[Foundation-l] Fwd: ISO 639 JAC decision re mo/mol

[Jon Harald Søby]

2008/11/3 Marcus Buck <me at marcusbuck.org>

> Gerard Meijssen hett schreven:
> > Hoi,
> > Today I received the following e-mail. It demonstrates clearly that
> issues
> > in the ISO-639 standard are dealt with eventually.
> > Thanks,
> >         GerardM
> >
> It demonstrates that issues are dealt with when somebody complains about
> it. But it too demonstrates, that ISO codes are not a reliable base for
> decisions. They made errors when deciding on the original set of codes
> and codes can change when issues arise. This means that the language
> subcommittee shouldn't use the criterion "own ISO code exists" as a
> precondition. At the moment decisions of the language subcommittee are
> heavily based on the existence of ISO codes. There are many proposals
> for new languages where GerardM based the decision"eligible/not
> eligible" on the existence of an ISO code.
>
> Btw: At the time, the Moldovan Wikipedia was proposed for closure, the
> ISO code of course still existed. GerardM opposed the closure then. I'd
> be interested what GerardM's position would be, if the Moldovan
> Wikipedia wouldn't have been closed then and it would still exist. If
> there were a proposal to close a still existing Moldovan Wikipedia today
> (after the ISO code change), what would be GerardM's position on it?


Actually, the ISO is ideal for us. It is an external organsation, not
related to us in any way, and tries to be as neutral as possible. What you
would like is some perfect measure as to what languages to approve or not,
but there is none; believe me, if there was something better than ISO 639,
we would switch right over, but there isn't.

What some people seem to want is for either us, langcom, or the community,
to decide our-/themselves what can be deemed as languages or not, but
believe me, that is not a path we would like to go down. No matter how hard
we try, we would never be able to be as neutral or professional as the ISO
team is, and the results would probably be arbitrary and inferior to what we
have now.

-- 
Jon Harald Søby
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by