Talk:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Montenegrin 5

Discussion

And we know that Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian all have separate Wikipedias, even though main argument that is used by opponents of Montenegrin version is that these are all the same (Serbo-Croatian) language, then why do all these others exist if it is possible to have just this one that they claim everyone can understand?--Gorason (talk) 21:54, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Only 3 speakers? Incorrect!Montenegrin language - Native speakers 232,600. --Markus cg1 (talk) 20:04, 26 December 2017 (UTC) JelenaJ99 (talk) 02:00, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

Not only that there are Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian Wikipedias alongside Serbo-Croatian, there's also this. We are frequently told to edit Serbian Wikipedia, which is not the right solution for a few reasons: 1. Montenegrin language uses ijekavian dialect which, even though present in Serbian as well, has other characteristics not found neither in Serbian nor in any other Serbo-Croatian standard (just take nijesam instead of nisam, sjutra vs sutra etc.) 2. Ijekavian jotation specific to Montenegrin from which letters Ś and Ź arise. If we use our cultural heritage, which these letters are a part of, can anyone guarantee that these kinds of edits won't be revoked? No, because they are not present in any Serbo-Croatian variant except Montenegrin. So in my point of view, not allowing this project is a discrimination of over 200.000 Montenegrin speakers, disabling them from using their own way of speaking and writing. 3. Only a small number of articles on Serbian Wikipedia is written in Ijekavian dialect to begin with... 4. As I personally have found to be the case reading articles myself, most of them have disputable neutrality when talking about most historical events, shifting most things in one or the other side of the spectre, or using outright propaganda-style articles. Montenegrins are the most susceptible to this as they can't do anything to change this. Montenegrin Wikipedia should NEVER be used like this, don't get me wrong, exactly the opposite. Montenegro is very multicultural, perhaps more than any other Serbo-Croatian speaking country, which is perhaps the best guarantee that there would be no propaganda-style articles, rather scientific, objective articles as there should be on Wikipedia and in accordance with the harmonic multicultural history of the mentioned country. Lujki (talk) 15:58, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

OK, Lujki. Here's what I need to tell you, and here's what I need you to do:

• Items 1 and 2 are not going to be so important to LangCom by themselves. Since Ijekavian also exists in Serbian, it stands to reason that Montenegrin pages could exist on that project. And while the specific letters exist, they are essentially the same as digraphs in Serbian, and Montenegrins can (and do) read the digraphs easily by themselves.
• Items 3 and 4 can be more compelling. With respect to item 3, if you can provide some evidence of what percentage of pages are Ijekavian, that would be useful to know. By itself, that doesn't mean Montenegrins couldn't add pages in Montenegrin, but it would give LangCom some sense as to what is actually going on over there. For item 4, please provide us concrete, specific examples of pages that have disputable neutrality. That is actually the very best type of evidence you can use to make your case. Truly, I can't go to LangCom and simply say "Serbian Wikipedia has many pages with disputable neutrality"; I have to show them some of those pages. So find some examples for me. And if you can find some examples in the page history where people have tried to add more neutral edits and were reverted, that would be even better. StevenJ81 (talk) 16:09, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

@StevenJ81 Absolutely! Where can I send all of the necessary things I compile, as I am confident that on the 4th point there will be quite a lot of examples? As for the 3rd it will be easy to do, I'm already working on it in fact.

I do not mean to argue with you by any means, but I think there was a slight misunderstanding regarding the 1st point of my post. The ijekavian dialect used in Montenegrin standard differes from Serbian (and all others) when regarding certain words, call it hyperiotation or whatever, if we try to write that way, respecting the Montenegrin standard, our changes get revoked. There are certain articles written on English Wikipedia regarding this, but just from the top of my head (nijesam vs nisam in all others, sjutra vs sutra, osjeka vs oseka...; this -j/-ij infix is not present anywhere else but in Montenegrin). Perhaps not as important as other points but certainly a thing worth noting in my opinion. That's one of the reasons why I believe that it is not possible to use Montenegrin even when writing in Ijekavian Serbian, it is still not the same. Lujki (talk) 23:47, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Fine. Get me examples of that too, especially examples of reverted changes. Include them in the discussion on the other page, which has now been reopened. StevenJ81 (talk) 00:07, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Forms nijesam, sjutra, nedjelja, namijernica etc. are not a Montenegrin uniqueness but widely used in central Bosnia, Herzegovina and some parts of Dalmatia. So please stop with all that nonsense. All South Slavs languages are very similar, even Bulgarian and Slovenian, and Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin are even identical and difference between them are minor. But every language is a living organism and every nation on this planet have a right to call own language on own way. Its not important that Montenegrin is youngest in Slav language family, important is that one nation use it. Did Montenegrin people have a right for their own Wikipedia? My answer is why they will be exception. Simple as that. But please, spare us nonsense like 100% neutrality and objectivity cuz something like that does not exist not even on English Wikipedia. --НиколаБ (talk) 15:04, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

@НиколаБ: In parallel to what I wrote you at incubator:Talk:Wp/cnr/Početna stranica, the question is not so much about "100%" neutrality and objectivity as much as whether the Montenegrin language (or POV) in general is systematically being limited on other projects. On English Wikipedia, as much as "100%" doesn't exist even there, it's also true that if things get too off-center, someone is usually around to push back. If that exists on Serbian or Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia, fine. But if not, then there's an issue. That's all: No more, and no less. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:13, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, after the introduction of two new letters in their language Montenegrin users are automatically limited for contribution on Serbian, Bosnian or Croatian Wikipedia, cause none of them don't use it. But from the other hand, fact is that even Montenegrins rarely use it, for example it's almost impossible to find them even on the cites of National Governmen or President http://www.predsjednik.me/ and http://www.gov.me/naslovna НиколаБ (talk) 17:27, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

I think those who are complaining about that issue specifically are wasting their time. It's easy enough for even Montenegrins to write and understand šj and žj (or sj and zj), and a Montenegrin reading anything from another branch of Serbo-Croatian can surely understand those. Within project shwiki (Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia) the new letters should be allowed, as Montenegrin is as valid a branch of Serbo-Croatian as the others.

