[Foundation-l] Language Prevention Committee created

[Mark Williamson]

On 25/03/07, Arbeo M <arbeo.wiki at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hello everybody!
>
> On 11/13 last year the formation of a subcommittee concerning the approval
> of wikis in new languages etc. was announced on this list.
>
> Back then, I was pleased to see that a few users committed themselves to
> taking care of multilingualism issues in Wikimedia's projects.
>
> Today, I am disappointed to see that the committee is inoperable.
>
> It is a pitiful fact that since its creation the language subcommittee has
> achieved virtually *zero *as to the advancement of multilingualism (which is
> a central pillar in Wikimedia's mission to spread knowledge worldwide).
>
> Even without counting the huge number of requests for new languages the
> subcommittee simply swept away upon its formation, despite the fact that
> some of them had previously been approved by the Community (cf.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Old_requests_for_new_languages),
> requests are just piling up big time and nothing ever happens (cf.
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages).
>
> One of the main arguments in favor of having a small group of specialized
> people instead of the whole community decide certain things would be to make
> things run more efficiently, in other words: speedier. Yet what's really
> happening is exactly the opposite: we're about to see *the longest period
> without a single new Wikipedia ever!!*
> **
> What has happened?
>
> Has the number of requests for new languages dropped significantly? - Not
> really. Wikipedia's reputation around the world is steadily rising and more
> and more people from various regions of the globe want to start an edition
> in their own language (but we don't let them).
>
> Are the requests sloppier than they used to be? - Quite the contrary! The
> quality of most requests is higher than ever before (just have a look at how
> requests looked three years ago, let alone the Incubator activities) and
> editors are now preparing new editions with a lot of conscientiousness (yet
> we don't value that).
>
> So what *is *the reason for this total deadlock? In plain words, I would say
> it is *a language subcommittee not caring enough *about our fellow users who
> want to increase the value of Wikimedia's projects and help us on our
> mission for free knowledge by providing content in additional languages.
> What good is a language committee that never ever enables new languages?
>
> What do I mean by "not caring enough"? - I mean that obviously the
> subcommittee or most of its members 1. seem to applying the (all-in-all
> sensible) rules they set up too morosley (i. e. not for the benefit of but
> rather against multilinguistic progress) and 2. seem to be failing in
> adequately supporting people who want to start new wikis. Because if it
> weren't that way highly promising projects like the e. g. Kabyle, Sakha or
> Crimean Tatar Wikipedias would long be up and running and would be valuable
> new members of the Wikimedia family of projects by now.
>
> What's even worse is that the subcommittee members themselves don't agree on
> which rules are in force (cf.
> http://langcom.wikimedia.org/wiki/Archives/2007-03-23). Pathoschild holds
> that full localization is not mandatory before final approval (and luckily
> he still seems to remember what Wikipedia is all about and that we're
> supposed to be an open project, even to those who don't happen to have a
> computer science diploma), Berto d'Sera takes a "localization or death"
> stand and GerardM writes something secret.
>
> Dear Language Subcommittee Members, please stop preventing multilingualism
> and start enabling and supporting it!
>
> Thank y'all for taking the time to read this!
>
> Arbeo
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>


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