[Foundation-l] policy on languages without native speakers

[Chad]

Just because the board approves a policy doesn't make it the right
thing to do. Questions have been raised about the suitability of
the policy, and saying "The board approved it" isn't an argument.

If the community finds a new policy needs to be written, the board
can approve that if need be. Otherwise, it would appear you're trying
to make this policy set in stone indefinitely, which is in no one's best
interest in the long run.

-Chad

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 12:00 PM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
>  You are wrong. The policy has the approval of the board. All the languages
>  that we think should be approved are approved by the board. We suggest that
>  a project can be approved and when we do not hear anything to the contrary
>  it is approved after a week.
>  Thanks,
>       GerardM
>
>
>
>  On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 5:50 PM, Marcus Buck <me at marcusbuck.org> wrote:
>
>  > Marcos Cramer hett schreven:
>  > > Currently the language subcommittee decides both about the language
>  > proposal policy and about its implemenation in particular cases.
>  > "Separation of powers". At the moment the language subcommittee is
>  > legislative (it is allowed to change the policy) and judiciary (it
>  > decides on approving or denying proposals for new projects) at the same
>  > time. Only the executive (finally creating the projects) lies in the
>  > hands of the developers.
>  >
>  > By the way, if I didn't miss any posts in this lengthy threads regarding
>  > the language proposal policy, I still didn't get any answers to my
>  > proposal on <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Slomox/Languages>.
>  > The proposal names criteria for new projects which are completely based
>  > on decidable facts like size of the potential readership and project
>  > activity. Criteria like
>  > > * New literature is still being produced and published in the proposed
>  > language (whether translated or original)
>  > > * The proposed language is taught in a number of institutions like
>  > schools or universities.
>  > make judgments on the "usefulness" of languages. Many living native
>  > languages would fail on criteria like those. Of course you could just
>  > use them for languages without native speakers, but in my opinion a
>  > "good" rule should work without exceptions and "special rules". "My"
>  > rules only judge the "potential" of languages to be useful, which is
>  > much more in line with the aim of "providing" knowledge. (If there are
>  > _no_ schools and universities in a specific language, this makes a
>  > Wikipedia even _more_ useful in my opinion, doesn't it? Cause it could
>  > provide knowledge provided by nobody else.) Just count the speakers of
>  > the language. If there are enough speakers - regardless of whether they
>  > are native or not as long as they are fluent - it is useful. This rule
>  > sorts out "unwanted" languages like fantasy languages or unpopular
>  > planned languages or (really) dead languages etc. by itself, without
>  > special rules "discriminating" (that is, special rules explicitly
>  > created to rule out the unwanted languages) them.
>  > Perhaps the lack of comments on my proposals - in a "dispute culture"
>  > like here on this list - means, there is not much to disagree with and
>  > to dispute about my proposal ;-)
>  >
>  > Marcus Buck
>  >
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