Within project srwiki (Serbian Wikipedia) I can't say. But as a rule, LangCom (and others) are taking the position that Montenegrin is simply a variety of Serbian. And as in other languages with varieties (think English Wikipedia, with en-US, en-GB and others), projects are supposed to allow legitimate varieties to co-exist. When projects don't allow that, then there is an issue. Usually, projects have a lot of autonomy, so it's hard for LangCom (or anyone else at the WMF level) to enforce access. It seems to me, though, that either shwiki (surely) or srwiki (probably) must allow access on equal footing with a Montenegrin variety, or else there is probably no alternative but a separate project. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:45, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Even if they are used widely in the mentioned regions they are not within the standardized variety of the language so they can't be used for writing articles on any Wikipedia. Some of them, like nijesam, have no other way of spelling in Montenegrin; we can't write nisam in Montenegrin nor can we break the rules and use "provincial or regional" nonstandard language on any other Wikipedia, so we aren't in a position to even edit Serbian Wikipedia in Montenegrin language nor use our letters even if you just said that LangCom thinks it's a variety of Serbian. If that is the case, and they do not allow a separate project, then why not allow ś and ź in Serbian Wikipedia (and knowingly make a mistake, because they are simply not a part of that language, my point here is to show that LangCom is leaning towards a wrong decision) Same goes for Serbo-Croatian. As far as I know, nobody regulates that language anymore, while it existed Ś and Ź were not a part of it. You can't just say Montenegrin is a variant of SC, therefore everything in Montenegrin must be a part of Serbo-Croatian. It is not. These letters are not. You can't retroactively change an dead/abandoned language as you wish and say things like this. My point here, same as with Serbian, Ś and Ź were not a part of standardized Serbo-Croatian language, not in eastern nor in western dialect. It would be wrong to now retroactively say they are and allow their use there. Also, anti-Montenegrin POV is strongly pushed on Serbian Wikipedia with an abundance of pages to prove, some of which I'll gladly show in the reopened discussion later on. And I am curious why is LangCom so convinced that Montenegrin language is a variety of Serbian, even if ISO recognized it. How are then Bosnian and Croatian not? Why specifically Serbian, when Bosnian uses ijekavian dialect as well? I really hope I am wrong here but I now think that they've already made up their mind and no matter what we present in favour won't be enough for them to change their mind. Lujki (talk) 18:21, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

They think Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian are all varieties of SC. But those projects are grandfathered. They feel that if they were deciding today—if the only project today were the "Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia"—they wouldn't approve any of them.

You are wrong, though, to say, that "Serbo-Croatian" is a dead/abandoned language. At a certain level, it is still the core structure of all four of the others. In ISO 639-3 terms, it's a "macrolanguage", and a living one. Just because no one tends to call it that any more doesn't make it less true.

Is there a policy on these projects that "provincial" or "regional" variants are not allowed? On English Wikipedia, they certainly are, and in fact it's not permitted to change a page in en-US to en-GB, nor the opposite.

I think LangCom have already made up their minds, too. But I'm trying to give you, and me, the best chance I can to change their minds. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:32, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

As I sad earlier, the major problem with two new letters (ś and ź) is that even Montenegrin rarely uses them. They are specific only for Montenegrin (it's a fact) but people almost don't use it in everyday writing (it's a fact too). Serbocroatian was official language of former Yugoslavia, today nobody use it. And orthographic differences between modern Serbian and Croatian are large enough that there are no ways to see these two languages as one (today). Thats why .shwiki today is one big orthographic and grammatical circus. OK, Serbocroatian is one macro language or micro language family, but there is no way observe him as one and unique language --НиколаБ (talk) 19:15, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps my wording was bad, not "regional", but I wanted to make a point there, most Serbian linguists say that these are provincialisms, so if we were to write that way in Serbian, ijekavian or not, we would not be writing in standard Serbian language. So to rephrase my question then, would writing in unrecognized, nonstandard way on Serbian Wikipedia (which is correct in Montenegrin) be allowed, as in order for the page to be in Montenegrin we have no other way of spelling certain words? As for Serbo-Croatian, I mostly meant abandoned, not regulated officially by anyone, and the fact it's considered a macrolanguage now, while it was just a language with eastern and western standard in Yugoslavian times. There I wanted to say that these specific letters, Ś and Ź, were not a part of it while it was officially regulated before the breakup of Yugoslavia, so how can they be a part of SC now, does it's alphabet have 32 letters as well? I think not. And to be clear, my intention was not to argue with you, Steven. It's just to challenge certain positions taken at LangCom by showing them the mistake I believe they are making. Lujki (talk) 19:22, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

This is well said. Provincialism are not part of any standard language and probably forms nijesam, sjutra, šjekira (just like sikira) are not allowed in standard Serbia (I think but not totally sure). And there is no way for using additional letters in Serbian --ΝικόλαςΜπ (talk) 19:44, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

