[Foundation-l] Language Review Committee

[Jeff V. Merkey]

Mark Williamson wrote:

>Since I apparently hate all projects besides Wikipedia (according to
>an e-mail Mr Meijssen sent me), I'll stick with a nice "ditto" instead
>of rehashing all of Andre's arguments.
>
>Nice job, Andre :-)
>
>Mark
>
>  
>
This thread has gone on for some time with very little constructive 
suggestions, and lots of accusations flying back and forth.  
I am not certain I understand all the objections.

The requirement that people starting new Wiki's actually BE NATIVE 
SPEAKERS OF THE LANGUAGE AS A
FIRST OR SECOND LANGUAGE AND ACTUALLY BE ABLE TO SPEAK OR WRITE IT and 
that a MEDIAWIKI
MESSAGES FILE be created is very reasonable and a great barrier to entry 
to keep out those who are not competent with a
target language.  It seems those complaining about it the most are folks 
who may not be fluent enough to be able to complete
a Messages File for MediaWiki.

Just because people have a few college classes in "outer frabanian" or 
some other obscure languages does not warrant the foundation
going through the expense and time of setting up a wiki for a group of 
folks who A) are not part of the culture the language
is concerned with B) don't speak it or are immersed in it well enough to 
understand the underlying cultural impacts.

The whole idea is to promote other languages to a target audience of 
speakers, not to create "busy projects" for folks with nothing
better to do with their time who are marginally interested in a 
particular language.

Jeff