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Requests for comment/Large scale language inaccuracies on the Scots Wikipedia/small proposals

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Rationale edit

Originally this topic was opened with the focus on the actions of mainly one user on the Scots Wikipedia. His actions, albeit well-intentioned, nonetheless exposed a large vulnerability not just in the Scots Wiki, but small language Wikis in general. The conversation that followed quickly turned to the topic of the fate of the Wiki itself: How to best fix the damage that had been done, to what extent pruning is preferable to fixing, is the project even salvageable? And how can this sort of thing be prevented in the future? This conversation is currently still on-going and probably will be for a while. In large part as a result of the mainstream coverage this issue generated, several native Scots speakers have stepped up to the task to help fix and moderate the Wiki.

More broadly though, what happened raises questions about other small language Wikis. There are 300+ public Wikis, of which the vast majority are tiny, that might suffer from similar problems that come with having little to no oversight. If you’re someone who doesn’t understand the language a particular Wiki is written in, it’s impossible to tell for yourself. The idea has been raised to start a “Small Wiki Audit”, which would have people fluent in one of these languages assess the quality of the articles written there. This too is still a work in progress. --ReneeWrites (talk) 13:40, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Previous rationale

Wiki user AmaryllisGardener has made a significant number of contributions on Wikipedia overall, of which the vast majority were done on the Scots Wikipedia. There he contributed over 27,000 articles, making up close to half of the total number of articles on that Wiki altogether.

The problem is that none of these articles were written in Scots. AmaryllisGardener does not know the language, as seen in for instance this exchange. Despite this he is treated as somewhat of an authority on the language, judging by the contributions on his talk page by people who don't know the language either.

However, the bigger problem is the tens of thousands of articles and edits that were done in an endagered language. The articles use US-en grammar instead of Scots grammar, and the English words are replaced with a Scottish translation (some of which were not correct, either). For words where the author couldn't find a Scottish equivalent, either English was used instead, or a new word was made up altogether (like "pheesicist", although in Amaryllis's defense, he did not create that word, another user who doesn't speak Scots did).

Huge parts of the Scots Wikipedia can not function as a resource because of this, and do active harm to the language it pretends to be written in. Scots is a struggling language, and having it replaced with the dressed-up skeleton of another language is cultural vandalism at an unprecedented scale.

For more discussion and commentary, see this thread on Reddit.

--ReneeWrites (talk) 21:18, 25 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia UK statement, 26 August 2020:

Daria Cybulska, director of programmes and evaluation at Wikimedia UK said: “We do not own or control the Scots-language Wikipedia, which as with all parts of the Wiki community, is edited and managed by volunteers.

“We are aware of the concerns that have emerged about the content of the Scots-language Wikipedia and are in touch with the Wikimedia Foundation and volunteer editor community to offer support in helping to ensure that these issues are addressed.

“We are exploring ways of supporting the existing Scots Wikipedia editor community, by offering help with editing training for newcomers, facilitating partnerships with authoritative language organisations and organising editing events to harness current interest and energy.” from The Guardian


Media Coverage

Small Proposals edit

[Add this section to your watchlist]

While there are big things that need to be done and being discussed above, there also needs to be small things that help fix the wider problem and raise standards. Things that can happen right now. Sadly I don’t have the Wiki-technical to do that, so have started this separate section to make mini proposals.

Constructive comments on practicality or improvements are of course welcome, but anyone interested in supporting sco wiki and has the technical know how please volunteer to take actions forward. I and others could support with the Scots of course. Soothrhins (talk) 07:38, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]


p.1 Scots skills level (new users) edit

Proposal Can a bot be made that makes a collogue (talk) page for new users, and adds a message encouraging users to make a user page and use the Babel interface to declare their Scots level (similar to this manual version: https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uiser_collogue:Slante469).
Rationale Trust is going to be a big issue going forward, if people are honest about their skill levels and we can build confidence in native speakers that would be positive.
Proposer: Soothrhins (talk) 07:38, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Volunteer:
Comment

  • I wrote earlier about my background [1]. But Scottish-English, Glaswegian, Scots? I honestly do not know what Scots level assessment I would declare, but I would probably go low (which may also be a cultural trait). As we've seen in this whole midden, others with a Dunning–Kruger sugar rush may not feel so inhibited. The result could be a distorted set of over and under assessments. AllyD (talk) 07:47, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Aye its difficult to say. I have Scots as a mither tongue picked upon from family and then used (through speech) ever since. But not everyone has a Scots-speaking home environment. Maybe the categories should have clarification, like if you can read Scots well you're directed to one category, if you can read and speak a higher one (and so on). Soothrhins (talk) 07:59, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Made the same comment below regarding existing users. I think there needs to be a distinction based on what language sub skill we're talking about since there's a big difference between speaking and writing for example. Witchofthewoods (talk) 10:35, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm new here, a native Scots (Doric) speaker who learned of the wiki from Reddit. I think there needs to be a discussion about the spelling of Scots because it's not standardised countrywide. Maybe we can create a standardised glossary for the wiki and go from there? (Apologies if I've contributed incorrectly, if so please help!) YesMyGatekeeper (talk) 12:30, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm a member of the SWMT; when I make a revert or just have an account on that wiki, a user or a bot will slam a welcome template on my user talk page. Very few ask me to make a babel declaration or visit the local embassy. I have the following code on my global user page to declare I only speak English and I don't speak whatever language they've set in their preferences.
{{#babel:
|en
|{{#switch: {{int:lang}}
|en=
|en-gb=
|en-ca=
|#default={{int:lang}}-0}}}}
I support encouraging a babel declartion, going to the embassy, and having a global userpage with some code like I showed above; having a local user page is kinda unncessary as your global user page, if you have one, will take its place. You can create a babel declaration on your user talk page too. Can I Log In (talk) 17:15, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This could help, both allowing contributors to give advice based on someone's self-identified level and also in forcing new users to be thoughtful about their capabilities and limitations. Given the issues raised about, some guidance on what each level might represent would be especially in useful given how Scots interacts with English and how many speakers will be relatively unfamiliar with written Scots. Monospaced (talk) 14:35, 12 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

p.2 Scots skills level (existing users) edit

Proposal As p.1 above but adding to existing user collogue (talk) pages.
Rationale Same as p.1, trust equally applies to existing users than new. I’m just imagining there might be different tech involved where talk pages already exist.
Proposer: Soothrhins (talk) 07:38, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Volunteer:
Comment:

  • I don't see particularly how bad it would be in general to have a mass message to all users to ask to declare how much Scots they know. The previso is that this message should not suggest that users without a specific level of knowledge be looked down on - also, it still needs to be optional, no blocks, bans or berating messages to suggest they add to this. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 10:19, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Would it not make sense to ask for a declaration on the language sub skills - e.g. speaking, reading, writing. There's a big difference in being able to speak Scots fluent and being able to write it, especially since it's mostly an oral language and there's not a consensus on how it should be written. Witchofthewoods (talk) 10:32, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Witchofthewoods: Yes, a very good idea. Have made a sub proposal so it can complement existing babel template that is used Wiki wide.
@Soothrhins: Somebody needs to take a look at Scowiki's babel categories. You're not coming up as an English speaker at Sco:Category:Uiser_en-N and there is no grouping for native speakers of Scots at Sco:Category:Uiser_sco (like there is here Category:User_sco). Also, the box top-right on Meta allows you to see users above a certain level (if you did but know it), but this is broken on Scowiki. (Levels for dialects of English have been repeatedly removed on enwiki en:Wikipedia:User_categories_for_discussion/Archive/August_2007#"National"_dialects_of_English, so the English part of this problem may be specific to Scowiki.)--GrounderUK (talk) 22:33, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

p.2.1 Scots skills level (new infobox) edit

Proposal Create a new infobox for user pages that is goes alongside the existing babel template structure. So that native-Scots users to clarify their skill level in reading and writing.
Rationale As per above comments, and someone suggested over on Scots wiki too. For those who maybe aren't aware of the intricacies of Scots... it is mostly learned and used through speech, teaching in schools is patchy to say the least. That means someone can be born and bred in Scots but have very little confidence or skill in reading or writing Scots. The current babel infobox sets a standard across all languages, suggestion to make a Scots specific one to address a specific need of this language wiki. (If there are examples on other language wikis please note below)
Proposer: Soothrhins (talk) 13:27, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Volunteer:
Comment:

p.3 Spellin Fettle (Spelling Review Space) edit

  Done

Action: After seeking approval from admin MJL, this has been set up as there were growing discussions on the Mercat Cross on these matters. Soothrhins (talk) 18:09, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
Proposal

