languages without Wikipedia, too. This is the task where anyone in particular geographical area could be very useful. 2) Missing computer tools. The most of deaf people literate in their native (sign) languages are not able to have Wikipedia. 60% of Mongols are not able, too. That's just because only Internet Explorer supports top to bottom writing. Many languages have significant problems with writing it by computer. It varies from having minor but frustrating difficulties (any right to left writing system while trying to write, let's say, URL), up to missing symbols in Unicode. 3) Missing basic tools. Many languages don't have writing systems. It is about the majority of world's languages, actually. And some of those languages could survive with proper care. So, this meeting will be used to think about changing the course of LangCom: from passive decision-making body, to active working body. And we need your input of that kind. And yes, we are fully aware of our Euro-centric membership. And while there is no need to have 100 members of a decision-making body which would have just less and less job, there is a need for a number of members and contributors if we are going to widen our scope. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Yerevan ;) [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alekano_language [3] http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=gah [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Goroka [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Greenberg

To me, this is still a problem. If the committee never made any decisions and instead relied 100% on the opinions of others, then perhaps the composition wouldn't matter. However, think about this: if you gather a committee to make decisions about agriculture and recruit only from European countries, you will find a very different group of opinions than if you recruit from Africa or India. The same is certainly the case here. The way people think about languages and linguistic diversity differs around the world, and it is not to our benefit to have a committee composed of mostly people from one part of the world, especially considering that over 60% of Earth's population lives in Asia. What I am not suggesting is that we should invite the world's foremost expert on Hindi or Sino-Tibetan languages to be a member of the committee; what I am suggesting is that we should invite people similar to existing members, except that they happen to be from Asia, Africa, Latin America, etc. So people with a deep interest in many languages, who can bring us different perspectives. 2011/2/23, Casey Brown <lists(a)caseybrown.org>rg>: -- skype: node.ue

There are currently 13 members of the committee, all of them live in Europe, the US or Canada with the sole exception of Amir Aharoni, who currently lives in Jerusalem but lived in Russia until 1991 and whose native language is Russian. I find it hard to believe that the language committee has been actively recruiting Wikimedians or others in Asia, Latin America or Africa but faced constant rejection and lack of interest from all people in those places, which is the impression I got from what you said. I think the appropriate reaction to such a strong imbalance (and it is a very strong one) is not to say "Well, we will be happy to have them if they ever want to join" but to say "We recognize that this is an issue and we will actively recruit people to try to rectify it." 2011/2/24, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org>rg>: -- skype: node.ue

Hello, 2011/2/24 M. Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com>om>: I agree with Mark here. This is also a common issue in many international organisations, and we need to take active steps to correct it for Wikimedia. Best regards, Yann

Hoi, You are correct :) Thanks, GerardM On 24 February 2011 00:50, Casey Brown <lists(a)caseybrown.org> wrote:

On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 15:31, M. Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote: It requires active approach. Instead of defining the rules and stick with them, it requires to educate possible contributors.