Sigh. Of course. But at best, that's not as easy as you think, and I would
argue that in practice no "central authority" at WMF is in any position to deal
with NPOV on a project-by-project basis. And that's even assuming that we'd be
allowed to intervene, which we almost never are. Consider:
* This assumes first that there is an objective NPOV (or NPOV range) that
one could enforce. Now, I'm no moral relativist; I do not think that all
cultures' positions on all topics are always objectively morally or ethically
equivalent. But there are plenty of topics where reasonable people handle
neutrality in very different ways. Here are a couple of examples that I can
name that I don't necessarily think are the hottest topics around right now.
* Lashing/caning for vandalism in Singapore. Americans think that was an
outrageous punishment for an offense that at most would result in a fine in the
US. People in East Asia are at least somewhat more prepared to say that this
was an appropriate punishment for someone who is putting his interests ahead of
society's.
* Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Ukrainians consider him a hero of first rank, and
Russians also see him positively. Poles see him negatively. And Jews see him as
having been largely responsible for the worst pogrom against Jews in history
before the Holocaust.
* The largest Wikipedias (like English Wikipedia) handle both sides of such
disagreements. They can do so because they have a large number of contributors
representing a wide range of backgrounds who keep each other in check to some
extent. Even at that, these projects have plenty of topics that engender
ongoing edit wars.
* Smaller projects may not handle things in a manner that we would consider
so even-handed. A quick Google translate of the plwiki and ukwiki articles on
Khmelnytsky at least superficially shows far less even-handedness than the
enwiki article, though I did not then click through hyperlinks to see how all
related topics were handled.
* The above are situations well-known enough that people like us know about
them. Who knows about all the smaller cases where there are differences like
this that we don't know about, and that we are no position to judge in terms of
neutrality? And unless we have someone trustworthy (and fluent in appropriate
languages) monitoring every wiki for such things, I don't see how we could
possibly enforce NPOV like that.
* We cannot really even enforce some sort of neutrality on the Armenian
massacre situation in Turkish, Armenian and Azeri languages. Enough said on
that.
We supposedly use ISO 639–3 exactly to avoid politicizing the process. It's
sometimes fair to decide we will take either the macrolanguage or the
constituent languages, but not both. But using the macrolanguage only works if
the constituent languages are mutually intelligible and if the communities get
along well enough to cooperate. The very fact that our default position for new
projects is to favor projects in constituent languages says to me that we
recognize that most of the time there is a reason that different constituent
languages are considered different.
I'm sorry, everyone. It is not possible "not [to] consider political
differences", because there are facts on the ground. Not considering political
differences is also a political choice. We are far better off sticking with ISO
639–3 unless there is a very, very good reason not to do so in a particular
case.
Steven
Sent from Outlook<http://aka.ms/weboutlook>
________________________________
From: Langcom <[email protected]> on behalf of Gerard
Meijssen <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, October 28, 2019 12:21 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Langcom] Wikipedia in Saraiki
Hoi,
The problem is how to deal with the NPOV..
Thanks,
GerardM
On Mon, 28 Oct 2019 at 16:08, Steven White
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Well, as I have said many times, the current rule as written is problematic,
and we have no business rejecting Montenegrin at this point.
Please understand, again, that I don't object to the rule in principle. If we
were starting today with a situation where there were no Serbo-Croatian
projects existing (or no Punjabi projects existing), we might well try to say,
"You know what? There's only going to be one, and you're all going to have to
get along, and this needs to be irrespective of political perspective."
But at this point, it doesn't work in either situation, for several reasons:
1. There are long-existing communities already. They each already have a
culture, rules, and perspectives.
2. Based on a different, very firm WMF policy, "central authority" is almost
never allowed to intervene on individual projects to "force" them to be more
accommodating to the political and/or cultural minorities that could choose to
participate.
3. The policy, as written, says "The committee does not consider political
differences, since the Wikimedia Foundation's goal is to give every single
person free, unbiased access to the sum of all human knowledge, rather than
information from the viewpoint of individual political communities." You have
to read the whole sentence there, not just the first phrase. By "not
consider[ing]" political differences, the committee in fact perpetuates the
fact that existing projects may already have "the viewpoint of individual
political communities". In these cases, people in minority communities are
tremendously disadvantaged in that they have to overcome (possibly) hostile
political/cultural viewpoints—and may well not be able to do so.
It seems to me that there is only one way to operate this rule exactly as it is
already written: "Central authority" must have the power to intervene on
certain projects, and to establish and enforce rules that guarantee the
neutrality that every project is supposed to have anyway. If that's not going
to happen—and I'm pretty sure it's not, for a whole lot of reasons—then we need
to allow new projects where (a) there is a language code, and (b) there are
going to be significant political and cultural barriers in integrating minority
communities into existing projects.
Steven
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________________________________
From: Langcom
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
on behalf of MF-Warburg
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Sent: Sunday, October 27, 2019 11:05 AM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [Langcom] Wikipedia in Saraiki
Thanks for the info. So, what can we do?