From the perspective of a person born, raised and living in the USA, of Montenegrin descent, I really hope that we can find a way to make the Montenegrin language edition of Wikipedia a reality. 1. A Montenegrin Wikipedia would allow the encyclopedia to evolve according to the interests of speakers of Montenegrin, providing a platform to nurture ethnic and linguistic identity. 2. Growing up in New York City in the 70s and 80s, during the time of Yugoslavia, I learned Serbo-Croatian at home. After all, it was the official language of Yugoslavia at that time. I also attended a supplementary Yugoslavian school on weekends. There were not separate Serbian, Croatian, etc schools, as there are now. Even outside of this school, people intermingled more because of the common national bond, and were regularly exposed to speakers from other regions of Yugoslavia – along with it, the undeniable variations of language and speech. I can fairly easily, in most circumstances, go onto Serbian or Croatian Wikipedias and read without ever needing Google translate. My young elementary school aged children, who we are trying very hard to teach the Montenegrin language to, in order to preserve that heritage, not so easily. They were born following the breakup of Yugoslavia, more precisely following the final breakup of republics, after Montenegro became an independent country. I think it would be mostly unfair for these new learners of the Montenegrin language to not have this great encyclopedia in their own language. Why would we say to them, that because the variations between Montenegrin and Serbian, or Montenegrin and Croatian, or Montenegrin and Bosnian, are so small that they should just use one of the other wikis? That while they are wanting to learn Montenegrin, if they desire to use Wikipedia, and use it as the great source that it is, they should have a tab of Google translate open alongside of it to translate some words along the way. Could it be done? Yes. But why should we be satisfied with an inefficient solution? 3. Montenegro is an independent country. Montenegrin is the official language of the country of Montenegro. Montenegro has ISO 639-1-3 code. According to the 2011 census in Montenegro, 229,251 individuals identified Montenegrin as their native language, with newer polls suggesting a rising tendency. Estimates show approximately 280,000 Montenegrins living outside of Montenegro, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegrins, many of them also speaking Montenegrin. If we look at these numbers, we can with confidence say that there is a growing population that would benefit from having a distinct wiki site to support its needs. 4. From what I can see the test wiki already has about 500 articles written up. If we look at other existing language versions, were we to be given approval, in terms of article count we would jump over the bottom 20% virtually overnight. Of course, it will take spreading the message and promoting the effort, but it seems quite reasonable that forming a viable community and audience is achievable, and as we can see, article writing is intensifying. The existing language wikis with <1,000 articles have an average active user count of 6.3. 5. Having a Montenegrin Wikipedia would more easily allow Montenegrin language speakers to uphold one of the 5 main pillars of Wikipedia – is written from a neutral point of view. Making a definitive case regarding this would take much time and analysis. A perfunctory analysis could to go on the Serbian Wikipedia (as the closest wiki to Montenegrin), do a search for Montenegrin Language (Crnogorski Jezik) and Montenegrins (People) (Crnogorci (Narod)), take a look at the quantity and types of edits and compare it to other countries that neighbor Serbia. It would be somewhat naïve to completely eliminate a political component to all of this. 6. Why not? We have an internationally recognized language, we have an independent country that is a member state of the United Nations, it is the official language of the country, children in schools are taught in the language, there is a significant population with which to be able to create a community, there is a willing user base….and who could this possibly harm? CG USA (talk) 20:19, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

@StevenJ81: Would really be interested to hear your thoughts on my points above. Also, is this the best place to discuss the topic? Does the main content page Second Discussion area have more importance and traction? And, if so, how does one get access to edit there? Many thanks. --CG USA (talk) 16:14, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Institutions of Montenegro

Even institutions of Montenegro don't use Montenegrin language: https://rs-lat.sputniknews.com/regioni/201702021109869979-crna-gora-skuptina-slova/ http://www.gov.me/naslovna http://www.predsjednik.me/

What does this tell you? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dixy1993 (talk) 14:18, 27 December 2017 (UTC)

As for the first link it does not say that the Assembly of Montenegro does not use Montenegrin, just that the current head of Assembly made a decision not to use letters ś and ź. Montenegrin language is more than just 2 extra letters. Also as for the media itself Sputnik is known to spread propaganda-style articles, just like that one. If anyone wants to be objective, he cannot take clickbait style media for a serious discussion. As for the second link I don't see the point, as it is clearly offered in Montenegrin Latin, Cyrillic and English variants. As for the third, options offered are Montenegrin and English flag... There are some very different conclusions we come to using these sources. I won't be the one to judge whose conclusion is right. Evidence speaks for itself as it always should. Lujki (talk) 16:07, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

First of all Institutions are using Montenegrin language because they are writing and speaking in Montenegrin (logic). Faculty of Montenegrin Language / Fakultet Crnogorskog jezika has clearly get a point hitting with language codes; ISO 639-2 and also known in English as Montenegrian and in France language Montenegrin. This confirmations is sufficient and it has been waited for last several years for this confirmation from The US Library of Congress which found out that Montenegrins speak Montenegrin not Serbian language as was politically served from Serbia! Is that similar language? Yes it is. Is it similar with Croatian? Yes it is (and the writing even more then with Serbian because Croats also use IJEKAVICA like Montenegrins). Is then Serbian and Croatian same language? No it is not! Not, like its not Montenegrin language same with those two. Today Government of Montenegro has finally sad then can translate European Union Law in Montenegrin language because now we have official standard code for it. Thank you --MneCuce (talk) 22:40, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 December 2017

Freemanmne (N)
Freemanmne (talk) 22:40, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Done I happened to know where you wanted this, but next time you need to say where such an edit should go. You'll be autoconfirmed in two more days. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:52, 28 December 2017 (UTC)

Some remarks about the process

I'd like to say a few words to the supporters of Montenegrin Wikipedia, now I've come to better understand the situation we have here.

If they want to argue successfully here, they have to:

1. Abandon the argumentation along the lines of "ways that standard Montenegrin is meaningfully different from Ijekavian Serbian" altogether, and/or
2. Insist on a different framework for this discussion, because currently it is set up in a way that railroads it towards a rather predictable outcome.

#1 is a waste of time after all: from the outset, the position of the language committee is that the creation of hr, bs an sr wikis was an error, so obviously there is no chance to prove otherwise for Montenegrin. This position is severely misguided, of course, but there is little chance of proving that here either.

The current framework for the discussion (i.e. the arguments can be either "existing communities have prevented Montenegrins from having free, unbiased access to the sum of all human knowledge" or "Montenegrin is different from Serbian", and nothing else) is problematic in several respects:

1. Judging on these two lines of argument alone, it would be very difficult to justify the existence of e.g. Scots or Simple English Wikipedia. Were these created in error too?
2. In theory "Ijekavian Serbian = Montenegrin so there you have it, there's Serbian Wikipedia", while in practice close to 95% of articles there are in Ekavian, a variant that is foreign to Montenegro.
3. Asking for evidence that existing communities have prevented Montenegrins from something is a bit strange. Surely there is nothing e.g. Thai Wikipedia does which would "prevent" me from using it, even if I don't speak a single word of the language. Wording this extremely narrowly ("preventing" - as if e.g. Serbian Wikipedia is actively policing and throwing out Montenegrins) is beside the point: if I don't use it, and have a reason for it, that has to good enough. Also, if Montenegrins do contribute and use sr or sh wikis without major hindrance, that is supposed to be evidence they don't need mn wiki, while in reality it's Catch-22 - if they use it, that's because they don't have anything else (cf. Simple English <-> English).
4. Practical non-linguistic arguments are completely ignored, all in favor of pure linguistic theory. In all probability, most Montenegrins either don't want to contribute to and/or use the Serbian Wikipedia or will do it with some resentment, for reasons which are sociolinguistic in nature, far from transient (i.e. it's going to be more or less the same generations from now), and also far from unique (this is similar to e.g. forcing the users of Nynorsk to use Bokmål Wikipedia, or Macedonians to use Bulgarian Wikipedia). We may argue whether all this is just "crazy Balkan tribes" or not, but it makes no difference: that's sociolinguistic reality, and pretending these quite real barriers do not exist is clearly not in the interest of giving "every single person free, unbiased access to the sum of all human knowledge".

