That's the classic concern, of course, and the reason the rule is written the 
way it is. When we were just starting out, that was an appropriate concern, and 
is still an appropriate concern if a given language area is still starting out 
in virgin terrain.

But I think the following is reality in most situations now.  "Various povs" 
already don't collaborate, because whoever was there first already dominates, 
and has already established what constitutes the neutral pov.  What the 
argument that James articulates assumes is that by not allowing the second 
wiki, people will have to collaborate.  The reality, instead, is that by not 
allowing the second wiki, the original owners of the first wiki get to keep 
their pov, and the people with a different pov are frozen out entirely. That's 
the reality.

 (This, MF-W, is why I was discussing POV the other day. If there were a 
central mechanism to allow that second group to break in, we could do this. But 
there isn't, so we can't.)

Steven


Sent from Outlook<http://aka.ms/weboutlook>

________________________________
From: Langcom <[email protected]> on behalf of James Heilman 
<[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019 10:00 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Langcom] Wikipedia in Saraiki

My concern is having multiple wikis for nearly identical languages allows 
various povs not to have to collaborate and we are more likely to end up with 
difficulties like in Croatian.

On Wed, Oct 30, 2019, 07:56 Steven White 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
My point is that these "politically-motivated claims" are already facts on the 
ground, whether you like it or not.

Steven White

________________________________
From: Langcom 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
 on behalf of MF-Warburg 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2019, 8:43 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Language Committee
Subject: Re: [Langcom] Wikipedia in Saraiki



Am Mo., 28. Okt. 2019 um 16:08 Uhr schrieb Steven White 
<[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>:
Well, as I have said many times, the current rule as written is problematic, 
and we have no business rejecting Montenegrin at this point.

No, Langcom has "every business" to do so.

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.

Your interpretation is exactly the opposite of what is written. The intention 
of the policy certainly was not to give every politically differing group their 
own wiki.

Thank you for your explanation in your other mail of why it is difficult to 
achieve a true NPOV. However, who has claimed that Langcom should NPOVs on any 
wiki?

One of the purposes of Langcom is to prevent the multiplication of wikis due to 
politically motivated claims that one language is actually two.


_______________________________________________
Langcom mailing list
[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom<https://eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flists.wikimedia.org%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Flangcom&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cafdbb12dc8d142585aa108d75cdcf9ab%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637079976460182630&sdata=Tu%2FcYQa1gpKTcsKRmySEIRBN6XBAxXE7vbDnoWONXlc%3D&reserved=0>
_______________________________________________
Langcom mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/langcom

Reply via email to