Similar to the Mercat Cross for tech matters there needs to be a dedicated space where specific spellings in article titles and the bones of the wiki platform itself can be disputed, discussed and resolved. Users would be able to raise the example and where it is being used, there can be discussion below it, reference can be made to the Concise Scots Dictionary, and where required academics can be asked to advise.
Rationale Scots is a non-standardised language, meaning more than one spelling for words is in usage. Which is great for the language but complicates a wiki. Compared to other minority languages, Scots doesn’t have an statutory body that can advise on the spellings of new words. Referenced above is the Munt Everest example where someone with a mither tongue can see that it is clearly wrong, can back it up with a regular dictionary, but needs an admin to sort it. This is a problem that I expect will be a regular thing to fix, hence creating a distinct place away from the Mercat Cross to do it.
Proposer: Soothrhins (talk) 07:38, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Volunteer: Soothrhins
Comment

  • The 2014 Munt Everest discussion is interesting for several reasons, not least in displaying an unresolved gap between those speaking a language and those thumbing a dictionary. Isn't it also indicative of a wider problem, though, that a term for that geographical feature was being constructed in the wiki? Wikipedia is not supposed to be creative, but rather to reference external reliable sources, but when there is a lack of Scots language texts about the Himalayas, then the result is that the Wiki is effectively constructing the language. And that turns into this massive astroturf-Scots problem. A dictionary is not adequate; if a term cannot be found in the language in reliable 3rd party sources, then isn't a Spelling Review Forum, however well-meaning, overreaching itself in a way likely to replicate the current problem? AllyD (talk) 08:08, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is a very good point, but also one that it is fundamental to the whole Scots wiki project and as such should be part of the main proposal discussion above.
(If Scots Wiki articles had to rely on direct sources in Scots, you'd probably be looking at a size of hundreds of pages not thousands).
Even with the fundamentals/principles resolved, there will still be situations like the one raised on Mercat Cross yesterday ("Leet"_fir_lists), where questionable or incorrect Scots has worked into article names or the wiki code basis itself that need review, discussion, reference, resolution and action. Soothrhins (talk) 09:41, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

p.4 Clarify expected norms for page creation edit

ACTIONED:
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Proposal The Makin page window on sco.wiki is a lot more minimal than the Creating page on en.wiki: lacking the top warnings about copyright violation and verifiability requirements. Text for these expectations should be added. Such a change also provides an opportunity to add text emphasising that machine-translated renderings of article text from elsewhere is not suitable.
Rationale Some form of stabilisation is needed in conjunction with future remediation, but articles can be seen to continue being created using machine-translation, with mangled outcomes such as the month of May becoming "kin". Adding text to address this may inhibit the creation of more poor-quality articles. (An alternative might be a temporary ban on page creation altogether until the problems are sorted, but that would be a larger-scale proposal.)
Proposer: AllyD (talk) 11:22, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Volunteer:
Comment

@Liam McM: presumably they're referring to the notice that appears at the top of the visual editor saying the following:
  Support I think this is generally good practice, and even though there are more pressing issues to be addressed, the point of these puckle proposals is not to address the main issues but the corrolaries. In terms of stats, only a few pages have been actually created in recent days (only 10 yesterday, and 21 the day before, including Redirects)-- Recent chynges search results here.James Hyett (talk) 18:14, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

p.5 Scots language test edit

Proposal: We could implement a test, for anyone who wants to create or substantially add to an article, of the Scots language itself. Not just simple words, but the basic grammar and structure (and maybe a few words where the online dictionaries just aren't correct) to solve this problem going forward.

Rationale: To ensure this never happens again on Scots wikipedia, which seems uniquely prone to this issue because of its similarity to English, we need to make sure that contributors adding significant content actually know the language.

Proposer: Zoozaz1 (talk) 12:37, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

p.6 Ask for help cleaning up edit

Help is available from the Scots Language Center network. The rest of this proposal was not supported. –SJ talk  21:53, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

@AmaryllisGardener: while inaccuracy in the pursuit of self-gratification is vandalism, this is not anywhere near impossible to correct and will very likely end up being a net positive for Scots in less than one week's time, if it isn't already. Will you please promise to recommend that you never create an article in a language with which you have no knowledge of grammar ever again, agree to an indefinite ban from the Scots Wikipedia, appealable to their new admins in six months time, and join in my request to pertinent members of the Government of Scotland and others to nominate consultants as per [2] and [3] in accordance with User:Koavf's suggestion at the Reddit AMA? James Salsman (talk) 20:02, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is helpful. Leave him alone. Let's just focus on how we can address the situation, not on how we can make someone as miserable as possible just because they made a mistake. Yes, it was a very big mistake, but I assure you he knows that now. The accusatory part of this discussion has already ended. Leave it be. --Puzzledvegetable (talk) 20:22, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it was not clear from my tone that this is all water under the bridge. I have been studying what does and does not preserve endangered languages over a decade for my day job, and this is what we call a blessing in disguise. Will you please join in my attempt to compile a list of consulting pro-Scots Scots authorities? James Salsman (talk) 20:38, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@James Salsman: Let's please not bother AG with this right now. He's got enough on his plate at the moment. (Edit conflict.) –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 20:30, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
My comments were intended to try to cheer him up and ensure that the community does not continue to treat the language with disdain. James Salsman (talk) 20:38, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Leave the guy alone. What is done is done. --IWI (talk) 20:59, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@ImprovedWikiImprovment: do you suggest that actions should not have consequences? James Salsman (talk) 01:09, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Proposing an indef ban if they were to ever set foot on the Scots wiki (and any other wiki they are not a native speaker) doesn't seem like the best way to cheer up someone who is being harassed. Isabelle Belato (talk) 23:27, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not one for tact or subtlety but even I gotta say this proposal feels unnecessarily mean-spirited (and, I guess, unnecessary). RexSueciae (talk) 23:35, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. RexSueciae (talk) 23:37, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • This seems unnecessarily punitive rather than preventative. Presumably he's learned from his mistakes by now and either won't edit scowiki anymore, or will only edit under native speaker supervision. The one benefit to this proposal is that banning him might satisfy the (understandably) pissed-off mob, but I don't think this should be the basis for choosing between proposals. PiRSquared17 (talk) 02:23, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I have removed punitive language from the proposal. James Salsman (talk) 04:07, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Witchofthewoods (talk) 10:29, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • He clearly has a lot of time on his hands. Once all of this attention has died down would it not make sense to bring him back in some capacity to help to make make edits/remove pages/ roll back edits en masse, basically any capacity that doesn't require knowledge of the language. Witchofthewoods (talk) 10:29, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]


The main concern should not be to "cheer up" the person who created this problem. Wikimedia needs to make sure something like this does not happen again, in any wiki. You cannot give people Sysop rights for a wiki in a language they do not speak. Furthermore, i wonder whether it is prudent to give Sysop rights to people as young as AG in general, but that's perhaps beside the point here. I do not want to make assumptions about AG's intentions, but whatever they may have been, the result is a large-scale disaster and there must be consequences for that in order to prevent it from happening again. These consequences must include

  1. consequences for the "perpetrators", that is AG and whoever gave and did never revoke their Sysop right
  2. a review of the procedures (or lack thereof) that enabled AG to keep doing damage for seven years and even being granted Sysop privileges
  3. the installation of better quality control for wikis in lesser used languages or with very few active users.

Just my 2c. --Janwo (talk) 04:39, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Re: the third point, I created the page small wiki audit which tries to address this issue. Btw, I'm not sure how relevant the sysop rights aspect is, since the recent concerns are about their article editing patterns, not abuse of admin tools. PiRSquared17 (talk) 05:40, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Cool. If I can be of any assistance there, ping me. Re my points: AG has been confronted with the lack of linguistic competence at least since 2014 (see their archived discussion page) and neither they nor anyone else took these seriously back then and made sure the "disruptive editing" stopped. That is the problem that must be avoided in the future. --Janwo (talk) 07:45, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think having a giant debate is counterproductive, all of AG's contributions have already been gone over with a fine-toothed comb (which I wouldn't wish on anybody), but the original Reddit post overstated the degree of other people "confronting" him on his lack of linguistic competence. Nobody ever directly and bluntly expressed the systemic issue with AG's lack of proficiency with Scots until 3 days ago. The 2014 post was the closest, but nobody said much afterward, so AG apparently thought they were better at Scots after not receiving further feedback since. His "crime" was only being very naive, so no, there needn't be any "consequences". As others have stated, nobody has ever alleged AG misused their admin rights, so him being an admin isn't super-relevant - the problem was his edits, which were good-faith but low quality.
More productively - procedures don't work if there's nobody to enforce them. You can write up as beautiful a set of rules as you like, and it won't matter. AG's errors wouldn't have persisted if there'd been even 1 active, confident, native Scots user to sound the alarm earlier. So the real fix is to grow the community. Wikis are powerful because it's very easy to join the community - just start! So any "fix" that involves additional vetting, bureaucracy, etc. is potentially going the wrong direction, if the result was a smaller community. We should have a Scots Wikipedia, not a Scots Nupedia. SnowFire (talk) 14:33, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I do not share your opinion as to the extent of the malfeasance. The Foundation has a long history of paying consultants for review and to suggest improvements in these sorts of situations. I am not particularly interested in discussing the details with those who are not yet familiar with them until I have more time to compile an exhaustive list. James Salsman (talk) 17:35, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@SnowFire:

Nobody ever *directly* and bluntly expressed the systemic issue with AG's lack of proficiency with Scots until 3 days ago.