If we boldly reject requests for new Serbo-Croatian language/dialect Wikipedias
and say the existing ones wouldn't be allowed today, isn't this case the same?
Satdeep Gill <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> schrieb am
Mo., 21. Okt. 2019, 16:12:
It's not clear at all. Depends upon who you ask. It's a typical
language-dialect problem.
I do know that, the Saraiki community in Pakistan has also been demanding a
separate Saraikistan. So, for the community it's pretty much a separate
language.
If you are asking my opinion then even Punjabi and Western Punjabi Wikipedias
should have been one Wikipedia with two scripts (maybe a third script as well).
Even Hindi-Urdu for that matter. It's always the socio-political reasons.
As per Wikipedia:
Saraiki was considered a dialect of
Punjabi<https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPunjabi_dialects&data=02%7C01%7C%7C32e8ae5de59f47330b2608d75bc326a9%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637078766050028128&sdata=OWshRCKIDNg2j4wS9CCrHhjsjT3ETN4LTma16rdyH%2B0%3D&reserved=0>
by most British
colonial<https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FBritish_Raj&data=02%7C01%7C%7C32e8ae5de59f47330b2608d75bc326a9%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637078766050038133&sdata=yEfJJhXByG%2FltSDP2Njo82NFGfjskD6yHEu1Zg9VI6c%3D&reserved=0>
administrators,[29]<https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSaraiki_language%23cite_note-FOOTNOTERahman1996173-32&data=02%7C01%7C%7C32e8ae5de59f47330b2608d75bc326a9%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637078766050058149&sdata=%2B42ZuWf5x3icx5gxx05H89dwRnpSnArKKhPGoH%2BDv3Y%3D&reserved=0>
and is still seen as such by many
Punjabis<https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPunjabis&data=02%7C01%7C%7C32e8ae5de59f47330b2608d75bc326a9%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637078766050078171&sdata=5sJ0jdts%2BQxI9EYas%2FJ14EVc5ZUy%2Biiv%2FYXWwKmFjck%3D&reserved=0>.[30]<https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSaraiki_language%23cite_note-FOOTNOTEShackle2014a-33&data=02%7C01%7C%7C32e8ae5de59f47330b2608d75bc326a9%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637078766050088170&sdata=tEHtDGBs%2BOGIjjGZSn3I81KdtBdJNB2Kl7ZTqdFzzrM%3D&reserved=0>
Saraikis, however, consider it a language in its own
right[31]<https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSaraiki_language%23cite_note-34&data=02%7C01%7C%7C32e8ae5de59f47330b2608d75bc326a9%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637078766050108186&sdata=65aZ7pv4eGf2AOEyYOMaVCT4Z%2Fo8UtCgf7LHIcE7AFM%3D&reserved=0>
and see the use of the term "dialect" as
stigmatising<https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSocial_stigma&data=02%7C01%7C%7C32e8ae5de59f47330b2608d75bc326a9%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637078766050118191&sdata=sWVQ2piIaGHYb%2FyyO3dgy%2FL9l2HwSClFRiuOqW0a8uM%3D&reserved=0>.[32]<https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSaraiki_language%23cite_note-FOOTNOTERahman1996175-35&data=02%7C01%7C%7C32e8ae5de59f47330b2608d75bc326a9%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637078766050138219&sdata=8SF8qLG4ewjwCzCgrRQER1MGuZnXDmEmpsg3n13Sgd8%3D&reserved=0>
A language movement was started in the 1960s to standardise a script and
promote the
language.[20]<https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSaraiki_language%23cite_note-FOOTNOTEShackle1977-22&data=02%7C01%7C%7C32e8ae5de59f47330b2608d75bc326a9%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637078766050158241&sdata=yQrPuGbXMjTGPB3%2BDrh8GXL86DzVbPw6jHTxIuwVBqY%3D&reserved=0>[33]<https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSaraiki_language%23cite_note-FOOTNOTERahman1997838-36&data=02%7C01%7C%7C32e8ae5de59f47330b2608d75bc326a9%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637078766050168240&sdata=vdJoa1Eb1ylSx1oHFBROYvwi8wZHm28IvqyVPcDBmsw%3D&reserved=0>
Best
Satdeep
On Mon, 21 Oct, 2019, 9:20 AM MF-Warburg,
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
> While there may be a close similarity to Western Punjabi, I agree with
> Steven's point that the right time to bring that issue up would have been
> when we decided whether to mark the language as eligible. We did mark it as
> eligible (by Satdeep just over 2 years ago), and that has to mean something.
> To walk back on that now, after volunteers have spent hundreds and hundreds
> of hours working on it, is just not ok.
I disagree with this notion.
One of the tasks of the Language Committee is precisely to prevent new
"Serbo-Croation" cases from happening. It has been suggested that this might be
such a case here. So let us please discuss this issue and clear it up. I have
done some reading and it seems to me that there might be enough differences
between Saraiki and Western Punjabi anyway. But Satdeep brought up that that
might not be the case, and on the request page there are also people who says
that it's not a separate language (while others, of course, say the opposite).
I just would like this to be clarified in order not to have a situation in
several years where everyone acknowledges that it is most unfortunate that
there are several wikis...
