[Foundation-l] On Arabic and sub-language proposals.

[Chad]

On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 9:02 AM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hoi,
> The expert is anything but anonymous. What I gave you is the reason why we
> do not have a public mailing list. The arguments as they happened have been
> published. There is nothing more.
>
> You have to appreciate that for us it is also a hobby. The policy is as it
> is to prevent endless bickering and to provide a predictable result. This
> is
> what we do. When people are against on principle, there is no point in
> further discussion. They are against on principle and will use any argument
> to get their way.
>

Yet LangCom is also to be held at fault. Some members of said committee
have adopted a stance of "those are the rules, no exceptions. If you don't
like
the rules, get consensus to change them."

Sometimes rules can be bent, sometimes they should be broken entirely.
It all comes down to using common sense.


>
> I care for languages, I care for projects to do well. Any language. I have
> no reasons to treat languages differently and the policy and the
> implementation of the policy proves this.


Sometimes I think you care more for minority languages than the speakers
do themselves. This is a good thing! We need more people caring about
languages.


> People who oppose have their
> special interest at heart. They are welcome to their position but it does
> not make for predictable results if we give in to all the bleeding hearts.
>

God forbid we show some empathy...


>
> In the end you will only hear from people who do not get their way. The
> people who are happy with the results of the policy you do not hear.
>

Of course. Complainers are always louder than those grateful. Fact of
human nature.


>
> In the mean time the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia has been approved 82 days
> ago. I think if there is one problem with policies like the language
> policy,
> it is that they are not effectively supported by the Wikimedia Foundation.
> I
> think the waiting for the creation of projects is a disgrace. This is not
> specific to this project, it has been a constant struggle to get projects
> created.
>

As you said above, the LangCom is volunteers. So are most of the
developers and systems administrators. They have lives too :-)

-Chad