This is not true. On AG's talk page, in Dec 2016, two or three Scots speakers bluntly call out AG's pseudo-"Scots". To quote one of them:

I find it insuting that you would pass this off as our native language which you clearly don't speak. Again, as a native Scot and native speaker, no one where uses this site as it isn't close to resembling any Scots language. The language you use here is English with some changes in spelling and passing it off as the real deal harms the already derogratory view of Scots languages.

AG ignored these comments (obviously referring to his "translation") and didn't correct or take down his existing articles. That appears at minimum like avoidance, or even Dunning–Kruger arrogance, due to ignorance. (Other users have mentioned that he has been intransigent on other talk pages, but I haven't verified this myself.) I think he should not remain an admin. Creamyhorror (talk) 19:49, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Creamyhorror: I'm sorry, but that quote is something most people on Wikipedia are conditioned to tune out. The anonymous user provided zero examples or evidence to support their claims. It might be stupid, but Wikipedians are basically trained to ignore angry talk page messages like that.
You have to think about it from AG's perspective. He had been editing Scots Wikipedia for almost three years at that point, and no Scots speaker (even the ones he knew) had said anything even remotely like that. To him at the time, this could've easily just been any disgruntled editor saying something just to get a rise out of him.
We know now that this was a genuine (and well put) complaint, but the way this website affects its users just doesn't put them in a place where they can hear something like that and just change the way they do things overnight (say nothing of a user with obsessive compulsive disorder). –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 07:34, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Janwo: that 2014 talk page comment is from a guy infamous in the Scots language community for promoting an obscure and archaic form of Scots.
Also, I don't appreciate you acting like we shouldn't be concerned for AG's wellbeing and want to cheer him up. The dude is honestly one of the nicest and most supportive people I have ever known on Wikipedia. He hurt a language he really cares about, and that isn't something you can just get over.
Finally, we don't punish people for screwing up (even if what they did can't be undone). All that matters is a user learns from their mistake and moves on without repeating it. That's one of the only things I like about this site, and I am not going to stand by and let anyone change it just to fill their need to go on some random witch hunt when we have actual work to do. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 07:34, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(squeeze in) If someone cares so much about a language so much, why don't they make the effort to learn it? Sorry, I am trying to assume good faith here, but I fail. Anyway, what I believe is necessary here is to find ways to prevent things like this from happening again, so imho we/someone need to did deeper and find out why, despite people being aware of the fake Scots being written, no one thought about stopping AG and others. One thing that comes to my mind is that people shied away from calling it vandalism because they kept telling themselves "yeah but they meant well". OK. But "meant well doesn't imply done well", as my dad always used to say. If the well-meant effort has ill results, the effort should have been stopped, and not only after seven years and global media attention. To be clear, I didn't imply we shold not care about AGs wellbeing, I only suggested it should not be the top priority here. That attitude is exactly why that mess had been going on for seven years to take on the gigantic dimensions it has now. In short: someone should have stopped AG much earlier and much more effectively and we should make sure that is what happens next time. --Janwo (talk) 07:58, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am happy to split it into separate proposals for requesting help and asking A.G. to help make a list of authorities. Would that address your opposition? James Salsman (talk) 14:59, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It would not. I'm still not sure how this is distinguishable from other proposals / actions currently ongoing (e.g. the Scots Language Center stepping forward), with the exception that it's appended to a denunciation of AG. RexSueciae (talk) 16:45, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that many editors sincerely believe that A.G. was acting entirely in good faith. While I agree that good faith was part of it, self-gratification was certainly far more. Accordingly, I do not intend to withdraw my request to the admin for a voluntary agreement to an appealable indefinite ban. Furthermore, I object to your attempt to claim a consensus without having addressed Janwo's points above. James Salsman (talk) 17:32, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Andrew Gray: whether anyone else does or not, please join the cleanup effort. James Salsman (talk) 03:41, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

p.7 Promote Koavf, Soothrhins, and Resident Wikimedians et al. to admin on the Scots Wikipedia edit

ACTIONED:

While this was not an emergency as normally construed, Soothrins was made an admin. Others can apply normally. –SJ talk  22:07, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

I wholeheartedly ask any steward or capable 'crat to make User:Koavf an admin on the Scots Wikipedia as an emergency measure per [4]. James Salsman (talk) 21:54, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If we are to emergency promote someone, I'd rather it be a native Scots speaker. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 21:58, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Promoting another non-Scots-speaking American at this point would not be a good look. PiRSquared17 (talk) 22:05, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Unlike you, hi? ——SerialNumber54129 07:24, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not a scowiki admin nor running for adminship, so I'm not sure how this tu quoque is relevant. PiRSquared17 (talk) 07:27, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies, PiRSquared17, too many indents; my suggestion was directed at MJL, intended to indicate that they need not bother attempting to recover such reputation as they may have ever possessed, as it has gone the way of the SCOWIKI. Cheers! ——SerialNumber54129 12:39, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Serial Number 54129: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 08:52, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with MJL. I'm sorry, but https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Uiser_sco I don't believe a single one of them have actually studied written Scots to know what is or is not grammatically correct. I've seen it mentioned that Dr. Dempster is trying to put together an editathon... the wiki needs someone with that degree of understanding of the language. But the reality is, any one with that degree of understanding of the language doesn't have the time to be editing wikipedia. And so instead it's left to people who aren't even Scots, or who think that it's English with a few funny words thrown in. Or that it can be written by simply replacing English words with Scots or Scots Gaelic words. The wiki, if it is to represent real, actual, spoken and written Scots, needs someone at the head with an academic understanding of it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.208.56.195 (talk) 22:07, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@46.208.56.195: This is why I e-mailed the University of Edinburgh about it, so that hopefully some people connected to the institution, if not the institution itself, takes stewardship of the project WhisperToMe (talk) 22:11, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Simply: why? RexSueciae (talk) 22:10, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Koavf is the only very prolific polyglot editor with admin experience applying supervised automation to languages with which he has only a passing familiarity to clean up similar messes. Are there any other polyglot admins with high-count supervised automation experience? Do we have anyone in Category:sco-4 here or on enwiki with any administration experience? James Salsman (talk) 22:21, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Don't get me wrong; Koavf would be a huge help. 12 hours ago I'd be supporting this too, but Soothrhins can also be an excellent way forward. (Edit conflict.) –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 22:28, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'll ask Koavf whether he would prefer to mentor Soothrhins. James Salsman (talk) 22:41, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Edit conflict @James Salsman: I'm happy to help however I can. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:44, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear, my language skills are just en-N and es-2 with the standard competence of other Germanic and Romance languages. So all I could do in terms of Scots is delete and block based on obvious vandalism. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:43, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be okay to make Koavf an admin as long as we made it clear that his role was mainly routine maintenance without editorial control over content/language standards. PiRSquared17 (talk) 23:14, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose C Ci? 22:16, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Koavf is an asset to the project, but granting him advanced permissions will probably raise eyebrows given his history on enwiki: he's been blocked on a few occasions this year (most recently two weeks ago) and I seem to recall there was some time ago a topic ban from certain types of (semi?)automated edits. Uanfala (talk) 23:30, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly the rouge we need, not the one we deserve. James Salsman (talk) 00:41, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The academy is not the arbiter of Scots grammar and vocabulary. The Government of Scotland is; that is why the Foundation needs to hire reviewers to audit the content. James Salsman (talk) 22:52, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@James Salsman: Apologies James, the tone of this should be interpreted as constructive. The Scottish Government is no authority on Scots grammar or vocabulary. They (through the Scottish Parliament) do hold the power to enact legislation and funding to support the language. In Scotland, currently there is no legal recognition of Scots (while there is of English, Gaelic and British Sign Language). The closest we have to an arbiter on grammar and vocabulary is the Scots Language Centre and Dictionary of the Scots Language. Both have oversight or management from experienced academics, of which there are more of in a number of Scottish universities. Soothrhins (talk) 23:07, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Precisely; please don't mention it. That is why I am trying to compile a list of pro-Scots Scots authority nominees from both the public and private sector. I hope you can be compensated for administering the grant. You don't need to tell me that de facto overrules de jure even in French these days. The job of the academy is to report on usage, and the government seems to be doing an okay job at supporting that, but not okay enough to have secured a Wikipedian in Residence for example. James Salsman (talk) 23:16, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@James Salsman: Apologies I'm lost, to which academy are your referring? Soothrhins (talk) 23:22, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure you agree that the academic traditions of Plato, Shun, or the Council of Florence are less appropriate than the Government of Scotland's Education ministries. James Salsman (talk) 00:09, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@James Salsman: In Scotland, an academy usually refers to a secondary school (w:Education in Scotland#School naming), hence why I asked for clarification. Soothrhins (talk) 07:08, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Don't we normally resist any form of governmental or institutional oversight? Would we offer, say, Turkmenistan's government or institutions such opportunities and if not, how would we explain to them that it's appropriate for the Scots wikipedia but not "theirs"? 92.6.149.254 23:36, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
We accept the French government's advice as a reliable authority in matters of grammar and vocabulary, but not so much for usage which is subject to popular referendum everytime a francophone opens their mouth. We rely on both the public and private sectors when identifying notable authorities on questions such as who is likely to have the best and longest lists of pro-Scots Scots authorities. James Salsman (talk) 15:04, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
When has Wikipedia ever received advice from the French government, and what did Wikipedia do with it? I know the government did threaten to arrest and charge a French Wikipedia admin forcing him to deleted an article but otherwise, I think it's merely a matter of editors using French governmental and academic sources in the usual way without seeking or accepting advice or oversight, especially after that interference.
You wrote of "the academy" whose job it "is to report on usage" as part of "the Government of Scotland's Education ministries". Please be aware that Scotland does not have such an academy and the universities of Scotland (which date back to 1413) are not ruled by the Scottish Government, which does not have "Education ministries". It might be better to leave identification of resources to people with greater familiarity with Scotland. 92.6.149.254 16:07, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone please go through [5] and see if any of them are admins? James Salsman (talk) 22:41, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

