[Foundation-l] Community draft of language proposal policy

[Mark Williamson]

You completely missed the point.

2008/9/8 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> Hoi,
> If you were to request a Wikipedia for Yinglish, it would be eligible for a
> community to start this project and be considered. When a substantial corpus
> has been produced, we will ask an expert if it is indeed Yinglish. If we can
> not get this from an expert WE select, we will not accept what you call
> Yinglish. Consequently we already do as you suggest; we check not on
> something theoretical, "does this language exist" but we test based on
> something practical "is this indeed the language you use the code of".
> Thanks,
>       GerardM
>
> On Sun, Sep 7, 2008 at 4:52 AM, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ISO-639-3 includes a code for Yinglish. If having an ISO-639-3 code
>> makes a language "Verified as eligible", I'm afraid for our future.
>>
>> Gerard says we need ISO-639-3 to avoid another Siberian mess. No,
>> Gerard, what we need to avoid another Siberian mess is to ask experts
>> when in doubt, and request verifiable sources for the existence of
>> dubious languages.
>>
>> Imagine, for example, that I were to request a Yinglish Wikipedia. If
>> I met all the other requirements, and translated the interface,
>> whatever else it is you folks require these days, and you guys created
>> a Yinglish Wikipedia, that would be just as bad as Siberian. We would
>> be a laughingstock.
>>
>> yib.wp...
>>
>> 2008/9/5 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
>> > Hoi,
>> > <grin>The expression is "a royal pain in the arse"... </grin>
>> >
>> > The codes that will become RFC 4646 bis codes are ineligible for
>> inclusion
>> > in the RFC 4646. They are scheduled to become part of the "BCP". From a
>> > linguistic point of view, the existing codes are incomplete and unusable
>> for
>> > our purposes. The RFC 4646 bis will not only but also include languages.
>> The
>> > languages are included in the ISO-639-3 exclusively. This list is the
>> > closest there is to a list only about languages.
>> >
>> > The point is that as much as possible the language committee should _not_
>> > deal with linguistic issues. It is inviting endless discussions that is a
>> > mix of politics, linguistics and pragmatics. Like today, the result will
>> not
>> > satisfy anyone but will be the best result achievable.
>> >
>> > When you state that no university will acknowledge Siberain or
>> Zlatiborian,
>> > you will find that neither does the ISO-639-3. When three universities in
>> > their infinitive wisdom pronounce that something is a "language", there
>> is
>> > no guarantee that the BCP will eventually pick this up. This is
>> distinctly
>> > different from languages accepted by SIL for inclusion of the ISO-639-3.
>> The
>> > "BCP" is committed to accept these languages..
>> >
>> > So you are wrong when you think that the way we are going is inconistent,
>> > you are wrong when you think that we should accept what universities or
>> the
>> > community have to say. When theirs is a compelling argument, they can
>> make
>> > this argument to SIL and we are happy to follow.
>> > Thanks,
>> >       GerardM
>> >
>> > On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 7:56 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 7:44 PM, Gerard Meijssen
>> >> <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> > When you have the community decide on these issues you invite the
>> >> > dictatorship of a majority... if that is not political what is ??
>> >>
>> >> Gerard, I love you as a friend, but you are really pain in the ass :)
>> >> When you feel comfortable in linguistic area, you use those arguments;
>> >> when you feel comfortable in Internet standardization area, you use
>> >> those arguments (as you convinced me in private conversation a month
>> >> or two ago that standards like HTML are using ISO, not RFC/BCP codes),
>> >> and, finally, when you feel comfortable in politics, you use political
>> >> arguments.
>> >>
>> >> So, please, if you want to, let's say, use linguistic arguments, then
>> >> just try to think a little bit out of the scope of your knowledge --
>> >> yes, there are some people who know about languages better than you.
>> >> And I am sure that they would be glad to help to Wikipedia. If you
>> >> have a problem with asking, I may ask them.
>> >>
>> >> And, if you want to use other arguments, please, use them consistently.
>> >>
>> >> In this particular case, there are two options: (1) To use political
>> >> methods or (2) to use expert methods. If you don't want to ask for
>> >> expertise some university, then you have to ask the community. In both
>> >> cases LangCom is not an untouchable quasi-political-quasi-expert body,
>> >> but a body which gathers expertise to support the community. Community
>> >> is not here to support LangCom (as well as community is not here to
>> >> support, let's say, stewards -- stewards are here to support
>> >> community).
>> >>
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