Hi folks,

Let me clarify things a bit. Please be patient, this is going to be somewhat longish text. And I'll keep words like "nationalists" and "radicals" in quotes to avoid negative connotation.

I've joined the discussion in Meta which Marc mentioned and tried to introduce bit of constructive approach. I didn't succeed to elicit any definite response from Be: admin participating there (on lines of yes/no and will be/won't be amended).

Then I went to Be: community discussion and proposed several corrections of Be: rules which would amend existing state of affairs and allow to keep one Belarusian community. Living where we, Belarusians, live, we've had pretty turbulent history and several cultural splits in it, and each was a disaster. Culturally we are extremely unwell now, indeed, and the last thing I'd want to see would be split of Be: into two separate communities.

However, there's a problem here. Since the end of 1980-s, we have a "radical" trend in our cultural revival movement, promoting not only revival of Belarusian language, but also restoration of some orthography rules cancelled by 1933 reform on reasons of their.

The post-1933 (1959, actually) standard orthography is what is taught in schools and what only "radicals" call "narkamauka" (BTW, this is pejorative term). What "radicals" (part of "nationalist" community) since the end of 1980-s have been voluntarily using and what they call affectionately "tarashkievitsa" or, since ca.1994, "classical", is different combinations of *standard* rules and *some* of the reverted rules, to the taste of each editor. In 2005, 4-person workgroup supervised by V.Viachorka published the book "normalising" those combinations (and diverting even further from standard orthography, e.g., introducing addditional letter into alphabet). "Latsinka" is a non-issue, as under this name "sits" one of the "ad hoc" methods of Latin rendering of Belarusian text, adopted by publishers of Belarusian texts in particular periods, and under certain political circumstances.

/* Follows the paragraph where some statements may or may not be verifiable */ Now, this alternative orthography (you actually CAN speak it -- it changes pronounciation rules for some words) has very strong "flavour" of "Polish-ness" and "obsoleteness" to most of people. Folks speaking altenative frequently tend to use more words and concepts freshly borrowed from Polish language. The community supporting alternative orthography isn't numerous. They like to point to their alleged numeral superiority in internet but I could contend that after seeing those "internet community", you've pretty much seen all of supporters of alternative orthography.

/* Follows the paragraph where some statements may or may not be verifiable */Folks promoting those alternative orthographies are, on average, rather aggressive and outspoken against alleged "communism" and "rusification" which in their opinion standard orthography somehow imposes on mind of its users. They tend to regard promotion of alternative ("clasic") orthography as kind of a mission, and frequently try to "substitute" alternative for standard and/or to put alter.o. in role of the only "really used", especially when "foreigners are watching" (as those may have no real insight). They tend to present existence of common mandatory minimum knowledge of standard Belarusian in school as "insubstantial" and existence of subculture preferring alter.o. as "decisive" argument.

/* Follows the paragraph where some statements may or may not be verifiable */ So, person which doesn't buy into "radical" way, finds him-/her-self under ideological fire from two directions, one from exponents of Russian-language culture claiming their superiority ("Belarusian is weak and uninteresting and has no future"), another from "radicals" who *also* claim superiority ("Belarusian written in standard orthography is weak and uninteresting and has no future").

Now where does that the average person wanting to contribute? Coming to Be: WP one is immediately confronted with rules written only in alter.o., categories presented only and exclusively in alter.o., clauses containing politically biased names for orthographies ("classical" and "narkamauka", that is, recognised only by one side) and stating prederrability of alter.o. over standard, lots of articles in alter.o. (which is NOT a problem per se) with clauses requiring ot obtain permission from author (! FDL?) if one wants to enter info in "different" orthography (which IS a problem).

So, in Be: talk I've proposed following amendments:

1. Remove politically biased names for orthographies, put standard on "preferred" position. I believe I've proposed the driest of possible defintions, in form of "standard ("school")" and "proposed by V.Viachorka (with reference to 2005 book of his workgroup)". I've even tried to appease "alternatives" with slightly diminutive "school" explanation. Admin refuses and insists on "official" (which, in post-Soviet culture, bears strong connotation of "not-common", "non-mandatory") and "classical".

2. Remove clause requiring obtaining permission if one wants to enter info in "different" orthography, allow free editing like in FDL, with safety catch *asking* for keeping *corrections* in same orthography. Admin refuses, supposedly because of some hypothetical vandals waiting only for removal of that clause. I believe the clause breaches the FDL rules.

3. Everything in framework (categories) must exist also in standard orthography. And if not technically possible, only in standard. Admin refuses, points to technical impossibility of having redirect of categories (bug 3311?). Categories remain exclusively in alter.o., admin rewrites all standard o. entries (example: A.Gouk). I understand this breaches the general WP rules.

4. Names of articles and contents of rules must exist also in standard orthography. This seems to be accepted with no noticeable objections on technical or other grounds.

Now, I'd like to keep ONE Be: community, and I believe aforementioned amendments would make participation acceptable for all interested (except of political hard-liners, possibly). I do NOT propose or encourage rewriting articles for the sake of "changing the orthography". Now, folks, as your attention was already drawn to the issue, I guess we could benefit from some third party mediation. Thanks!

-regards