No, we only have 4 admins none of which are native speakers. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 22:45, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Clear need for some 'new blood' to support current admins. I'm considering what I could offer but if there was native speakers who are also experienced Wikipedians (even if only in en), I think that would be very beneficial. Soothrhins (talk) 22:52, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's not too early for you or anyone else to nominate those who look particularly competent, and maybe an admin actions automation expert or two, at sco:Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. James Salsman (talk) 22:55, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Both a lack of native language experts and a lack of sysops contribute to the issues. James Salsman (talk) 00:58, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@James Salsman: We have global sysops for this reason. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 16:48, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Logistically speaking, this isn’t how adminship works. If a given person wants to be an admin, they should make a request on the project and follow the usual guidelines. Stewards do not give “emergency” adminship and the Scots Wikipedia doesn’t have any crats. Vermont (talk) 01:10, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Vermont. And also due to his recent block on en.wikipedia Koavf would unfortunately be a controversial choice anyway. --Rschen7754 06:48, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

User:Sara Thomas (WMUK) and User:ACrockford are the Resident Wikipedians in Scotland. James Salsman (talk) 07:17, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. For clarity, I'm the Scotland Programme Coordinator at Wikimedia UK, and was previously Wikimedian in Residence at Museums Galleries Scotland, and the Scottish Library and Information Council (one of two who held that role). User:ACrockford was the WiR at the National Library of Scotland between 2013-2015. There was also a Gaelic WiR, based out of the National Library of Scotland in 2017, working on gd.wiki. Currently we have a resident at the University of Edinburgh (f/t), and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (p/t, 1 day per week).Sara Thomas (WMUK) (talk) 09:03, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • AllyD There's been occasional editing in Scots at editathons I've run in the past - turns out that one of them is one of the people organising the upcoming editathon 30/31, which I'm doing work on just now to support. There's also a Doric content project that got pushed b/c COVID, but that should be able to resume planning soon. One of the WiR projects identified Scots & Gaelic translation (into WikiSource, IIRC) as one of the (many) areas their institution could work on, and there's another partner with whom we work on various Wiki Projects where Scots content had come up in discussion regarding future work. One of the things that I think could be worth pursuing would be translation on Wikidata, which could then support other infrastructure on sco.wiki, and I'd be happy to support the community to do that, if they feel it would be helpful. Sara Thomas (WMUK) (talk) 11:10, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Soothrhins: You can have User:My_hat_stinks my_hat_stinks self-nominate at sco:Wikipedia:Requests for adminship WhisperToMe (talk) 02:33, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Adding nominations to that page is not straighforward as most edits. I am happy to do so. James Salsman (talk) 17:05, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have nominated User:Drchriswilliams (M.D.), User:My hat stinks, User:Fixer88, User:Lirazelf, User:Stinglehammer, User:ACrockford, and User:Koavf for adminship on the Scots Wikipedia. James Salsman (talk) 19:31, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have asked User:Monospaced, User:John Gordon Reid, User:Drchriswilliams, User:1+1=thirteen, User:Witchofthewoods, and User:Bovlb whether they are interested in adminship. James Salsman (talk) 20:06, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

1+1=thirteen is blocked on multiple wikis for sockpuppetry/trolling. PiRSquared17 (talk) 20:10, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you kindly. James Salsman (talk) 21:07, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@James Salsman: Do not nominate a single other user for adminship. You are nominating way too many people, and that isn't a sustainable long term solution. It is making me uncomfortable how reckless you are being with this. We can't vet all these people at once, so stop giving Scots Wikipedia editors more things to do and worry about. I mean it. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 07:54, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sure; no problem. If you would please help me understand why you feel uncomfortable I will try to understand. I hope you agree that most of the scowiki admins should be fluent? James Salsman (talk) 08:15, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@MJL: would you please reconsider this opposition to Drchriswilliams's nomination? I am uncomfortable being asked to acquiesce to a non-fluent admin opposing the candidacy of a fluent medical doctor. I took w:Birth control to Good Article status back in 2012 I think it was, and I am extremely sensitive to medical issues. James Salsman (talk) 08:24, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@James Salsman: He isn't fluent. The good doctor can only speak Scottish English as it says on his profile. That doesn't make him fluent in Scots. If he can speak Scots, then he should make that public. Either way, he has four edits on Scots Wikipedia, and none of them were even this year. Paper admins aren't going to fix this mess.
As to your first question, you basically have unilaterally nominated 7 candidates for admin on a wiki who currently only has 4. I feel bad for Fixer who you unceremoniously withdrew your nomination for. You also nominated Koavf despite people in this thread (including me) telling you not to. Then you almost nominated a person blocked for sockpuppetry and trolling.
You did this all under the guise of emergency appointments which consensus was not established for. As far as I am concerned, there is no emergency anymore, and it certainly doesn't call for us to practically double the amount of admins we have.
Scots wiki needs natural, sustainable, growth. That doesn't happen if you promote literally everyone to admin before they even have the chance to say yes.
...And that is why I am uncomfortable. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 08:47, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@MJL: are you saying that the annotation on his Meta userpage, "This uiser haes Scots aes ae mither tung," is a misrepresentation? I am disappointed to see that the enwiki's sco-N userbox has a different annotation. Adminship is no big deal. If you were a developer you would realize that. The dumps have enough information to reconstruct the database at any point in time. You should be welcoming additional help. If any of the recommended admins fail to perform sufficiently, or you find yourself in a similar situation with more demands than admin time to meet them, perhaps you will then agree to additional nominations. Show me a wiki that failed to progress because it had too many admins. James Salsman (talk) 09:01, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@James Salsman: Adminship is normally not a big deal, but when you are put into the position where you have the ability to nuke an entire site it starts becoming a big deal when that gets seriously talked about. Either way, as far as I am concerned there are two requirements for any admins going forward: they speak Scots, and they seem to care about helping Scots Wikipedia. Drchriswilliams does not meet that second requirement. We already have enough admins who don't do anything (no offense Fox), so I'm not going to support more admins who I don't think can contribute to doing the job of admin.
You should be recruiting these candidates as editors first before having them jump right into the position of admin. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 16:45, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I just reviewed your AMA thread where you asked for admin volunteers from Scots speaking redditors, and it's not clear but it looks to me like you were asking them to be admins even if they had no editing experience, in some cases. I am not sure what your intentions are. You should be trying to nominate Scots speakers with editing experience. Dr. Williams is a medical doctor, with far more years of editing experience on far more topics than you. At first you claimed that he only speaks Scottish English, and he isn't fluent in Scots, as he says and has shown that he is as a native speaker, and now you claim that he doesn't seem to care about helping Scots Wikipedia. He is one of only three people so far to have obtained the passcode to register for the editathon. James Salsman (talk) 21:34, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@James Salsman: Please pull back. We're in this situation because one American in particular wildly overestimated his knowledge of Scotland and took a leadership role in the Scots Wikipedia. The Scots are well used to such ignorance and at best unthinking arrogance from the English and from Americans, just like so many other peoples around the world, but that doesn't make it acceptable or helpful. You have even publicly asked (via the Twitter account you linked on this page) two leading Scottish politicians and one of Scotland's highest civil servants (a Member of the Scottish Parliament; a Member of the Scottish Parliament who is the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Fair Work and Culture in the Scottish Government; the Scottish Government's Director-General for Education, Communities and Justice) how much they charge per hour for private consulting. It seems you probably don't understand their roles, certainly don't know what is inappropriate and insulting, and do not fear to bring the project into further disrepute. Please stop trying to recruit people from inside or outside Wikipedia. 79.73.243.47 13:50, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you 79.73 for saying this. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 17:47, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I have no regrets about my efforts. The tweets you imply are "inappropriate and insulting" resulted in two consultant leads by DM who have been referred to the Scots Language Centre. I would also point out that the six Government of Scotland officials to whom I reached out have the authority to relicense their dictionaries as CC-BY(-SA). I reserve the right to ask them to do that. James Salsman (talk) 22:19, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is not true. No Scottish Government officials have the authority to relicense the dictionaries of Scottish Language Dictionaries Ltd, which is an independent charity. It is the sole copyright holder and it is very clear: "We must protect and safeguard the copyright of this data under the conditions of our funders, and also because all royalties and other income from SLD data are used to support our ongoing work."[6] You should not harrass Scottish Government officials with absurd requests even on your own behalf, let alone in the name of Wikipedia. It is such wild over-reaching that saw you blocked from meta.wikipedia from 2012 to 2017 and as en:User:Nrcprm2026 still blocked from en.wikipedia since 2012 with 86 known sockpuppets. 79.73.243.47 00:06, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I was referring to the legislature, in which those officials hold the pertinent committee chairs. James Salsman (talk) 03:00, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
For the benefit of anyone not from Scotland reading the above comment (03:00, 30 August 2020), in terms of Scotland's system of devolved government (and its Parliament), this makes no sense. Soothrhins (talk) 22:22, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

