Hello Berto, BdS> Since you can read other people's minds you shouldn't need to make BdS> questions. Simply concentrate and read my thoughts, will you? :) Sorry, I haven't still studied it :-) BdS> We stated that whenever a normative version of ANY language is available, BdS> that version is to be preferred in the user interface. Well, let leave user interface, but is it possible to use another orthography in the articles? Now it is forbidden and they refer to some hazy Wikimedia disicion, as Foundation would forbid it. If, for example, de.wiki admins would forbid the usage of de-1901 in de.wiki as a non-official variant, will it be ok? Why in the free encyclopedia one must not write in the language variant, let it be non-official now, which is in use, in which books and newspapers were and are printed now? Who gave to the current admins of be.wiki such rights to forbid any use of non-official orthography? BdS> As per content orthography, all editions are free to set their own policies, BdS> so far. We ALL pushed since the very start to have the two communities merge BdS> into one, (read the old messages if in doubt), yet we cannot force anyone BdS> into anything. BdS> So far the two communities prefer having two separate editions. Why? Read BdS> THEIR minds to get an answer :) The main problem is the smaller project be.wiki doesn't want to unite with the bigger be-x-old.wiki. But, probably you remember, first they were allowed to separate in a different project long ago. But the community which use Taraskievica orthography was strongly against it, and now the people from be-x-old.wiki would like to unite again into one project, but only the supporters of the official orthography are against it. Regards, Jaska Zedlik

Hoi! They cannot be forced and will not be forced. If and when be-x-old gets switched off nobody from wmf will migrate a single line of the existing be-x-old content. It will either be you guys doing it or nobody. Theoretically yes, in practice no, because be-x-old is NOT a recognized linguistic entity. We just refused Romanesco based on this very reason, you want us to start a civil war in Italy to make sure you guys are happy in Minsk? Come on... I'm kind of ready to believe that a number of personal feelings are involved in this matter, yes :) Anyway, none of them is an ISO code. Yes, admins always have power, no matter the edition. And it's not even easy to get rid of us bastards, because we have a better knowledge of the environment and can always confuse a newbie by saying/publishing apparently neutral stuff. Thank God this is not under my competence :) Berto 'd Sera Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html

Hoi! +1. :) Berto 'd Sera Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html

On 11/05/07, Jaska Zedlik <sub(a)zedlik.com> wrote: ... ... Sorry, all you folks, who have to read this endlessly, but this is just untrue. How dare you? Yes, Jaska, for you and your pals the actual Belarusian language is "Stalinist abomination", you wouldn't touch it with a long stick, and you proclaim that it "must die" and you promote using roll-your-own return-to-the-roots version of the language instead. So? Thats's nuts, in my opinion, but it's your right. Just don't paint us black and act hurt innocence here. Even the archives of be-x-old (e.g., 2004 and 2005 talks of main_page and Вікіпэдыя:Правапіс) or your own comment to the bug 9823 prove that kind of claims untrue. BTW, I fully support retaining the be-x-old (eventually, be-tarask) WP. ---

Peace you guys... let's try to work together instead of fighting one another. Yes, history has unpleasant aspects, and aspects of the past cause us to mistrust each other in the present. But we must learn to forget... and move ahead. Thanks! Frederick Noronha, in Goa, India. On 11/05/07, Jaska Zedlik <sub(a)zedlik.com> wrote: -- FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please) http://fn.goa-india.org http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com Konkani Wikipedia (under incubation) needs your help! http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/kok

Yury Tarasievich wrote: YT> *You and your pals* express yourselves, which *make untrue* your YT> claims ("opinions") on the nature of communities, including your own YT> frequent nods to my person. Sorry, but it wasn't a point of my previous letter. If you totally hate me and all other users of the classical orthography, there is no cause to claim a lie about anything and anybody, as you did in your letters. Well, let's stop this discussion. Now as far as I can see the disicion about the old Belarusian Wikipedia is only on WF, and it's a pity the users of this old Belarusian Wikipedia have no possibility to do anything to defend their work, and their opinion is not interesting to anybody. Sorry for annoing you with my letters. Jaska Zedlik

On 11/05/07, Yury Tarasievich <yury.tarasievich(a)gmail.com> wrote: I suppose it's too late to ask both projects be deleted and the Belarusian language(s) be deleted entirely from Wikimedia? Oh well. - d.

Hoi! No it's not. And given the current state of affairs you can count on my vote to back you :) Berto 'd Sera Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html

Hoi! Then they should simply overwhelm those "noisy few" who don't (from both sides). There are things like "de-amin" and "ban" to deal with individuals who become dangerous for the whole community. I sympathize with the amount of work both sides made, but if you aren't able to clean your houses from trolls you'll end up in being perceived as trolls collectively. Berto 'd Sera Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html

