[Foundation-l] Re: new language policy

[GerardM]

Hoi,
When it comes to voting, I hate voting because so often the people who vote
are not the ones that suffer the consequences. What we have seen in the
votes are all kinds of motivations that I have tried to debunk. When you
understand what is behind a vote (in any direction) you often find that the
reasoning given does not really make sense.

What I do not like is that voting is the only obstacle for a Wikipedia. When
a Wikipedia has been squatted by people who do not know the language and
make a 'best effort' of writing in a language, we are not willing to say
this should not be. I think this is appalling. I think more highly of an
intellectual effort like the Klingon one than of this mongrel languages.

When the voting is as political as it apparantly is with these Spanish
languages you can expect all the bad things when voting happens including
ballot stuffing. So when you find people who are passionate about their
language let them have their wikipedia. When it is not viable recognise it
for a non viable project and kill it off.

When you want to decide these things with a vote, you will deny the people
who believe in their language and want to make it happen. You do not give
anything to the people who do not know this language. In a way it is
discrimination pure and simple. When you have some quality and quantity
demands for the continued existence of a project, you make it more honest.
When a project fails to meet these criteria, it means that the people who
asked for it are not the persons to do a good job. Lock it maybe save and
delete it and wait for better times.

My opinion is therefore clear; do not have votes but have quality and
quantity demands.

NB Given the amount of wikipedias where the language exists because of its
army, denying new wikipedias for this reason is problematic. Either a
wikipedia exists because of some language criteria and quantitative and
qualititative demands or it should not.

Thanks,
GerardM


On 11/21/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> GerardM wrote:
> > On 11/21/05, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >>Hi
> >>
> >>I was asked yesterday if it was mandatory that during votes for new
> >>languages creation, the editor
> >>* has an account on meta
> >>* has an account on any already existing project
> >>
> >>I do not know what the current policy is.
> >>I am hesitant to be in favor of one or another.
> >>I would rather say the voter should be at least a participant to another
> >>language, because this would imply he at least know the concept.
> >>However, I am not sure this should be mandatory... except that....
> >>
> >>Someone raised a complaint about the current vote here :
> >>
> >>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Murcian_.28Murciano.29_.2825_support.3B_12_oppose.29
> >>
> >>On this new languages, we have
> >>* anon ips voting
> >>* accounts on meta with no edits voting
> >>* accounts on meta with just a user page on meta voting
> >>* accounts on other projects voting.
> >>
> >>Fact is, I made a bunch of quick semi-random checks (in short, on red
> >>meta accounts in particular), and admittedly, many of them are probably
> >>sharing the same living-room...
> >>
> >>I fear the editor who complained is probably right in mentionning sock
> >>puppetry... though we can not entirely prove it of course.
> >>Which raise the question of how fair is a vote on a controversial
> >>language, when half voters are not current participants and may not even
> >>be different poeple ?
> >>
> >>
> >>What should we do ?
> >>
> >>Ant
> >
> >
> >
> > Hoi,
> > When you read many of the nay-sayers, you can read in many of their
> remarks
> > that this many of these language problems are really political. Not only
> is
> > it denied that many of these languages are languages, it is also
> suggested
> > that people who ask for some recognition are extremists that should make
> do
> > with the one and only language that suffices for all.
> >
> > When you know about these languages, I often wonder what a good reason
> is
> > for supporting a language. One of the languages that is voted down
> because
> > it 'does not exist' is Stellingwerfs. Stellingwerfs has a very active
> > language community; a dictionary has been published the bible is being
> > translated into Stellingwerfs and now there are these people who think
> it
> > does not need its own wikipedia. Now Stellingwerfs is not as politicial
> as
> > the Spanish languages. Then again take an other infamous example; the
> nds-nl
> > is denied because people consider that it should be part of the nds-de.
> What
> > people do not mention is that the nds-de has a vocal community that
> insists
> > on an orthography that is German oriented. This is a great example of a
> > language where there is NO standard orthography. The same can be said
> for
> > Limburgs, there is something of a 'standard' orthography but it does not
> > match the language that is actually spoken. The Limburg wikipedia is
> alive
> > and well. It gets mentioned in the press I am really happy with it.
> However
> > if a good example needs to be found of a WIkipedia that also does not
> have a
> > 'standardised' spelling have a look at Neapolitan or Sicilian. The
> Napolitan
> > WIkipedia for instance has already more than 3000 articles.. the amount
> of
> > local involvement is great. It is there because local people are
> > entheausiastic about this project.
> >
> > From my perspective I do not mind to have many wikipedias. I do want
> > wikipedias by local people who are interested in doing this. I would
> welcome
> > many projects. We will see what works and what does not. If people who
> start
> > a project steal a page out of the Neapolitan book we will do exceedingly
> > well. The argument that we do not need to revive languages is
> problematic in
> > my opinion. The problem is that WE do not revive these languages, it is
> the
> > people wo are the community of this wikipedia who do that. When they do
> well
> > they will become us as well. My point is, do we want to be inclusionist
> or
> > do we want to exclusionists. There is always a reason why we should not
> do
> > something. The point is that it is not you who is doing it, it is you
> who is
> > denying someone else.
>
>
> Thanks for your long and detailed answer Gerard.... but it is not the
> point I really raise. I absolutely do not want right now to enter into
> issues of whether a language should or should not exist, but only in the
> issue of "if we make a vote, this vote must be fair. If not, then let us
> not do any vote at all". And "if we choose the vote option, how to make
> a vote fair" ?
>
>
> > As to anonymous people voting, might it be possible that they are
> actually
> > be people speaking that language that say they want to get involved?
> (assume
> > good faith) And given all these people who are NOT going to involve
> > themselve in a language why would they vote against, what is it to them?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
>
> I assume good faith up to a certain point. After some point, this is not
> good faith, this is innocence :-)
>
> My problem is that if we start a project because there are 10
> supporters, we sort of hope that a certain momentum will exist from the
> very beginning. When it actually turns out that only 1 person is behind
> 10 supports... errrrr.... there is no momentum.
>
> And if a language is started with 10 supports and 5 oppose. And the 10
> supports are only one person... is there sense in making a vote at all ?
>
> Ant
>
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