Hoi,
What is unclear to you about the policy? The only thing I am convinced
about is that you do not accept the policy. Sad you are wasting everyone's
time.
Thanks,
GerardM
On Mon, 13 Sept 2021 at 15:17, Jim Killock <[email protected]> wrote:
> Thank you again Gerard
>
> This is very helpful information. I understand that the Committee was
> created by the Board.
>
> I have seen far les about
>
> (1) How the Board accepted the revision to the language excluding Ancient
> Languages;
> (2) How this was explained to the Board;
> (3) Whether the Board was given information about any prior consultation,
> or whether that was not seen as necessary at that point
>
> The Board of course will have records, papers and minutes, (maybe public?)
> so this should not be too hard to find, or to point me to where I can find
> it.
>
> Thank you very much
>
> Jim
>
> On 13 Sep 2021, at 13:52, Gerard Meijssen <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> Hoi,
> No the policy was accepted by the board of the Wikimedia Foundation. The
> start of the committee was also the result of a board decision. The notion
> that it was the language committee is a nonsense because it only existed
> from that moment.
>
> Explicitly the existence of projects predating the start of the committee
> are outside the remit of the language committee
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> On Mon, 13 Sept 2021 at 13:44, Jim Killock <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Dear Gerard
>>
>> Thank you, this kind of feedback is very help. You say:
>>
>> *The point of the policy is to explicitly invalidate any and all
>> arguments that were used before. There is no point in looking in older
>> history, at best it shows the genesis of the policy.*
>>
>> What I take from this is that
>>
>> (1) The decision was made as an internal matter by LangCom without
>> consultation
>> (2) It is primarily designed to shut down arguments about Ancient
>> Languages
>>
>> I fully sympathise with why you did this, re (2). You received may
>> requests for AL projects that made no sense, some got through the gate no
>> doubt and you needed to make this stop.
>>
>> However the policy has left a lot of unresolved problems, at least for
>> the Latin project, and most likely for Sanskrit and Ancient Chinese, all of
>> whom are disqualified from further progress. There is a question as to how
>> this plays out for potential funding or project building, and how LangCom
>> ensures the existing projects meet their mission (in my view it seems to
>> leave this problem aide, despite the remit of the committee). Finally there
>> is a question as to whether Ancient Greek in particular deserves a shot at
>> a project.
>>
>> My point is simply that issues like this require a consultation process,
>> to *test for such problems, and mitigate against them*.
>>
>> The current proposal attempt to mitigate such problems by creating a very
>> slightly looser ruleset. As such it is not a consultation on the
>> mitigations and effects of the current policy.
>>
>> So tthe Committee must not simply assume that is if does not like the
>> current RFC it can simply leave the current policy in place. The current
>> policy still lacks consultatation and carries all the rough edges you would
>> expect.
>>
>> Thank you again for responding
>>
>> Jim
>>
>> On 13 Sep 2021, at 07:19, Gerard Meijssen <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hoi,
>> The point of the policy is to explicitly invalidate any and all arguments
>> that were used before. There is no point in looking in older history, at
>> best it shows the genesis of the policy.
>> Thanks,
>> GerardM
>>
>> On Mon, 13 Sept 2021 at 00:57, Jim Killock <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 12 Sep 2021, at 21:09, MF-Warburg <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>> (NB that this mail was sent in on Friday, I have approved it only now as
>>> a list admin, because I haven't been able to until now.)
>>>
>>>
>>> Thank you for approving it and taking the time to respond.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Am So., 12. Sept. 2021 um 21:46 Uhr schrieb Jim Killock <
>>> [email protected]>:
>>> > While there may have been no requirements at the time to provide a
>>> rationale, people who feel the policy is not set in exactly the right place
>>> are left with *no formal explanation *as to why the Language Committee
>>> devised the rules as it did.
