[Foundation-l] Re: New language policy

[Ray Saintonge]

ilooy wrote:

>2005/11/23, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com>:
>  
>
>>Hi Jay,
>>In your analysis, would you consider it a problem if some of the (N)
>>native speakers do not have any accounts on any wikimedia project and
>>are likely to be sockpuppets ? Or not at all ?
>>    
>>
>Hi Anthere,
>I find it of interest that everytime the
>number of supporters increases by one
>so does the number of opposers (and
>by one at that), and if there is a problem
>with sockpuppetry, that it is happening
>on both sides.
>
>I feel this is a very politically charged
>situation. I only want to add my voice
>in support of the right of Andalusians
>to have their own voice in this Wikipedia
>project. I am not interested in politics
>of any sort. And regret the situation
>which has developed with the Andalusian
>language request.
>
You can't have it both ways.  The whole issue of whether Andalusian is a 
separate language or a dialect IS a matter of politics.  How can you 
advocate like that and pretend it's not politics. 

I don't by any means consider Ethnologue to be the last word on whether 
a way of speaking qualifies as a language, but I do accept them as the 
first word.  If we are to take a position contrary to theirs it should 
be based on some realistic evidence.

>The matter should be about granting
>folks who want to contribute in their
>own language to this project the priviledge
>to do so, I'm sure you'd agree. And not
>about how people are bypassing conventions
>on voting practices.
>
Sure, but we need to be convinced that it IS a language, and not just a 
dialect.  Voting is a stupid way to decide these things.  On one side we 
have a group that is familiar with the "language", and which has the 
political will to see its interests advanced.  On the other side is a 
large group of people with no objective knowledge of the situation, and 
that would like to hear the other side of the argument.  They are 
prepared to wait until there are facts to work with.

>Strong guidelines would alleviate some
>of this, but may create other problems.
>For example the rule that languages must
>have an established standard written form,
>
I don't see this as a requirement that needs to be interpreted too strictly

>it may give guidance in respect to Andalusian,
>but it would also mean calling into question
>some already started wikipedia languages.
>
This could be a problem because it's difficult to get rid of a project 
once it's started, no matter how ridiculous it is.

Ec