[Foundation-l] Language subcommittee vs Montenegrin language - show time

[Mark Williamson]

I agree with your position that the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia should
have stayed by itself, as a unitary Wikipedia welcoming to Serbians,
Croatians, Bosnians, and Montenegrins.

However, I disagree with your position regarding the Montenegrin
Wikipedia. I feel that if we are going to allow 4 Wikipedias for one
language, it is only fair to allow a 5th as well.

Mark

On 13/04/07, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) <pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:
> [This message is not an official statement by the subcommittee, and
> nor are GerardM's messages.]
>
> Hello,
>
> The decision was accompanied by a three-paragraph explanation, and
> later explained again differently when a user challenged the decision.
> It is difficult to assume good faith when users comment without even
> glancing at the issue at hand. As such, I will paste the explanations
> below, taken from the request page at
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikipedia_Montenegrin_2>.
>
> Explanation for decision:
> ----------------------------------------
> "This request has been rejected for the same reasons as the November
> 2006 request; the discussion below has not provided new information
> that would change this decision.
>
> "Wikis should not be split along political lines, and we encourage
> Montenegrin editors to collaborate with Serbian or Serbo-Croatian
> editors in a single wiki or, at the very least, to have Montenegrin
> pages alongside the others. If political divisions make this
> difficult, please note that the Wikimedia Foundation's goal is giving
> every single person free, unbiased access to the sum of all human
> knowledge, and not to contribute to political development or to
> provide information from individual political communities.
>
> "Although other Serbo-Croatian languages have their own wikis, these
> were created before the existence of the language subcommittee and it
> is likely that no new projects will be created in these languages."
> ----------------------------------------
>
> Further arguments were later provided in discussion:
> ----------------------------------------
> I'm sorry that you disagree with the decision. You state that "their
> articles regarding Montenegrin issues are so one-sided and filled with
> propaganda", and that is precisely the problem the closing comment
> mentions. If a Montenegrin Wikipedia is created, articles about
> Montenegro on the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia will continue to be biased.
> Similarly, articles about Serbia or other issues about which
> Montenegrin editors have strong opinions will be biased without the
> input of other Serbo-Croatian editors.
>
> This is the problem of 'providing information from individual
> political communities', as stated in the closing comment. On the other
> hand, collaborating in a linguistically unified Wikipedia, the
> opinions of all editors balance out so that articles are much more
> balanced and neutral."
> ----------------------------------------
>
>
> The language subcommittee exists to promote flourishing wiki
> communities and prevent mistakes made in the past. We are obviously
> not to blame for the separation of the Serbo-Croatian wiki years ago,
> which predates the subcommittee, as Mark suggests. Fortunately, Mark
> later agrees with our position: "I, for one, do not think that would
> have been a bad decision. I do think it would've slowed down growth,
> but it would've helped NPOV and duplication of work."
>
> Therefore, the subcommittee will *not* allow new projects that are
> likely to be politically biased or duplicative simply because they
> were previously approved by politically-charged, sockpuppet-filled
> votes *before* the subcommittee.
>
> Yours cordially,
> Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
>
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