>>> >At least, nobody has responded to my requests for documentation from
>>> 2007 showing how the decision was made. If it is or can be made available,
>>> that would be great. I have listed what I know at
>>> >
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Start_allowing_ancient_languages/Appendix_II:_Prior_policy_documents_and_decisions
>>>
>>> I really don't understand this. 2007 is prior to my time in Langcom and
>>> I have no knowledge I could share about the decisions made back then.
>>> However, I also don't see how this would help now. Some members have
>>> previously commented in the "start allowing ancient languages" RFC with
>>> good reasons as to why such projects shouldn't be approved. If there are
>>> "secret reasons from 2007", they can only further support not allowing
>>> ancient languages, probably.
>>>
>>> >This is a problem in itself, but I think is also a large factor in the
>>> upset felt by people who find their projects are declined. There is a
>>> policy, but it is not explained. the justifications are communicated to
>>> them adhoc and it is extremely hard for people understand why Wikimedia has
>>> this policy, as it is in fact, unexplained in any formal document. Instead,
>>> people whose projects are turned down are asked to accept the adhoc
>>> explanations of Wikimedia volunteers. This is bound to cause friction and
>>> grievance.
>>> >If anything can be published from the time, that would of course be
>>> very helpful.
>>>
>>> If this is a legitimate concern, I feel like the already existing short
>>> explanation at
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_proposal_policy#Specific_issues
>>> should be made more detailed, with some of the reasons already given, if
>>> the current "disallowing" of ancient languages stays in place. That seems
>>> better than digging up 2007 discussions.
>>>
>>>
>>> That is exacly what I mean by “reverse engineering”. If you don’t have
>>> the reasoning available, and can’t show the consultation process that
>>> helped arrive at this, then any reasoning now is purely gueswork, or the
>>> preferred but unconsulted view of the Committee.
>>>
>>> In essence, it remains an untransparent process and open to accusations
>>> of being arbitrary.
>>>
>>> I don’t think that is a sound way forward.
>>>
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> *>The way forward*
>>> *>Publish if available, but do not engineering the 2007 decision:* I do
>>> not think the committee should now reverse engineer the reasons for the
>>> 2007 decision, if it turns out to be unavailable, especially as it probably
>>> was made without much public consultation or evidence gathering.
>>> *>If the documentation does turn up*, it is still twenty years old and
>>> there is still a need to take a look at the performance of the current ALWs
>>> and think about how they should be best supported.
>>>
>>> As above.
>>>
>>> *>Pause before looking again at the recommendations made on the current
>>> RFC.* Rather I think there should be a period of evidence gathering and
>>> reflection about ALWs. Once this evidence is gathered, some observations
>>> and recommendations can flow back to the RFC process.
>>>
>>> Can I also ask you to take a pause? I, too, mean this in good faith. But
>>> every time I try to follow what is happening at the RFC, new walls of texts
>>> have appeared and the RFC now has 5 appendices - it's like every day a new
>>> one pops up, and they all were created by you. Indeed I like to assess
>>> things thoroughly and carefully, which I feel like I cannot do if the
>>> proposals are piling up at such speed.
>>>
>>>
>>> Yes, absolutely. I am at the end of my own intellectual journey on this.
>>> I do appreciate I have created a lot of material anjd I would appreciate
>>> feedback.
>>>
>>> The next step IMO is the evidence gathering to see what kind of policy
>>> is justifed
>>>
>>> But also, I believe there is a way forward which would start to deal
>>> with the actual substantive problems - that is starting a programme of
>>> support for the Ancient Language Wikis or ALWs, once we know what state
>>> they are in and what they do well.
>>>
>>> As I explain at
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Start_allowing_ancient_languages/Appendix_V:_Discussion:_putting_an_%27%27Ancient_Language_strategy%27%27_together
>>> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Start_allowing_ancient_languages/Appendix_V:_Discussion:_putting_an_''Ancient_Language_strategy''_together>
>>>
>>>
>>> this would require shifting the current policy in order to tackle a lot
>>> of problematic practice without it looking like an attempt to push those
>>> wikis away.
>>>
>>>
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