Responding to Jesse Plamondon-Willard's points:
The current draft still as a few issues:
- It allows wikis for languages that have no written form.
This is not an "issue". The Wikimedia Foundation itself has in the past advertised meeting its goal of spreading knowledge by providing a platform for languages without fixed written forms (especially native-American languages) to express themselves and develop both their written forms and materials in them. So yes, the proposal is quite clear in allowing them. Since interface is a requirement, no such wiki will be created under the proposed policy until an acceptable written form has been agreed upon.
- It allows every type of language except fictional, including
languages nobody uses for communication. For example, it allows wikis is extinct languages, so long as some people learn to write or speak it fluently. Even fictional languages are only excluded due to "substantial opposition in the community", with no rational explanation for the distinction between fluently-spoken artificial and fluently-spoken extinct languages.
Classical languages are not "extinct" languages by any means. Yes, the policy clearly allows them because of the many educated people who can express themselves in them fluently and want to do so. This is not an "issue", but a matter on which the community (as reflected in the draft) clearly disagrees with the language committee. Is the Language Committee accountable to community will or not? If any disagreement is an "issue" and there is no accountability to community will, then perhaps both the role and the very existence of the language committee should be reconsidered.
As far as fictional languages, you are correct that there is no rational explanation other than "community opposition." Exactly. I personally having nothing against fictional languages either, but *this* policy draft ultimately derives its legitimacy from community collaboration and compromise. It reflects community will. Does the current policy do that?
- The new requirements are vague and arbitrary, and essentially let
the subcommittee decide requests based on personal preference. They exclude far less languages, but only because they're not concrete or measurable.
Everything is completely measurable: How many participants are there who can express themselves fluently who are building the test project? Has the localization been completed?
The community draft is promising, but I don't think implementing it
while these issues are unaddressed would be beneficial.
All the issues *have* been addressed. Perhaps you disagree with *how* they have been addressed. It seems strange to me that, if you think things have not been addressed, that you are raising your issues here rather than at the proposal's talk page over the past several months.
Thanks, Dovi
Hello Dovi,
The language subcommittee has no official opinion on the issue; I'm disagreeing as a member of the community. A lack of comment is not consensus. Several discussions on the talk page went quiet without ever reaching agreement. A consensus is not reached simply because nobody recently commented, and your proposals aren't immune from objection.
Dovi Jacobs dovijacobs@yahoo.com wrote:
the proposal is quite clear in allowing [languages without fixed written forms]. [...] Since interface is a requirement, no such wiki will be created under the proposed policy until an acceptable written form has been agreed upon.
That is a contradiction.
Dovi Jacobs dovijacobs@yahoo.com wrote:
Classical languages are not "extinct" languages by any means. [...] This is not an "issue", but a matter on which the community (as reflected in the draft) clearly disagrees with the language committee.
The majority of classical languages are extinct, as defined as a lack of native usage. "Classical" is also a colloquial and controversial term, not used by language classification bodies. The types used by ISO 639-3 are living, extinct, ancient, historic, and constructed.
The current draft does not reflect "community will", it reflects your June 2008 edits to the draft combined with a lack of real discussion. The only related discussion, about differentiating which constructed languages deserve wikis, concluded with your proposal to let the community decide every such case by vote.
Dovi Jacobs dovijacobs@yahoo.com wrote:
As far as fictional languages, you are correct that there is no rational explanation other than "community opposition." Exactly. I personally having nothing against fictional languages either, but *this* policy draft ultimately derives its legitimacy from community collaboration and compromise. It reflects community will.
The softening of the requirements, and your repetition of the phrase "community will", suggest to me a return to decision by vote, with all the consequences that entails (political voting, sockpuppetry, double-standards, etc). The subcommittee was formed specifically to get away from that, to form a fair and objective policy; what you suggest seems to be a policy that leaves everything up to voting.
(And please stop repeating "community will". I am part of the community, and my little part of that will does not match what you say it does. You cannot claim "community will" to reject objections from community members.)
Dovi Jacobs dovijacobs@yahoo.com wrote:
It seems strange to me that, if you think things have not been addressed, that you are raising your issues here rather than at the proposal's talk page over the past several months.
I have raised similar issues on the talk page before. Had you asked if there were further comments on the talk page rather than here, I would have responded there.
Several people on the talk page have done exactly that recently, calling for conclusion and ratification, because both discussion and formulation seemed to have had long been accepted by everyone working on it (and you were one of the people who contributed). If you felt it was inadequate, you should have replied.
If more discussion was needed, and if there are discussions which you feel have not been closed, then you should have replied there that ratification, in your opinion, should not proceed because of those issues.
The community was called on to work on a draft. The call was made publicly and an excellent draft was produced by a number of talented and knowledgeable people with backgrounds and experience in various aspects of linguistics. The "issues" you raise were all discussed adequately, and the draft reflects the majority view from those discussions.
The current draft, I thought, was something that everyone could live with, reflecting real compromises on a few issues that had been discussed. Quite frankly, given your silence to the calls for closing, I though that was your opinion too.
If more community members want to discuss and refine the draft further that can still of course be done, but there needs to be *some* method of finally closing the draft and ratifying it once those working on it feel that it is done and it starts to stagnate.
Otherwise, there is no meaning at all to a community draft.
Have a good weekend, Dovi
I have raised similar issues on the talk page before. Had you asked if there were further comments on the talk page rather than here, I would have responded there.
Hoi, I disagree that there is consensus on the many things that are in the proposed policy. Pathoschild is completely correct that the current policy has as its main advantage that voting is no longer done. Given that languages are also checked to be that language before permission from the board is asked, it is now less likely that a project goes rogue.
The policy as it was originally formulated allowed for constructed based on discussion within the language committee. There are several members in the language committee that are completely against them and object to for instance the inclusion of a working Wikipedia project like the one for the Lingua Franca Nova. This is in my opinion a pity. As to natural languages that have gone extinct, I would not object when it is clear in the meta data of the text that the text is not as original written in such a language.. a code like grc-x-modern would allow for this. The same objection exists however for this category of languages; there are no native speakers. NB the URL would still be grc.wikipedia.org !! Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/5 Dovi Jacobs dovijacobs@yahoo.com
Several people on the talk page have done exactly that recently, calling for conclusion and ratification, because both discussion and formulation seemed to have had long been accepted by everyone working on it (and you were one of the people who contributed). If you felt it was inadequate, you should have replied.
If more discussion was needed, and if there are discussions which you feel have not been closed, then you should have replied there that ratification, in your opinion, should not proceed because of those issues.
The community was called on to work on a draft. The call was made publicly and an excellent draft was produced by a number of talented and knowledgeable people with backgrounds and experience in various aspects of linguistics. The "issues" you raise were all discussed adequately, and the draft reflects the majority view from those discussions.
The current draft, I thought, was something that everyone could live with, reflecting real compromises on a few issues that had been discussed. Quite frankly, given your silence to the calls for closing, I though that was your opinion too.
If more community members want to discuss and refine the draft further that can still of course be done, but there needs to be *some* method of finally closing the draft and ratifying it once those working on it feel that it is done and it starts to stagnate.
Otherwise, there is no meaning at all to a community draft.
Have a good weekend, Dovi
I have raised similar issues on the talk page before. Had you asked if there were further comments on the talk page rather than here, I would have responded there.
-- Yours cordially, Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
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