[Foundation-l] Modification of the official board election page

[Ray Saintonge]

Majorly wrote:
> 2008/5/2 Kwan Ting Chan <ktc at ktchan.info>:
>
>   
>> The Election Committee would like to ask the community of administrator
>> on Meta to refrain from editing the English version of the Board
>> election page [[m:Board elections/2008/en]].
>>
>> The page was protected by the committee as it contain the official rules
>> for the election, and is the source for translations. Its current
>> wording and formatting is what's agreed by the committee.
>>
>> Of course, if you spot anything which you think may be an error, any
>> ambiguity, or any points which you feel should be modified, feel free to
>> suggest it to the election committee either on the talk page, on this
>> list, or straight to the election committee. However, please take into
>> account any changes to the page requires all the translations to be
>> updated and hence it is unlikely the page will be modify simply for
>> small grammatical changes.
>>
>> For the election committee,
>> Kwan Ting Chan - [[m:User:KTC]]<https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l>
>>     
> Minor points such as typos, spacing, and anything that doesn't affect the
> actual wording shouldn't need permission to fix. It is a wiki after all. If
> someone has translated it without noticing the typo, then it's the problem
> of the translator, not of the person correcting the mistake.
>
>   
Quite the contrary.  Sometimes these "minor" changes can imply subtle 
changes in the meaning.  Even a comma can make a big difference, and 
that's more than a matter of grammatical correctness.  In the popular 
book was it "Eats shoots and leaves," or "Eats, shoots and leaves?"  
When it comes to interpreting laws and rules, one can find ample 
examples of disputes that revolve around these minor changes.  
Historically, a major ecclesiastical schism was founded in the 
difference of an iota.

Saying that it's a wiki is not a valid excuse when we are talking about 
a page with prescriptive effects.  En-wp suffers from this.  A series of 
minor unopposed changes can have a much greater cumulative effect that 
completely change the intent of the policy.  It leaves the editors 
wondering how we end up where we are.

Blaming the translator for not noticing the typo is inappropriate.  
Readings that give totally nonsensical results will probably be taken 
into account in the course of translation, but there are situations 
where a typo produces valid and meaningful results that have nothing to 
do with the writer's intent.  Spell checkers are of no help when the 
wrong word is also in the dictionary.

Ec