Finally: I don't know why Montenegrin got the ISO 639-2 code, but if I had to guess, it might have had something to do with an army and navy. Has there, apart from Montenegrin, ever been a language which has an ISO code and is also an official language of an independent country, but does not have its edition of Wikipedia? GregorB (talk) 20:05, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

@GregorB: I fully understand what you're saying, and from principles I don't disagree. There is a little more going on in the background, though, which led me to try to focus the discussion:

• With respect to "Montenegrin is meaningfully different", what I asked for was not arguments per se, but the actual evidence provided to LoC. I happen to know that LangCom thinks that the decision at LoC was politically driven, but I wanted to invite anyone having access to any written evidence to provide it.
• Scots and Simple English might not be allowed today. They're both grandfathered, too. LangCom says it wishes to ignore all sociological/political argument and use pure linguistic argument only, so I want the linguistic side of the argument to be as robust as possible.

  In a broader way, this drives much of my effort to narrow the discussion here. I'm concerned that LangCom will say, if given a chance, that until the Montenegrin language community can prove that it cannot use the current projects on an equal footing with the Serbs, Croats and Bosnians, it needs to make an effort first. In other words, political arguments can only come into play if it can be proved that politics is already getting in the way. I'm trying to lay out some lines of evidence that will allow that to be short-circuited, instead of making people spend a year or two proving that.

• Concerning Ijekavian vs. Ekavian, again, I'm concerned that based on its current attitudes, LangCom would simply say, "You've never tried contributing in Ijekavian on srwiki (or shwiki). If you try and they roll you back, you can make a case. Meanwhile, try to contribute to the existing projects first."
• "Preventing": What I said was preventing people from having "free, unbiased access..." I wasn't saying that people were patrolling and preventing Montenegrins from contributing at all; I was suggesting that Montenegrin points of view (or even Ijekavian vs. Ekavian) were possibly being systematically excluded—and if so, that might be an argument that would persuade LangCom.
• LangCom knows the communities' sociolinguistic preferences. The previous discussion was mostly an impassioned "we deserve it". LangCom knows how everyone feels about that. LangCom's "official" point of view is that such things should be irrelevant, and whether people prefer it or not, they "ought to" be willing to contribute to the current projects, because it "shouldn't be political". If you ask me, that's absurd. But what I'm personally working on is helping LangCom understand that saying "no" is as big a sociological/political problem—or even a bigger problem—than saying "yes". But I think they'll hear the argument better from me than from the community per se.
• Many countries have minor official languages whose projects don't exist yet. There are a few—not many, but a few—major official languages that do not have their own wikis yet. Dari is a notable one, in my view, and the rejection was because LangCom feels it's the same as Farsi.

I'm not trying to argue any points with you; I just want you to understand what's going on in the background. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:34, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

During the time of SFRY, the Yugoslav Lexicographical Institute has published the Yugoslav Encyclopaedia, which in its second edition was financed and defined by the Social Agreement (Društveni dogovor) concluded by the Federal Assembly of SFRY and all eight assemblies of republics and provinces of the SFRY and the Yugoslav Lexicographical Institute as the executive institution. The Agreement was published in the Official gazette of SFRY and in the first volume of the said encyclopaedia (Miroslav Krleža, gl. ur., Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, 2. izd., 1. sv. : A – Biz, Jugoslavenski leksikografski zavod, Zagreb, 1980, p XXX).

In the Second article of the said Agreement it was defined, that for the encyclopaedic entries would retain the standard version of the language as it was constitutionally sanctioned in constitution of the authors republic, and the author was free to choose. This is the exact wording: »Latinično i ćirilično izdanje objavit će se na hrvatskom ili srpskom jeziku odnosno hrvatskom književnom jeziku (za priloge iz SR Hrvatske), na srpskohrvatskom jeziku (za priloge iz SR Srbije), na srpskohrvatskom odnosno hrvatskosrpskom jeziku ijekavskog izgovora (za priloge iz SR Bosne i Hercegovine) i na srpskohrvatskom jeziku ijekavskog izgovora (za priloge iz SR Crne Gore), a varijanta ovisi o izboru samog autora teksta.«

I hope that the Language Committee is not going to force the current standardized languages, and linguistic practices onto the speakers of the Montenegrin language, because that would be going against encyclopaedic practices from the time of the mentioned Social Agreement.

GregorB deduced it perfectly, and if you need proof that the speakers of Montenegrin language cannot function in the environment of the Wikipedia in Serbian, you can look at this discussion:

• w:sr:Википедија:Трг/Архива/Википолитика/52#Ekavica i ijekavica.
  • In it the user objected to ijekavization of geographical articles which topics are Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Even today the article on Montenegro is partially in ekavian as well the article on the Montenegrin language.

Ijekavian forms are removed from the user interface: [1] [2]

I could find a number of ethnic Montenegrins forced into Montenegrin Serbs category on sr.wiki even if declared their ethnicity in publications like:

• Slavko Janković, Mihajlo Milanović, redakt. Ko je ko u Jugoslaviji : biografski podaci o jugoslovenskim savremenicima, 1. izd., »Sedma sila« – novinsko-izdavačko preduzeće Udruženja novinara Srbije, Beograd, 1957.
• Pero Djetelić, Đuro Kladarin, Stevo Maoduš, Milka Minić, Boško Stankovski, Radovan Stijačić, Mirko Tepavac, Janez Vipotnik, Budislav Šoškić (članovi Komisije za redakciju kongresnih dokumenata), VIII kongres Saveza komunista Jugoslavije: Beograd, 7—13. decembra 1964. (Stenografske beleške), Tom III, Kultura, Beograd, 1965, p 2180 —2209. (COBISS.SR 94241031).

