[Foundation-l] new language policy

Mon Nov 21 16:58:19 UTC 2005

Hi

I was asked yesterday if it was mandatory that during votes for new 
languages creation, the editor
* has an account on meta
* has an account on any already existing project

I do not know what the current policy is.
I am hesitant to be in favor of one or another.
I would rather say the voter should be at least a participant to another 
language, because this would imply he at least know the concept.
However, I am not sure this should be mandatory... except that....

Someone raised a complaint about the current vote here : 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages#Murcian_.28Murciano.29_.2825_support.3B_12_oppose.29

On this new languages, we have
* anon ips voting
* accounts on meta with no edits voting
* accounts on meta with just a user page on meta voting
* accounts on other projects voting.

Fact is, I made a bunch of quick semi-random checks (in short, on red 
meta accounts in particular), and admittedly, many of them are probably 
sharing the same living-room...

I fear the editor who complained is probably right in mentionning sock 
puppetry... though we can not entirely prove it of course.
Which raise the question of how fair is a vote on a controversial 
language, when half voters are not current participants and may not even 
be different poeple ?

What should we do ?

Ant