[Foundation-l] WMF Approval of New Languages/Projects

Wed Aug 30 04:20:37 UTC 2006

timichal wrote:

>>>In the past we have accepted codes to be used as "language" codes which 
>>>were non-existent and have had as a result that we are not in compliance 
>>>with the rules of accepted use for the ISO-639 codes. When codes for new 
>>>languages are used that are not consistent with the existing ISO-639 
>>>codes (all two and three character codes) a language should not be 
>>>accepted at all.
>>>      
>>>
>We can handle ISO-639 codes, it's no problem to assign the correct code if it
>exist. In my opinion, even languages without an ISO-639 code should be
>accepted; however, this shouldn't be controlled by us, but the decision should
>be made in the New language requests vote.
>
I wouldn't go so far as to say a language without a code should be 
completely unacceptable, but the threshhold should be higher.  
Arbitrarily assigning an unused code to the language could be 
problematic at some time in the future.  There is a block of "q" codes 
reserved in the standard for user use.  That's probably what we should 
use if necessary.

>>According to your rules, anyone (with help of 
>>a few friends or of a few sockpuppets) can re-open the Zorglub language 
>>(oldbies will understand which language is concerned).
>>So, your proposal needs to mention the issue of constructed languages.
>>    
>>
>The policy is just a proposal at the moment; however, we'll take this into
>account. There is a Quenya language test in Incubator; I suppose we should
>delete it?
>
Quenya is one of the 24 constructed languages with an ISO 639-3 code.  
Before a project is started in them the support should be overwhelming.

Ec