Sh.wiki has as a norm of behaviour the princilple, first come first served, and it would be very difficult for a speaker of the Montenegrin language (if wanted to use the standard variety of Montenegrin language) to contribute to a project which has such norms of behaviour (described in m:w:sh:Special:Diff/562671). Also, the sh.wiki project alows Tito to be defined as [[Jugoslaveni|jugoslavenski]], despite what the sources say, and also Ivo Andrić whose nationality is being omitted on sh.wp. And these examples are a rule on sh.wp, where the nationality is almost always omitted, despite the fact that contemporary encyclopaedias like Opća i nacionalna enciklopedija u 20 knjiga (together with its Appendix (Additional) Volume) almost always defines biographies with the nationality prefix.

Škiljan wrote about 4 centres, Zagreb, Belgrade, Sarajevo and Titograd. He considered that those 4 centres have evolved (1988) into 4 different varieties (sociolinguistically); 30 years have passed from 1988, and the Social Agreement was signed on January 23, 1980. -- Nesmir Kudilovič (razgovor) 15:14, srijeda, 3. siječnja 2018. (SEV)

By the way: Članke na Vikipediji na srpskom jeziku možete potpuno ravnopravno pisati ekavicom ili ijekavicom. Iako je većina naših članaka pisana ekavicom, Vi imate potpunu slobodu u izboru narečja prilikom pisanja novih članaka. Ima smisla da članci geografski vezani za područja gde se koristi ijekavsko narečje (Crna Gora, Bosna i Hercegovina, Hrvatska, zapadna Srbija) budu pisani tim narečjem. Međutim, kao i za pismo, tako i za narečje važi pravilo da članci započeti jednim narečjem ostaju na tom narečju. Ikavsko narečje ne spada u narečja srpskog jezika, te ga ne treba koristiti na ovoj Vikipediji. Jednog dana, voleli bismo da imamo i softversko rešenje koje bi omogućilo čitanje svih članaka na narečju po izboru, ali se za sada svi članci čitaju onim narečjem kojim su pisani. U svakom slučaju, poželjno je da se uvek naprave preusmerenja sa ekavskog oblika reči na ijekavski i obrnuto. --ΝικόλαςΜπ (talk) 18:46, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

@StevenJ81: thank you for your thoughtful and informative response.

To be fully clear: this discussion obviously has to be constrained in some fashion, or it will likely devolve into a complete mess.

I agree also with you that, in order to show practical problems with Montenegrins actually contributing to one of the existing wikis, one has to actually try first. I'd expect from sh wiki - at the very least - to introduce a some sort of equivalent of en wiki's WP:TIES with respect to national varieties, but AFAIK no such policy has ever been proposed there, let alone accepted, and I believe the same is true for sr wiki with respect to Montenegrin language. Still - as I've already argued - I don't think the absence of such problems proves by itself that mne wiki is not needed.

Another thing I'd agree with is that "we deserve it" is not really a meaningful argument. I'd also appeal to the participants to avoid argumentation along these lines.

Here is an illustration of the is-vs-ought-to problem in this discussion: sh wiki is peculiar in that it is (AFAIK) the only Serbo-Croatian reference work that has ever been created. (Here, by "Serbo-Croatian" I obviously don't mean "written in any of the S-C varieties", but "written in all of the S-C varieties on a per-article basis".) This ought to have been done before, particularly in the era of Second Yugoslavia and its at times unitarist language politics, but I don't think it has ever been even contemplated, so encyclopedias and other reference works in the last 200 years were invariably produced "monolithically", in one of the S-C varieties. Even without going into details about why this is so, I believe this illustrates that if "ought to" is given preference versus "is", the outcomes may be unusual and suboptimal, contrary to what one might have expected: if something ought to be the case, but in reality it isn't, it is often for a good reason.

The strongest argument in favor of mne wiki is most certainly not a linguistic one (nor perhaps a political one, for that matter, even if political considerations are not meritless), but rather a pragmatic one: it's whatever ensures the best real-world chances for contributors and readers to pursue the goal of "the sum of all human knowledge", and "real-world chances" necessarily depend on the state of the world, not just on the state of the language. Even if I'm not too optimistic about it, I can hope the committee will try to see it that way too. GregorB (talk) 19:13, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Sources for special:diff/17598083: »Zbog toga se, u sociolingvističkoj optici, može reći da kod nas na hrvatskosrpskom jezičnom području danas egzistiraju četiri varijante hrvatskog ili srpskog standardnog jezika, i da je njihov doseg određen granicama četiriju republika: SR Hrvatske, SR Srbije, SR Bosne i Hercegovine i SR Crne Gore, jer se u svakoj od tih varijanata pojavljuju specifičnosti prema kojima se ona razlikuje od ostalih triju. Da li će se one nazivati varijantama ili neće i da li će se, na razini federacije na primjer, sve upotrebljavati paralelno ili samo neke od njih, stvar je mnogo više političke nego lingvističke odluke.« (Škiljan, 1988, 26)

Dubravko Škiljan, »Prolegomena našoj jezičnoj politici«, Jezici i politike: jezična politika u višejezičnim zajednicama: zbornik, priredio Milorad Pupovac, Centar CK SKH za idejno–teorijski rad »Vladimir Bakarić« & »Komunist« — Zagreb, Zagreb, 1988, pp 17—34, (quote from p 26)

»Štokavski dijalekt je temelj današnjeg standardnog jezika, koji se javlja u nekoliko varijanti: kao hrvatski književni jezik (s ijekavskom osnovicom), kao srpski književni jezik (s ekavskom osnovicom; službeni je naziv — srpskohrvatski), kao bosansko-hercegovačka varijanta hrvatskosrpskog odnosno srpskohrvatskog (ijekavska) te, u najnovije vrijeme, kao crnogorska varijanta srpskohrvatskog odnosno hrvatskosrpskog (također ijekavska).« (1980, 28; Italic type by the author – D. Škiljan).