Hoi Recently the Belarusian "Classical" [as it is called by its users] orthography got its ISO-code, that is be-tarask: http://www.iana.org/assignments/language-subtag-registry So it would be worth rename be-x-old to be-tarask and close the problem with that :) Berto d'Sera wrote: Yes, if the community is okay with it. Maybe I could be personally against the decision, but I don't vote in de.wiki (and I would not want to, I spend more than enough time in wmf "as is"). Actually, the be-tarask community seems to be much larger than the group of adherents of the normative orthography. Unfortunately, that was one of the reasons for a slow progress of the introduction of the official-orthography interface in old [[be]]. But for some reason that did not save the Belarusian Wikipedia from deletion... PS it's Belarusian, not Byelyorussian czalex -----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org]On Behalf Of Berto 'd Sera Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 12:51 PM To: 'Jaska Zedlik'; wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] be: and be-x-old: interwiki Hoi! Yes, if the community is okay with it. Maybe I could be personally against the decision, but I don't vote in de.wiki (and I would not want to, I spend more than enough time in wmf "as is"). The variant in object is NOT official in any state. As a linguistic entity it is not alternative to official Byelorussian (no ISO code). No matter how many books and papers you print for us it simply does not exist. We do not have ANY rule "for Byelorussian" (or for any other single language). We treat Byelorussian just like anybody else. I'm positive that whatever rule we will choose there will always be cases in which the blanket is short. Yet by having a single public rule (instead of making "ad hoc" votes) we at least avoid single arbitrary decisions. There will be no change for this rule because changing it would require making a "Byelorussian exception". The wmf cannot be a place in which exceptions are made, because once you have exceptions you have special people who get special services (or less services than normal people do) based on the fact that they have personal positive or negative relations in the wmf. We want to maintain a situation in which all linguistic entities are equal and decisions are made based on factors that judges cannot control. The day in which a single exception will be accepted (no matter which one) I will immediately resign from LangCom. All my work is spent to avoid having people kissing the asses of bureaucrats and admin communities by needing to request individual permissions based on "ad hoc" decisions; I'll better take my buttocks out of the Committee before becoming a feudal power myself. To get rid of feudal powers we need clear public policies that anyone can read and apply long before asking anyone. The process is far from being over, yet we are working on it and hopefully the amount of arbitrary moves required to allow a project will progressively collapse to zero. Not without cases like yours, but that's life, sorry. There is no such rule like a rule that has "everybody happy". Smaller or bigger doesn't mean a thing to us. Be also aware that AFAIK there is still an open proceeding that at least theoretically might end up in closing be-x-old definitely. IMHO you should get at least ready to migrate be-x-old content into a united version, in case that happens. No content and none of the existing privileges (admins and bureaucrats) would be migrated by the wmf, if and when such a decision is made. Public quarrels won't help, you'll simply end up in making the situation between the two communities worse. No matter your orthography/accent diplomacy works much better if you have real humans meet in front of a real beer (or whatever else), instead of periodically exchanging accuses here. Berto 'd Sera Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Hoi, It is quite relevant that the orthography is an IANA and not an ISO-code. In the request for the code there is no solution as there are two codes needed to be able to distinguish on the code level the different orthographies. They only requested a code for the "tarask" vairiety and not the standard one. Furthermore in the correspondence associated with it, they do not accept that "be" is implicitly the standard orthography. Consequently, the project under be-x-old can have internally the codes be-tarask, this allows for the proper tagging of the data itself. I do not agree to a name change of the project. The best thing would be when both projects get of their ideological / politcal high horse and collaborate. Thanks, GerardM On 5/11/07, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

GerardM wrote: I've renamed the language files and set the language code be-tarask. The subdomain is still be-x-old. Berto 'd Sera wrote: None of these steps are required before changing the language code in MediaWiki, as I have done. Localisations in MediaWiki are identified by RFC 4646 tags, and no significant difference between variants is required. -- Tim Starling

Hoi! DISCLAIMER: this is not an official LangCom statement. It is but my personal POV. It really is, use it only if you care for some practical advice. If not... than why are you answering to my emails? BTW, when I say that "we need something" you can use that as a public personal pre-vote statement from my side. I'll really start the bluntest opposition EVER if you can't conform to those basic requirements and I have no problems in declaring it. No. you miss three steps: 1) we check that your code is a legal ISO 639-3 code (I'll do that myself) 2) your linguistic entity is deviant enough from the normative version to be granted more than just an alternative interface (many of you claimed it to be "like en_us vs en_uk", remember? Well, we don't have an en_us.wiki). 3) your community starts to behave as wmf a community (unity, no hatred, co-operation, etc). Point 1) seems quite a formality. Point 2) is complicated, we will see what to decide about it and we will need material to be presented and approved by BOTH communities together (we are not going to accept a biased vision, it either suits you BOTH or it doesn't suit us, either). If you are to request a disjoint Byelorussian edition you MUST prove that love and peace are reigning among the two editions. Let's be VERY clear: unless you prove this all you get from an ISO code is your language file in the official wikimedia distro. That part is due and automatic; I can warrant you that you'll have it as soon as LangCom verifies point 1). If you want to have be-tarask.wiki start by defining a 50-50 commission made by your people and their people whose task will be in proving to us LangCom bastards why you are both better off alone. It will help MUCH if you include in your proposition a definition of how you are going to negotiate conflicts (we kind of can't believe they will magically vanish by simply giving you a code, you know) and what you can do to exchange contents and help each other (you are both small projects and need all the labor you can save/get/reuse, we just refused "classical greek" because it was taking away much needed arms from an already weak gr.wiki, so...). It's time to work TOGETHER if you care for your projects. Too bad when I look at the follow-up of this discussion I seem to understand that all you guys need is to sink each other... well, it's none of my problems, after all. Have it as you please. BTW ask Microsoft why their programs won't accept any other version of the national adjective. I write it just as you do, then the automagic corrector changes it back to "Microsoft politically correct" (i.e. Byelorussian). I'm on XP-pro, my mail uses the Word corrector distributed on the Russian speaking market, I guess you have the same in Belarus'. Berto 'd Sera Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html

Oh, we were missing you :) I gather your health is better, is it? Bèrto ‘d Sèra Personagi dl’ann 2006 për l’arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojàotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html -----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Mark Williamson Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2007 1:21 AM To: wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] be-tarask ISO-code Nobody is requesting a separate Wikipedia. Maybe you've been living in a cave, but that Wiki already exists. They're just requesting that it be moved.