p.8 Suggestion: poll Scots edit

We all know the Scots love a referendum, but there seems to be a gatekeeping issue in some of the discussion above. There's a lot of anonymous Scottish editors (I checked IPs to see if there was trolling but no, they all correlate to appropriate locations in the UK) saying, in short, "burn it down now". Then there's a lot of largely not-Scottish but reasonably experienced Wikipedia editors saying "we can't just delete a whole Wikipedia, that goes against the aims" and "is it really that bad". Especially with the publishing and popularity of the Guardian article (#4 top viewed last I looked), this is an issue bigger than the processes and bureaucracy of Scots Wikipedia or even Wikimedia.

While we have a good Scottish editor (Soothrhins) willing to be an admin trying to bring the sides together, and academics from across the Lowlands scowling and trying to work something out to improve the language so it has an acceptable internet presence, it could disenfranchise an entire country (yes, Scotland) from wanting to use Wikipedia if it appears the website is not just knowingly willing to allow, but is actively advocating for, a misrepresentation of their language to persist indefinitely and affect international perceptions and data language training. These people don't care about Wikipedia convention and discussion. I was particularly incensed by one not-Scottish editor (Steinbach) actually insulting Scottish IPs and their national identity for just calling out his sweeping generalization of Scottish people (bad in itself).

Basically, we should be listening to the internet users who are Scottish and may know nothing of Wikipedia. I believe the proposal to "nuke it" was something raised at the Reddit AMA by a lot of Scottish netizens who don't seem to have managed to find the discussion side of Wikimedia here. I feel the discussion at present is too insular, and the proposals should maybe be taken to another AMA or similar forum where Scottish internet users at large can voice their opinions on the value of the project and if they would help fix it - we would need to outreach to them to actually see productive change here, so we might as well see if they're interested in volunteering before deciding that 'get Scots speakers to volunteer' is the proposal we like. Kingsif (talk) 01:22, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

How do you suggest we identify Scots? --Puzzledvegetable (talk) 01:40, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, here I did it with WHOIS, the least-intrusive IP lookup. I don't know how Reddit identifies its users, but the original thread was in a Scottish group, so we could just take it back there? Kingsif (talk) 01:46, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, you are offended? Well, so am I! Those Scots that argued for the complete deletion of Wikipedia were misled by the original thread, which erroneously stated that "almost every single article" was written by the same person and that the project is entirely not in Scots. The whole thing went viral. Give me one f***ing reason to give in to a wave of incensed netizens when a hype is raging at full speed. If you apply mob rule at this very moment, you'll have Reddit decide for us - and people from outside Wikimedia, blinded by irrational rage, will wreak irreparable havoc.
A lot of great things are being done by a fair number of competent speakers even now, as we speak. But never mind, nuke it. A lot of Scots have invested in it years ago. But never mind, nuke it. Well, if you have the balls, go and tell Soothrhins and those countless others than have just stepped in with boundless enthusiasm that their contributions must be nuked because the lot of you decided so! Steinbach (formerly Caesarion) 06:35, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Wind yer neck in. Some of us have been looking into the wiki and found that most of the editors who've submitted work to the sco.wiki, are, like you, non-speakers of Scots. People who've submitted heavily accented English articles. Or submitted word for word dictionary translations. While AGs submissions brought this to everyone's attention, the rot goes a lot deeper than his submissions. The entire wiki is inherently wrong. Hence the calls for nuking it. You've already been told by a couple of other people to cool your jets. Maybe you should do so. 46.208.56.195 06:47, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Without wishing to do down people who have stepped in with boundless enthusiasm, I just looked on recent changes, and found that two-thirds of the three people I saw making recent major contributions aren't native Scots speakers either. One is from Sri Lanka and another from Ohio. It's not very reassuring. Blythwood (talk) 06:45, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
To reiterate the IP: Steinbach, you have flown so far past the line of civil without provocation. I suggest you take up meditation before editing any further, at all. And remember that you are not Scottish, so don't try to speak for them (or about them, since you so unsuccessfully did above), as that's part of the original problem. Your insistance to actively not listen to Scots speakers' opinions is damning, but your 0-100 rage? Grow up. Kingsif (talk) 06:51, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Steinbach: your comments are not only incendiary and therefore harmful to the active discussion happening here, but exaggerated and inaccurate. Scowiki most likely isn't going to be nuked - this is the only place on the wikisphere where the proposal was made (that I know of), and it's not even gaining majority support. And even if it were overwhelmingly supported, you ought to know by now that an entire project isn't going to be deleted based on one proposal on a meta rfc with so-far limited engagement. In short, you're getting very upset over a mere suggestion, and letting your fears and temper get the better of you. It's not "about to be deleted" as you claim on your userpage, and other small language projects aren't in imminent danger based on this either. Please step back and calm down, so you can engage with this discussion rationally. OohBunnies!Not just any bunnies... 07:43, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think taking it back to Reddit is a good idea, it is not representative of Scots users. People need to remember that the absolute majority of native Scots speakers are also native in English, and English Wikipedia is a fantastic resource. If there was to be any polling, I think it should be on whether people knew a Scots language wiki even existed before this week. Soothrhins (talk) 07:46, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Soothrhins: Hi Sooth, and thanks again for stepping up. But, I think you're still treating it like a Wikipedia problem? I suggested Reddit because it's where we know the Scots community who are aware of the problem are. But if there are other Scots internet communities you know of, please ask there. Because, genuinely, it seems to me that nearly or even really all the Scots people who aren't involved in Wikipedia (i.e. no bias towards the process) strongly object to a crude mangling being passed off as your language, but asking more of these not-Wikipedia people can only benefit the discussion. IMO, we should let the average Scottish person lead here, which is all I am trying to propose. Not an American or a Dutch or even a Scottish Wikipedian (no offense). I don't know your personal views on the matter of if this is all offensive (and I think it's probably good you haven't given it, unless I've missed it) and I know I can't have one, but if majority (of the appropriate base) rules... Kingsif (talk) 10:42, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of Scottish folk, me included, had zero idea there was a Scots wiki until a couple of days ago. Let's not get caught up in that trap of arguing with folk online. There is clearly a lot of desire to take on a project to fix the wiki and people signing up specifically just to do so. That in itself should be an indication of how we feel about it. Those that don't agree don't need to take part. Witchofthewoods (talk) 14:04, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Kingsif: I would've happily linked to this discussion in the AMA had I felt that would not have been WP:CANVASING. The most I felt comfortable doing is forwarding their concerns here. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 02:49, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure how exactly to poll "Scots" as a demographic -- online polls have problems with the responses being largely self-selected, it is probably unwise to put too much of a weight on e.g. the reddit community (which has on average a very limited understanding of wiki procedure, and which probably has as its sole source of information the reddit post(s) that started this discussion in the first place), and events are already in motion. For my part, I'm willing to accept the word of the Scots Language Centre as an indication that there is support for maintaining the wiki, and that the continued existence of the Scots Wikipedia (or, rather, the improved existence, given the doubtful provenance of the original version) is a net positive. RexSueciae (talk) 19:16, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@RexSueciae: The census [7] could be a starting point, but mind that it is from 2011, and it could have changed drastically.