Dubravko Škiljan, Pogled u lingvistiku, recenzirali Radoslav Katičić i August Kovačec, Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 1980, p 28. -- Nesmir Kudilovič (razgovor) 17:00, petak, 5. siječnja 2018. (SEV)

@StevenJ81: Having all these things said above in mind, and LangCom’s obvious intention to deny this project, is there anything that can be done at this moment, any more evidence to provide (such as that where I’ve shown them to be mutually exclusive) or as an user above showed nationalistic POV in which most articles about Montenegro (and more) have been written? Or is it just hopeless endeavor at this point where we wait to be denied? I want to help here, but really don’t know what to do anymore.—Lujki (talk) 19:43, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

@Lujki: I'm not entirely sure. One thing I can say is that the discussion was at least a little theoretical to LangCom until the code was published at SIL as an approved ISO 639-3 code. Now that has happened.

Curiously enough, the view of at least some people at LangCom has traditionally been that the whole question of Montenegrin as a separate language (from Serbo-Croatian) has been a matter of politics—and LangCom in principle tries to avoid being political. In particular, the fact that SIL was, until recently, describing Montenegrin as "another name for Serbo-Croatian" helped LangCom defend that point of view. Now the situation has reversed, so LangCom will be playing more politics by denying Montenegrin at this point than by allowing it.

I've felt like I should just let this whole question simmer a little until the 639-3 code was published. Now that it's happened, I'm currently drafting a note to LangCom describing why I think its position is seriously in error under the circumstances. I'll let you know how that progresses. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:06, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

@StevenJ81: I've read the letter on the mailing list. Thanks for the strong support you're giving to this project! I've also read the response from Michael Everson. There are two things I want to say: 1. It's ridiculous trying to prove these are significantly different languages besides the already mentioned things, there is not much else in that regard. Also we've already shown why it's difficult to use Serbian Wikipedia (nationalistic POV and vastly dominant Ekavian standard, where even the Ijekavian differs in certain aspects I listed from Montenegrin, it's very.. uneducated.. to say they differ merely in 2 letters and nothing else, like Jan said last month. There are plenty of books and evidence saying otherwise such as books by Adnan Čirgić and/or Vojislav Nikčević). 2. Thing: As Michael said, please let us work a bit more on the Incubator. I'm trying hard to get more people in the community who are very capable and skilled in lots of different areas and can write completely new articles not found anywhere on any other Wikipedia. We do not want Montenegrin Wiki to be a SH/SR copypasta at all, rather something new and useful to both Montenegrin speakers, and everyone else. That is the point of Wikipedia and we (unlike some others) fully understand this. Hopefully it can prove to Michael that it would be meaningfully different from Serbian. And as someone mentioned, just because copying could theoretically be done, it doesn't mean it will or should be. That is not our goal. We are trying hard here. Please, give us a chance at this to do it right.--Lujki (talk) 00:12, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

@StevenJ81: The current method of discussion and debating seems a bit inefficient to me. There are multiple locations and pages where folks are commenting. In many instances, creating duplicity by commenting on same or similar items in the multiple areas. Would it be possible to have a table listed somewhere, to have a list of main points against and main points for, and then have a location to discuss each? As well as possibly, whether a given point is trending negatively or positively against the desired objective of approval. This would given us one area to attract discussion contributors as well as naturally determine focus of argumentation leading to a decision point. --CG USA (talk) 16:13, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

The principle places of discussion are here and the page for which it's a talk page. I don't think there's much different at Incubator, and I've been trying to get people to focus discussions here. More to the point, I'm trying to get LangCom to start involving itself more actively in this discussion. Let's see what happens. StevenJ81 (talk) 01:03, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. All your support to the process is appreciated. I just wish we could more easily identify what the sticky points are with LangCom folks, for those that still are on the fence, so that pro positions efforts can be focused there for discussion. Just seems logical. Right now it seems we only have a - throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks - option. Can you understand my point? CG USA (talk) 01:41, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

@StevenJ81: Is there any way that Mr Amir from LangCom could read my response (in the second discussion) to his message from the mailing list regarding this project, or for you to reply to him using some of the points I made? I think that it's a good reply to some of things that he wanted to know.--Lujki (talk) 21:39, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

@StevenJ81: Can you maybe give some guidance as to how and when this decision will be made? I have not really seen it anywhere in concrete terms. Comments in the discussion are becoming fewer and farther between. Many comments are not even responded to. It seems as if there are several proponents of the wiki, a couple of opponents...and you, the admin. In the meantime, our active users on the test wiki continue to drive up an already significant article count. CG USA (talk) 22:21, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

@CG USA: I cannot. It depends on members of LangCom. Many requests for new languages remain open an extremely long time because LangCom members do not push to close them. Right now, if I push LangCom to close this, it will probably be a negative decision; proponents of this project are better off letting it sit for a while.

Additionally, the rules for keeping a test at Incubator are less stringent than those to get a project fully approved. Accordingly, I do not see why a project cannot continue at Incubator in any event. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:45, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

There should be possibility to give contributors a way to get a copy of all articles in any case. Its a lot of articles and effort people did. This is like deadlock here. If we contribute all our work can be deleted and if we don't, we cant prove interest in this project and seriousness of contributors. Repeating this threat all the time(deleting all) certainly makes some people discouraged to contribute. And that is unfair. Offering some promise of possibility for contributors to retain their work regardless of actions from WMF would sound much better to me. --Ego and his own (talk) 15:38, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

First, based on the less stringent rules at Incubator, and considering that Montenegrin now has a language code, the test on Incubator can probably remain open even if LangCom does not allow a free-standing test wiki. Second, if the test does close, an xml file containing the content will be created and made available for use elsewhere. StevenJ81 (talk) 23:09, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Beware of copyright