(It is also a matter of fact that languages get marked as eligible all the time
without a discussion, just because the majority of cases don't turn out to be
problematic at all. I looked at the archives and saw that back then, Satdeep
said on this list "There is some controversy regarding this but according to my
analysis, it should be eligible." - That does not directly contradict his
statement "Western Punjabi and Saraiki are pretty similar and my personal view
is that this should be accommodated on one Wikipedia but the
sociology-political situation in Pakistan calls for a separate Wikipedia for
Saraiki." from 8 October, but I still would love to have the whole thing
clarified as requested on 16 Oct.
Back in 2017, Oliver Stegen said in reply to the mentioned mail: "Any
controversies may come to ight and be discussed accordingly during the
verification phase which has started now." and I agree with this; a random
marking as eligible should not prevent a discussion about what the situation
really is.)
[Mails from 29 + 30 August 2017]
Am So., 20. Okt. 2019 um 05:30 Uhr schrieb Jon Harald Søby
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>:
I finally heard back from the first person [1] I emailed now, and he basically
echoed what Satdeep said: All pages he checked, except the one I mentioned in
the first email, are in Saraiki.
While there may be a close similarity to Western Punjabi, I agree with Steven's
point that the right time to bring that issue up would have been when we
decided whether to mark the language as eligible. We did mark it as eligible
(by Satdeep just over 2 years ago), and that has to mean something. To walk
back on that now, after volunteers have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours
working on it, is just not ok.
Therefore I would like to officially propose that we approve the Saraiki
Wikipedia, as they meet all of our criteria.
[1] I'll be happy to disclose his name and details on the private list if
anyone on the committee wants me to, but I don't want to do so here on the
public list since I never brought that up with him.
ons. 16. okt. 2019 kl. 18:04 skrev Jon Harald Søby
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>:
I have not gotten a reply yet. Yesterday I emailed to more people from
Pakistani universities with Saraiki departments, but no reply from any if them
yet either.
ons. 16. okt. 2019, 16:29 skrev Steven White
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>:
Have we heard from the expert yet?
On a related subject: Do we have any Wiktionary experts here? Saraiki
Wiktionary is also now approvable in theory (assuming that the language issue
on the Wikipedia clears). My concern about the Saraiki Wiktionary is only that
compared to a lot of Wiktionary projects, this one appears pretty basic to me:
just a straight Saraiki dictionary, with little in the way of bells and
whistles (pronunciation, translations to other languages, etc.). But that's
just based on the gross appearance of pages, as I do not read Saraiki (or any
other language written in Perso-Arabic script). So Satdeep and anyone else:
Does the content look ok? Are there greater expectations of what a Wiktionary
should contain—expectations we have not communicated, I will add—or is this
project appropriate and acceptable?
Steven
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________________________________
From: Langcom
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
on behalf of Jon Harald Søby <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Sent: Thursday, October 10, 2019 3:38 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [Langcom] Wikipedia in Saraiki
I am still waiting to hear back from the expert. If he says the rest of the
pages look fine, then I think we can move forward – Steven makes some good
points as usual.
tor. 10. okt. 2019 kl. 21:03 skrev Gerard Meijssen
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>:
Hoi,
The final stage is that we verify if the language it is said to be. When we
find it is not or are not certain we have all the room to seek another
authority to move forward. At this stage it becomes confusing and I am not
convinced at all that we should.
Thanks,
GerardM
On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 at 19:21, Steven White
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
This is effectively the same problem as we saw in the discussion of Montenegrin
Wikipedia—although since all but two of us are from Europe, North America or
Israel, we feel more confident making calls in a case like Montenegrin than we
do here. (And, candidly, there is less chance in the Montenegrin case of being
accused of racism/Euro-centrism, even if that accusation would be totally
without merit in this case.)
But as I said back then, the rule as currently written is fine when the
language area starts with a clean slate. If there were no Western Punjabi
Wikipedia now, we could reasonably try to get a single project to try to
accommodate both Western Punjabi and Saraiki. (Whether that effort would be
successful is a different question, but we could try.) However, I take
Satdeep's comment below to indicate that there would be serious problems trying
to integrate a new Saraiki-language community into a ten-year old Western
Punjabi-language community, and that he recommends against it, based on the
current "facts on the ground". Besides, to some extent the time to say "no" has
passed, since Satdeep marked the project as "eligible" in 2017. So I think we
need to move forward with this.
Steven
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________________________________
From: Langcom
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
on behalf of Jon Harald Søby <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Sent: Wednesday, October 9, 2019 4:44 AM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Subject: Re: [Langcom] Wikipedia in Saraiki
...
As for the Western Punjabi/Saraiki issue, I don't know enough about that to
have any opinion either way.
tir. 8. okt. 2019 kl. 19:00 skrev Satdeep Gill
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>:
...
P.S. Western Punjabi and Saraiki are pretty similar and my personal view is
that this should be accommodated on one Wikipedia but the sociology-political
situation in Pakistan calls for a separate Wikipedia for Saraiki.
Regards
Satdeep Gill
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