p.9 Bot to flag up unreferenced articles edit

Proposal Can a bot apply the {{Template:Unsoorced}} to pages that have no external references?
Rationale If it could, it would highlight a high number of articles that need work, may also support items to be considered for deleting if/when big changes happen as being discussed above.
Proposer: Soothrhins (talk) 14:26, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Volunteer:
Comment:
The Template itself could be improved too before being rolled out. Soothrhins (talk) 14:26, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Koavf: me too! Someone should propose it at sco:Wikipedia:Mercat Cross. James Salsman (talk) 02:12, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

p.10 Bot to correct common mispellings edit

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Proposal Can a bot be made to replace words that are found to be frequently spelt incorrectly?
Rationale On the Mercat Cross Illandancient has identified two common misspellings that have become the norm (being used thousands of times). Again this doesn't fix the whole problem, but it may make some effort to cleaning up general standards across sco wiki.
Proposer: Soothrhins (talk) 15:09, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Volunteer:
Comment:

Action: As mentioned by Lee WP:AWB is now being actively used, and Spellin Fettle is identifying errors, able to record deliberations and decisions. Grammar is a harder to fix issue and will have to be addressed by the main proposals. Spelling is just as important though, but we have a working solution that can start to make progress (e.g. one spelling being queried represents circa 0.1% of all words on the wiki).

  • Is that the bot I've been struggling against on sco:Wather? That word looked wrong, so had a look in DSL Scottish National Dictionary (1700–) and found it's an option, main spellings WEDDER, n. Also wadder. Tried adding these as alternatives, and got "Error: This action has been automatically identified as harmful, and therefore disallowed. If you believe your action was constructive, please inform an administrator of what you were trying to do. A brief description of the abuse rule which your action matched is: NoScots1". Certainly makes it harder to edit constructively. . . dave souza (talk) 09:52, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Dave souza: There has been no bot activity on that page. You have been struggling against humans I'm afraid. Soothrhins (talk) 11:54, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for the clarification, in that case it's not a bot but an automatic semi-protected blocking of edits that exceed a certain amount, or add alternative spellings to the start of the first paragraph of the lead. Not humans! Don't know the limits this automatic feature sets, but it could slow down attempts to improve or correct articles. Maybe needs long-term review. . . dave souza (talk) 12:26, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • As bothersome as a bot can be (or a human impersonating one) – particularly so as you can't argue with in proper BRD fashion – perhaps it can be abused for a preliminary classification of existing articles into "luiks guid", "unsalvageably botched Scotched", "mibbe salvageable - mibbe na".  --Lambiam 12:01, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Have also added wather --> wedder to Spellin Fettle to do list, so it can be referenced, properly discussed and resolved upon. Soothrhins (talk) 12:00, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! . . . dave souza (talk) 12:26, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
a filter is not a human, or AWB. whoever is responsible for the filter needs to step up and respond to error reports. good faith editors are being bitten by this filter. Slowking4 (talk) 21:05, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Slowking4:What error reports? If it is the situation that Dave souza outlined above that was not subject to a bot. If you have a look at sco:Wikipedia:Spellin Fettle you'll see that automated changes aren't being made lightly, they are being researched, referenced and discussed. Soothrhins (talk) 22:18, 30 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
that's the point: there are no error reports, because filter making admins are always right. the red message souza reports is a filter preventing a save, so it is not a bot or revert. other editors report it here [8] but since we do not know who owns the filter, since there is no documentation or error reporting, we cannot work around it. we do not know if the spellin fettle page is related, it would be unusual since most filters use their own formulas. if you could point me to where this filter was "researched, referenced and discussed", because this is the only discussion i can find [9] and all the changes are out of view. Slowking4 (talk) 01:13, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Slowking4, Soothrhins, and Dave souza: I thought I had this fixed the other day when PiRSquared17 told me about it, but for some reason my attempt to disable them while on mobile seemed to have fallen through. This is fixed now though. Those were some really bad edit filters. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 03:41, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
As a bonus Slowking, I have put them in public view just so you can see how terrible these filters are. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 03:43, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
User:MJL - thank you very much. i would not oppose a new option "edit filter based on spellin fettle consensus, with a link to feedback." but it is a perimeter defense when the walls are breached. better to concentrate on more editations, with welcomes to good faith editors to build community. i would suggest handing out this barnstar to all editation participants [10] - Slowking4 (talk) 14:07, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Slowking4: :D –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 18:37, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

p.11 Leid o the site itsel edit

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Can 'Cræft' ['Create' on en.wiki] an 'wairds' [e.g. '4 KB (187 wairds)'] in the leid o the site itsel be chynged tae somethin else. Mebbe 'Stairt' or 'Mak' for 'Cræft' an 'wirds' (or even 'words') for 'wairds'. 'Eedit' is only in the DSL as a spellin variant o 'Eediot'; mebbe 'Chynge' or somethin like that wuid be better. 'Cræft' and 'wairds' cuid do wi bein chynged ASAP - the first has a letter ootwith wir alphabet; the saicant isnae onygate close tae a guid spellin o 'wirds/words'. [Copied ower frae post at Mercat Cross here: https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mercat_Cross#'Cr%C3%A6ft',_'wairds'_an_'Eedit'] C1614 (talk) 17:12, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

'Stert' (insteid o 'Stairt') is maist likely the best thing tae replace 'Cræft'.
Can we add 'Histerie' too? It's usually written with the same spelling as the English - 'history' as far as I know Witchofthewoods (talk) 17:53, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Guid shout. DSL has Historie [11]. C1614 (talk) 19:44, 27 August 2020 (UTC)</span?[reply]

Action: These are being discussed/added at sco:Wikipedia:Spellin Fettle. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 19:59, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This mini-proposal can be addressed by Spellin Fettle, but it will need an admin tae action resolved wirds. Soothrhins (talk) 21:20, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

p.12 Article title must demonstrably follow an existing Scots usage edit

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Proposal Require that the title of any new article must be itself referenced to a reliable Scots language source.
Rationale See yesterday's #p.3_Spellin_Fettle_(Spelling_Review_Space) discussion on the danger of sco-wiki falling into a role of constructing the language. Subsequent discussions (see #Damage_to_other_projects above) have highlighted that the integration of sco.wiki with resources such as Wikidata has a side-effect that other data consumer services may use the matching title to deliver translation. To prevent the damage of such cross-pollution, it does not seem unreasonable to insist that any new article, aside from those on biographical given names (which should anyway provide such a reference to meet BLP requirements), must provide at least one reliable 3rd party reference to demonstrate that the article title is so known in Scots.
Proposer: AllyD (talk) 07:01, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Volunteer:
Comment: Support-requiring articles in Scots to refer to pre-existing text in Scots itself would be a very good norm that could be used to keep out the conlang clowns and cruft like articles on My Little Pony characters. Blythwood (talk) 08:21, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: Support – for the title in particular, and the article in general, en:WP:V should go a long way to this, with the clear need for verifiability in Scots and not just assumed translation frae Inglis. . . dave souza (talk) 10:24, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: this sounds a really good principle to work with. I have been trying to decide if there is anything reasonably considered core material that wouldn't have exemplars in written Scots; I think probably not, and any edge cases can be dealt with as and when they come up. It avoids having to use the suggested hard-line "WP should only be on Scottish topics" rules that were suggested - which is a restriction we don't place on any other project - while still giving a decent steer towards avoiding crufty "a thousand articles about species of moth" type issues. Andrew Gray (talk) 21:55, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Qualify: Scottish places, institutions etc may not have names that are recognised as Scots, they may even be Gaelic, so you may want to qualify this to include Scottish as well as Scots.--GrounderUK (talk) 00:55, 3 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. w:sco:Fowkrepublic o Cheenae has been brought up in discussions as an example of a possibly constructed title. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 19:50, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