A matter not directly related, but I don’t know where and how to complain for such a cross-wiki issue. Take a note of the user Zanović who works on this project in the Incubator and meanwhile—on Wikimedia Commons—commits massive copyright violations, uploading portrait photographs with false {{own}} claims. Feel free to forward my comment if needed, and have a good day. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 11:53, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

@Incnis Mrsi: You would need to find evidence of copyvios on the Incubator project and then ping me over there to show me diffs. Note that it is not permitted to upload files to Incubator, so there is no possibility of copyvios with respect to images. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:47, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Да что уж там искать долго? incubator:Wp/cnr/Svetozar Koljević списано с вот этой статьи, разумеется, безо всяких ссылок на источник. StevenJ81, мне вот не лень было продираться через славянскую писанину на латинице, так что за русский язык не извиняюсь. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:09, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Кстати, то, что лежит на academia.edu, является журналом ISSN 1800-7007 = Lingua Montenegrina (Cetinje), но это уже дело не меняет. Похоже, бо́льшая часть вклада Зановича исходит оттуда. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:23, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Since you need to make me understand your problems, it is in your best interest to make it as easy for me as possible. Meanwhile, I'll see what I can do about this. StevenJ81 (talk) 15:09, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

This incubated wiki looks as a hotbed of copyright infringers. An interesting edit, really? Do you try to google for the source? It will not consume much time. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:05, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

I do not speak the language, so I wouldn't know where to begin to do that. The only recourse here is for you to point out specific diffs, and give me the presumed source. And I really wish you'd either (a) do that on my talk page at Incubator, or (b) since you're a global rollbacker, roll it back yourself on Incubator as a copyvio. I'm the sysop there, and I would consider that within the legitimate purview of a rollbacker. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:21, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for permission to use rollback, but the edit is stale. And StevenJ81 appears to miss some point. It isn’t that important that a user injected a Facebook copyvio. It is important that nobody among other editors did purge the copyvio—easily suspectable and detectable—for two weeks. Sapienti sat. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:36, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

For you to imply that the entire project is a conspiracy to encourage and promote copyvios is pretty harsh, and you had better provide evidence if you think that is true. If everyone is AGF, then people may simply not assume there is a problem that needs addressing. If you think it's a bad problem, and if you have enough of the language to patrol successfully, by all means do that. One challenge in being sysop on Incubator is that more often that not problems happen in languages I don't speak. Without help, I don't have much hope to keep up.

Meanwhile, (a) I have warned the user on the user's Incubator talk page, and (b) over time I will look at the violations you have outlined. But I am a volunteer, too, and have only so much time to put into this. I'll do my best. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:51, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

User blocked for 72 hours. StevenJ81 (talk) 18:16, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

One of users – that who infringed rights of Aleksandar Radoman of Fakultet za crnogorski jezik i književnost on Koljević’s biography. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 19:01, 17 January 2018 (UTC)

All articles that violate copyright require to be deleted. Ookuninusi (talk) 13:58, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────────────────┘
@Ookuninusi: you can also excise parts of articles which are word-by-word identical to copyrighted texts, similarly to the Crnogorski_jezik case. Few more examples are easy to find. Hint: nobody apparently cared about © in Wp/cnr except the bureaucrat StevenJ81 and one Incnis Mrsi. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 22:19, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

FCJK content

@StevenJ81: On OTRS we obtained a permission from FCJK for the content of their website (ticket:2018011810006354). I suppose that it's related to this discussion. How do you prefer we proceed? --Ruthven (talk) 18:26, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Good question. We're electing test-administrators for this test project now, with the election of the first group to be complete by next Monday. So why don't we hold on until that's done? Then, a few different things need to happen:

• I think I want those test administrators to consult OTRS (or whomever) and write out a policy on this stuff. I want to make sure that everything is done by the book here: All attribution is handled correctly, and so forth. That should happen before anyone starts importing anything.
• Then, since we're talking about doing a mass import of content here (I think), the test-admins (who will know the content) will have to talk with the Incubator importers about what needs to be done. (And that is further complicated by the fact that at the moment, this project is staying in Incubator. I want the test-admins to weigh in on whether this content should be added immediately or whether we should wait until such a time as the project becomes independently approvable. And then an importer has to be willing to do this.)

And I'm pretty sure that's not an exhaustive list. So stay tuned. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:17, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

No problem at all. Ping me when ready. Cheers --Ruthven (talk) 10:06, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Original wikipedia

Re: special:diff/17581470

hr.wikipedia.com

• hr.wikipedia.com (Version which was last edited June 1, 2002 3:41 pm)
  • Revision 1: History of HomePage (of hr.wikipedia.com) (October 16, 2001 12:16 pm)

sh.wikipedia.com

• sh.wikipedia.com (Version which was last edited January 31, 2002 11:56 am)
  • History of HomePage (of sh.wikipedia.com Revision 9: (January 31, 2002 11:56 am)
    • Some information exists that sh.wikipedia.com started on January 16, 2002 (m:w:sh:Srpskohrvatska Wikipedia).

sr.wikipedia.com

• History of HomePage (of sr.wikipedia.com) (April 2, 2002 4:18 pm)

Hope this helps correcting the data, despite the fact that latter domains were moved from .com to .org. In early days there were few editors and growth of a community doesn't make any difference on the matter of the original. -- Nesmir Kudilovič (razgovor) 22:08, 30. siječnja 2018. (UTC)

I really don't know what point you are trying to make here. StevenJ81 (talk) 09:38, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

If Wikipedia in Serbo-Croatian has the right to claim heritage of sh.wikipedia.com, then...

Also please click to see where it leads http://hr.wikipedia.com

The LangCom should be correctly informed about the original, or lack thereof. -- Nesmir Kudilovič (razgovor) 10:44, 31. siječnja 2018. (UTC)

A letter to LangCom members

@StevenJ81: I’m sorry that I have to bother you once again, but I have to ask for a small favor. I tried to send a message to LangCom mailing list last week but it hasn’t been published yet. I’ve received an email that a moderator will read the message and either publish it or send me a notification of why he hasn’t. None of that has happened yet so if you somehow could forward my message to them so they can carefully read it I’d be really grateful.

