[Foundation-l] Fwd: Tokipona

Tue Jan 22 00:49:50 UTC 2008

On Jan 21, 2008 7:25 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Jesse is fond of reminding people that when members of the language
> committee express things it is their own opinion. I am happy to echo this.
> We have been trying to get to grips with the notion of constructed languages
> for some time now and it has been a frustration that it is not possible to
> get to objective criteria. Objective criteria are needed because that gets
> the personal bits out of it.
>
> I has been clear that I am willing to discriminate against new projects in
> constructed languages. I am not willing to deny projects on constructed
> languages because they are constructive languages. The exception in the
> policy is exactly to overcome a requirement for "native" speakers. This has
> always been the case. When there is a big group of contributors willing to
> make any language project a success, I am happy to have them do this. My
> requirements are simple. The language has to be contemporary for a project
> that aims to inform about contemporary subjects. There has to be a solid
> grounding linguistically and from an information point of view to allow a
> Wikipeida.

> When this is the case, what would be the argument to deny it ?
> What would be the difference between a natural living language and a
> constructed language ? In the end ask yourself, what difference does it make
> to you ? It is other people that care. What difference does it make to you..
> it is not as if they take anything away from you that is yours.... ??

It takes away my time, and the time of other people, to determine
which conlangs are "constructive" and "contemporary". It takes our
time to determine what size a group constitutes a "big group of
contributors". It takes time for the developers to create these
projects, and then to close them down again when they fail. It takes
time at BetaWiki localizing 1700 interface messages. It takes time and
energy for our stewards to police and administer these projects. It
costs us credibility when people see such fruitless pursuits as a
Klingon wikipedia, or a Volupuk wikipedia which is 95% bot-generated
and poorly formatted. And then it takes us more time to argue about
the fate of such projects.

--Andrew Whitworth