p.13 Decide how archaic the Scots should be edit

Did some checking at sco:Wather on words I'd no seen before, not in the Scots Dictionary for Schools app from the Scots Language Centre, so chose recognised alternatives. These changes have been undone with the claim "Scottish English word, not Scots". From DSL; "wale" is pre-1700, athort looks feasible, if rather archaic. Is the aim to avoid "Scottish English" words in the app based on the Essential Scots Dictionary, and confine ourselves to words from the 19th century or earlier? Though I've read old books and am a fan of John Galt, my fluency in Scots only goes back about 60 odd years, so if so I'm outa here. . . . dave souza (talk) 10:41, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It may be best to ask Scots from various areas on this one. One Scots archaic is anothers mither tongue. That said, it's probably best that the Wiki have variants of Scots that are used colloquially as opposed to Burns style prose. YesMyGatekeeper (talk) 12:43, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. From article talk it looks like the Dictionary for Schools app may differ between android and iOS, or maybe it's just search skills. There's a danger of fragmentation, so articles look right or wrong depending whaur ye're frae (or fae in the Doric). The effects of 250 years of trying to eliminate Scotticisms! . . dave souza (talk) 14:28, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Dave souza: do you know the licensing restrictions on that dictionary? James Salsman (talk) 04:31, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's hidden away in a locked filing cabinet several linked pages away, linked from tiny lettering at the foot of the page, Dictionary of the Scots Language :: Copyright and Terms of Use – in short, non-commercial use so not free as in CC by SA for wikis. . . . dave souza (talk) 08:44, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should be preferring modern Scots rather than avoiding it. I consider all 4 of the words in that diff to be current Scots though. Monospaced (talk) 07:52, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

p.14 Focus on core project needs edit

The proposal to open a Scots Wikipedia was made in 2005. The lead proposer described himself on his user page as "a 16-year-old uncircumcised male from Dunedin in New Zealand" who "can translate Scots because of its similarity to English”. (I thank administrator MJL for researching this history.) Of the ten proposers, only one even claimed to be a native speaker. Two were I think from Scandinavia and one from Estonia. Only one other on their user page mentioned even living in Scotland, and they admitted they admired Scots and Gaelic but "not to the extent of actually being able to speak them fluently, or indeed much at all". Apparently, nobody pointed out that this was likely to pose a problem.

Scotland is in an unusual position. Its gigantic diaspora (me included) has created millions of people who venerate it as the Auld Country but have minimal connection to its current culture and spoken language. In the 1980s, even before Braveheart revitalised its tourist trade, Billy Connolly was joking that Scottish folksongs always turned out to have been written by "strange wee men" in London. Even most of its residents do not know Scots: we have seen that scarcely anyone even noticed that the Scots wiki was filling up with gibberish, or that people who actually do speak Scots assumed that they didn't understand the current norms of the written language, got bullied away, or got outnumbered by the oddballs.

User Monospaced made I think a vital contribution to this discussion by noting that:

the value of a Scots Wikipedia is largely in serving as an example of the language, every Scots speaker is fluent in English so the value is not in the amount of information (which mostly will be present on EN Wikipedia) but in that information being well presented in a minority language.

This is totally different to many minority-language Wikipedias (say in Africa, or Asia) where it can be argued that content on many vital topics like medicines is needed to provide information to people who would not otherwise be able to access it. Further, unlike those Wikis, this one is exceptionally vulnerable to infiltration by what another commenter described as "language enthusiasts who do not live in my country" due to the gigantic Scottish diaspora. This is not the case with a wiki in (say) a language of Afghanistan or Nigeria.

I think there needs to be a clearly defined norm that the Scots Wiki's purpose is to showcase writing by native Scots speakers to show what the language is like. A way of enforcing this norm, in my view, would be to limit the number of articles on extraneous topics for which there are unlikely to be genuine Scots words. Examples mentioned here have been articles on Spain-Turkey relations, Lesotho and My Little Pony characters. It's obvious that such articles are likely to end up as a playground for oddballs. I like SnowFire's comment that what would be good is to "do stuff like have the paid scholars create a good article on en:Chronicle of the Kings of Alba in Scots (which doesn't even exist in Scots yet), or expanding sco:Kirk o Scotland from the tiny stub it is now, and less on random non-Scottish topics". I very much like AllyD's proposal below that anyone seeking to create an article in the Scots Wiki must first prove that someone has actually written about it in Scots, using the proposed page's title: I think this would be a good non-judgemental way to accomplish this norm because it also, simultaneously and indirectly, tests a user's familiarity with Scots-language writing.

In general, I believe that people who do not speak Scots as a native language, or at least have years of exposure to it, should not be writing extended text into Scots Wiki articles. Regardless of whether or not anything in the current Scots wiki is kept, this needs to be a total bright-line rule on the Scots Wiki going forward. Witness the screams of the AI people as they realised that their datasets of what Scots is like are totally polluted with nonsense text. Blythwood (talk) 07:54, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • AllyD-yup, incorporated it into this proposal. Great suggestion to test competence in a non-judgmental way. Blythwood (talk) 08:33, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I completely agree with this. We should be focusing on the Scottish content because that's where native speakers can contribute. It also becomes problematic to write on international issues where there aren't existing Scottish words and either you end up writing in English or making up words. There are some discussions on this topic on Merkat Cross and the Editathon pages too for those that might not have seen them. Witchofthewoods (talk) 09:45, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongly agree The focus of this wiki is not explicitly informing people about the topics it covers, but implicitly informing people about the language through the topics it covers. I therefore think that covering a wide range of topics is less important on this wiki than in others. For example, a multitude of stubs may be less appropriate here than elsewhere. --Liam McM (talk) 12:42, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I created a proposal (p.5) somewhat similar to this that would require contributes of significant text to take a Scots language test. Zoozaz1 (talk) 13:06, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ha! One of the originators got me to try a couple of edits, clearly has a Scots background though at the time he wasn't living in the right Calgary. Except for language scholars, editor retention rather a problem. So hope these new initiatives bring in more interest. Agree about the core needs, but think there should be an aim to provide a facility for those wanting to learn or improve their Scots now it's got some official standing. . . dave souza (talk) 14:51, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with comment Depending on whatever is resolved with the main chat, I think this needs to be part of the fundamental basis going forward. As I mentioned what now feels a lifetime ago, "dae we really need airticles on IMI Galil ur Kay Bailey Hutchison when the Glesga page is a pure midden?". I'd like to note however, that Scots isn't exclusive to Scotland but is also spoken in Northern Ireland (Ullans (it was actually someone from Northern Ireland who brought attention to this whole matter)) so its important that Scots users in Northern Ireland have the opportunity to be part of the project too. In a similar vein (personally I think) new Scots should have an opportunity to participate too. Soothrhins (talk) 23:39, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Damn, just thought of one more thing, there are many mentions of historical articles that the wiki would benefit from, totally agree. But it would also be good to see articles on contemporary events being part of its future. Soothrhins (talk) 23:42, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Partial support This seems like a great guiding goal for the wiki after it's restructured. Write up a list of the most important pages to work on, and go from there. I imagine the edit-a-thon that is being organized will have something similar in mind. WRT "people who do not speak Scots as a native language, or at least have years of exposure to it, should not be writing extended text into Scots Wiki articles", it seems unnecessary and untenable. Being a wiki, it would be impossible to check everyone editing it; the best one can hope is for (a)people who understand the core concept of wikis to respectfully avoid editing it if they don't know the language well enough, and (b)an active team of editors that will be checking those edits. Isabelle 🔔 01:58, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. But come on Blythwood, you should at least be crediting me for my findings. :P
    Either way, I feel that the wiki is strongest when it focuses on Scottish cultural topics. In general, that should line up to what you said. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 08:01, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Soothrhins put it best I think! James Hyett (talk) 14:10, 29 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support in theory, but use caution. A core tenet of Wikipedia is that it's a volunteer project, which means that it's difficult to order people around. In the unlikely event of a native-Scots speaker showing up and wanting to write up a detailed, excellent language quality Scots article on a topic unlikely to have anything directly written in Scots about it, that's fine. That said, I think this is still a good proposal as long as it's clear that it's something of a transitional proposal to get through the current mess. Basically, this restriction is a good idea to be enforced on Scots enthusiasts who might be tempted to create lots of useless translations of English Wikipedia articles on non-core topics. It's less relevant for "true" Scots speakers. Regardless, the current goal for the project should probably be to create a core of 25-100 excellent quality articles on core Scotland topics, and then worry about what comes next after that's already done. Until those core articles that a Scots language group wouldn't find totally embarrassing exist, this is a sensible restriction to have. SnowFire (talk) 04:51, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with SnowFire. If a native Scots speaker wants to write an article about Lesotho, that should be fine. But it should probably be encouraged (not prescribed) to focus on topics with a connection to Scotland. Gestumblindi (talk) 09:38, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think part of this proposal is what was discussed in p.12 Article title must demonstrably follow an existing Scots usage. A reason to keep this as a rule of thumb, in many cases, is that, if we have no Scots source on it, how can we be sure of the Scots spelling. Otherwise they could be creating articles with improper titles, as appears to have been the case in (an example cited earlier in this long RFC) where AG titled the article on Mount Everest as "Munt Everest", which saw objections from Scots speakers, as Munt is apparently a rather crude word and apparently not the word you'd go-to as your default for mountain. I'd support this being a rule-of-thumb, but have possible concerns with it being an outright rule. there are bound to be things that might be relevant but just aren't written about in a an easily-accessible and reliable Scots source. And, as SnowFire has mention, we should encourage them to prioritize core topics of relevance to Scotland, but it might be crossing a line to outright mandate it. SecretName101 (talk) 19:24, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Let's give this example: Although I'm mainly active in (Standard) German Wikipedia, I'm a native speaker of Swiss German, which is an Alemannic dialect/language and covered by the Alemannic Wikipedia. In Alemannic Wikipedia, it is encouraged to write articles in one's own Alemannic dialect - like Swiss German (or rather, one of the Swiss German sub-dialects), for example, or Alsatian. As a kind of exercise and because it was fun, I once wrote an article about a Hong Kong wuxia film in Swiss German: als:Wuxia qi gongzhu; that is, I translated it from the article I originally wrote for German Wikipedia. This topic has, of course, no particular connection to Switzerland whatsoever, but as a native speaker, I had no problems in confidently writing that article, as Swiss German is a language that is used by millions of people for everyday matters and you can say or write virtually everything in it without the feeling of doing something contrived. I don't know how this is for Scots, but I think attempts to force people to restrict their writing to certain topics could be quite discouraging. Gestumblindi (talk) 22:11, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

p.16 Update the logo to use Scots edit

 
Frae Wikipedia, the free beuk o knawledge

After seeing this "Frae Wikipedia, the free beuk o knawledge" on every page, I wondered why this wasn't reflected in our logo. I've updated the source SVG to have the subtitle. I think that this would make the wiki look more cohesive. [Copied over from post at Mercat Cross here: https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Mercat_Cross/Archive/3#New_logo_for_sco.wikipedia.com]

Thank you! I am guessing beuk over a Greek cognate, but anything is possible. 107.242.121.10 01:48, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Soothrhins: One you know that, then I can make a request to update the namespaces and stuff. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 03:27, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know whether en:Colin_Macfarquhar spoke Scots, but I'd credit him with the British English spelling of the word. In any event, if the tiny AG sco:Colin_Macfarquhar could be improved, it would stand as a tribute to one of Scotland's great gifts to the English-speaking world.--GrounderUK (talk) 12:36, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Just to voice this perspective, in some discussions people have been open to using "Wikipedia" as it is a brand name and is now distanced from the original etymology. To derive it in Scots it might be something like Swithbeuk which would be pretty unrecognisable and hard to get people on board the project. Alternatively, Wikibeuk would be too close to https://en.wikibooks.org if there were to be a Scottish one. carlinmack (talk) 20:19, 2 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Carlinmack: @Soothrhins: It is worth noting the Wiki article for Scots Wikipedia provides the translation for the site itself as Wikipædia, which I think is both accurate and, for lack of a better term, the coolest legible option. As for "Beuk o Knawledge", if that is not an accurate translation for the word "Encyclopedia" in Scots, it seems kind of goofy and overly Tolkien-esque otherwise. Nothing wrong with a transcription of the Greco-Latin term used on virtually every other language wiki. "The Free Encylopædia" might be undistinctive, but I'm not sure what else would properly fit. Sad that Scots doesn't have a standardized, special orthography that would help.--Sigehelmus (talk) 00:36, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

p.17 Stop funding Wikipedia edit

Due to the gross mishandling of this scandal and the insulting and condescending tone taken by many of the Wikipedians on this RFC, with Scots speakers consistently being ignored and talked down to, I will no longer be financially supporting Wikipedia until Proposal 0 is passed. 2A00:23C4:F09:AB00:792E:FEE0:C82C:F541 14:47, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(1) The people in charge of whether Proposal 0 passes or not aren't particularly concerned whether anyone financially supports the WMF. They won't see the money either way. If this was any other nonprofit, than that kind of thing would make an impact. However, I'm afraid to say it won't make a difference here.
(2) The only people I have tried to proactively ignore are Americans who think they know best for a language they don't speak, a cultural that isn't their own, and a country they don't live in. I'm doing all that I can to ensure Scots speakers have the most prominent voice at this table.
(3) If there is anything more you feel I should be doing, then I am all for it. Scots speakers asked for a disclaimer on the wiki, and I put one up there. People asked for nuking the site to be considered, and I put forward that proposal. I'm honestly and truly willing to listen here. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 15:09, 4 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment -- MJL, the "American" behaviour you describe is exactly what you are guilty of. 2A00:23C4:F09:AB00:C1C1:EAF8:97A4:7C35 16:48, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what you mean by that. If you'll look again, you'll see Proposal 0 was my initiative. It came as a response to all the Scots Speakers who requested that action. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 07:39, 10 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I am telling you that you are guilty of exactly the behaviour you are insisting you are "protecting" us from and the suggestion that you are acting in a benevolent capacity is insulting.
You are just another American who is refusing to listen, doesn't speak the language, and thinks they know better. How was I not clear enough? Oh, wait, I was, you just don't listen. 2A00:23C4:F09:AB00:189:CE8F:83A0:9141 19:18, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've been actively recruiting and training my replacements. I don't pretend to know any better than you here. However, you aren't stating anything I can actually do to rectify your concerns. You just seem to want to tell me I'm an idiot which we all already kind of know is true. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 21:23, 11 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
No, MJL, you're just STILL NOT LISTENING. Screw this. 2A00:23C4:F09:AB00:1DEE:7CBD:21BA:31DC 02:46, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know what you want from me!! –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 17:37, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
he does not want anything from you: he only understands threats and nuking things. the WMF will not notice his boycott, they have whales to send the development officers to. i have shifted my funding to chapter from WMF, if you started a Scots user group, i would be happy to send you a check for some swag. Slowking4 (talk) 15:00, 1 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment -- I'm not sure what action is suggested by this proposal. RexSueciae (talk) 11:48, 5 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@RexSueciae: for Scots speakers to withhold donations to the WMF until Proposal 0 passes. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 22:44, 5 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
English language Fundraising emails were scheduled to start on September 14th. Someone might like to look at the timing and targeting of those, as well as their content. Banner testing is ongoing.--GrounderUK (talk) 09:11, 6 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Yes, that's exactly the suggestion. There are so few of us that it would not ever make a difference anyway. I do not expect anything to change, so in many ways it is an empty gesture, however, I cannot in good conscience support an organisation which is doing so much active damage to my people.2A00:23C4:F09:AB00:C1C1:EAF8:97A4:7C35 16:48, 9 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@2A00:23C4:F09:AB00:C1C1:EAF8:97A4:7C35: The WMF terms of use state "We do not take an editorial role" and the WMF staff don't go around checking if the language use is right: the volunteer editors are generally the ones to do that task (Note I am not a member of WMF staff). Michael Dempster of the Scots Language Centre has very generously taken efforts to improve SCOWiki and I wish for the collaboration to continue.
WhisperToMe (talk) 23:45, 15 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@2A00:23C4:F09:AB00:C1C1:EAF8:97A4:7C35: You do not understand how Wikimedia projects work, do you? This is a nonissue, no-one without (WMF) in their username will see the fiver a month you donate to the Wikimedia foundation. We at this RfC may not speak Scots, but that is the issue we are trying to fix. Rather than witholding donations to a not-for-profit organisation trying to collate all knowledge, try suggesting some actual proposals. Seemplez (talk) 08:55, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Seemplez: It's an honest proposal; symbolic if nothing else. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 00:18, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@GVarnum-WMF: I think you may be interested in this section, because I'm not sure if suppressing the "donate" link on the left navigation bar is possible on such individual wiki(s) or not? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 11:22, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Liuxinyu970226: I actually just realised today that this is something possible for me to do on mobile at least. All it would take would be for me to add #p-donation { display: none; } to sco:MediaWiki:Mobile.css.
I guess I didn't think to do it because 2A00:23C4 never mentioned anything outside a boycott. –MJL ‐Talk‐☖ 07:49, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

p.18 Current events portal edit

The "current events" portal is pretty outdated; for instance:

  1. Unitit Kinrick European Union membership referendum, 2016 is still ongoing, according to this portal
  2. The COVID-19 pandemic is not included well enough in the list of ongoing events
  3. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict might not be the most notable ongoing event at the moment
  4. I think the "Presidential transeetion o Donald Trump" seems to have been finished by now
  5. Nothing inside the "Sport" section
  6. The Gambian constitutional crisis has ended several years ago
  7. The sidebar for "recent Deaths" calls it "Recent deaths". "Topics in the News" calls it "Recent daiths".
  8. Babak Zanjani's trial is no longer ongoing, in fact, he's been sentenced to death by the Iranian regime
  9. Sidebars say "ongoing". Topics in the News says "Onganging".
  10. Darius Vâlcov was sentenced nearly two years ago.
  11. Microsoft licensing corruption scandal should be over by now.
  12. The Trial of Ratko Mladić is also over by now.

Something needs to be done about the neglect this portal is in. I don't mind if I'm the one who has to propose fixing it. Dunutubble (talk) 22:41, 21 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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