Here’s the email:

“Dear LangCom members,

I am writing to you with intention to clarify some things regarding the Montenegrin Wikipedia project. I am aware that there is a lack of support for this project to be allowed, and the main argument is that it is a “variety” of Serbian language, claimed even by some members here. I’d like to remind you that not a single serious institution claims this to be true, they all list it as a member of Serbo-Croatian macro language, not a part of Serbian (an important distinction).

Next, some question the use of two added letters all while claiming that they can simply be replaced with sj, zj. As per Montenegrin orthography, this is not true, I can explain everything in detail on the discussion page for anyone interested in this, please, be free to ping me there. And on the same page plenty of examples have been given to show how these letters are in fact used. Also, alongside a few other users, I have shown some clear differences between Ijekavian Serbian and Montenegrin (let me remind you that ~90% of articles in Serbian Wikipedia are written in Ekavian standard, not Ijekavian). The most important feature of Montenegrin is jekavian iotation, not present in any other SC language, and this means that it is impossible to follow Montenegrin standard if we were to write Serbian (or Bosnian, Croatian) Wikipedia.

And let’s not forget the reason that most members here wish to ignore, but sadly, due to historical and political reasons, cannot. Serious NPOV violations are present on Serbian Wikipedia on literally every article regarding Montenegro (and lots of other political, historical topics related to other countries and people but it is not relevant to Montenegrin Wikipedia right now). I have listed quite a few examples of that in discussion page and even some of reverting changes that were made to regain NPOV, ping me for all of that as well if you cannot find it on that cluttered page. Politics do in fact play a big part in all of this, and explain why Montenegrin community is, besides all the reasons listed above, also uninterested to contribute to such projects, and there is a clear intention to write neutral articles retaining NPOV among our community, not to create propaganda-style articles that can sadly be found on all of these other projects.

Some propose using Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia. The very existence of it is harshly criticized amongst most of Serbian, Croatian community, as they find it unnecessary and are often feeling angry at SC community merely copying their articles, as claimed by some users. I won’t argue about necessity of SC Wikipedia, but I felt that this is a good introduction for my main reason why Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia is not a good solution for Montenegrin either.

Very large number of articles have parts directly copied from Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian Wikipedias, resulting in a huge mess on articles, with a single sentence being written half in Croatian, half in Serbian, which is utterly confusing for the reader, switching between dialects, word forms, grammar rules etc. In the discussion page I’ve shown how different a Montenegrin Wikipedia article would be from an article in Serbo-Croatian to Mr Amir Aharoni, please, be free to check that as well, and I can do that for any article you want me to, so you have a side by side comparison, just like the one I made there. A very large number of Croatian words is unheard of and unknown in Montenegrin, to the point where you simply cannot understand whatever you are reading about (scientific topics to the point of unintelligiblity!). And Croatian is vastly dominant in Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia (alongside those Ekavian Serbian parts in the middle of a single sentence). You can agree that this is not a good ground for developing a serious project written in Montenegrin language.

Finally, I am aware that these other projects are grandfathered, but it doesn’t change the fact that they do exist, and Montenegrin community sees this as very unfair (to say the least) and really feels that based an all of the things listed above, and this fact that it’s the only SC variety without it’s own Wikipedia, it does deserve creation of it’s own project.

Sincerely, Luka (Wiki username: Lujki).”

If you feel that any part should be changed, please be free to do so or suggest me to do it, and if this is against some rules, I’m sorry for causing any inconvenience. But I’d appreciate a response, either positive or negative one, just so I know if I should cancel this letter as I have an option to do so if you forward it, or to wait some more time if you are not able to do so.—Lujki (talk) 23:21, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Sent in today. StevenJ81 (talk) 05:17, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@Lujki: (can you please not generally shutdown the notifications of mention? although it's important that blacklisting some users from such pinging spam is indeed.) You can see how GerardM replied you at [3]. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 08:46, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I really don’t know what to reply to a person who ignores literally everything and says he’s not convinced. He’s not because he doesn’t want to. What can I, as still a student, possibly do or write to convince him otherwise if Library of Congress’s recognition was not evidence enough for him? Nor side by side comparisons I made. He literally denies the existence of Montenegrin standard of Serbo-Croatian. Not a single uneducated man familiar to (or a speaker of) Serbo-Croatian, let alone a linguist makes such ridiculous claims, so either he should really get acquainted to the matter he opposes or at least stop saying such things. Michael Everson ignored the whole letter and only took a single sentence out of it and compared it to his case. I see he’s not very well acquainted with the case he fiercely opposes. Unlike him, we had to “convince” nobody. ISO Code was promptly given to the language as soon as a proper (technically correct) request was filed. Now he’s a greater expert than all those there, who needs to be convinced. We are a group of enthusiasts, not linguistic experts, we can’t do same things he did, nor should we have to. The people who decide on this matter whether or not something is a language or not have already decided. That brings me only to a conclusion that they have some other problems with this project and I’m sad to see that it is the case.—Lujki (talk) 13:15, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@Lujki: 1. Which man or woman you are saying that that is "ridiculous"? Me? GerardM? @Evertype: (which you disclosured their real name)? MF-W? 2. had to convince which "nobody"? @Jon Harald Søby:? Or a non-profit body (SIL could be in this case, though)? I'm really confused with at least these two points during read your comment. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 13:54, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@Liuxinyu970226 and Lujki: Personal criticisms need to stop now.

• Michael Everson self-discloses on his enwiki user page. I personally think he's trying to ask legitimate questions, and I intend to answer him a little later today (my time).
• Gerard is out of bounds on his procedural comments and has already been called on them.
• Please note, Lujki, that if we were starting from scratch today—if there were no Serbo-Croatian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian or Montenegrin projects at all, I'd probably agree with the others to try to create a single project for the macrolanguage, with enforced neutrality rules. I consider Montenegrin on par with the other three as standards, but really they are all mutually intelligible, and from the point of view of WMF's ideal, we'd have a single project where everyone has to coexist. My view, boiled down, is that:

(a) Given that Montenegrin is as valid as Serbian (etc.), and

(b) given that Serbian (etc.) exist already, and

(c) given that linguistic and political neutrality are already completely shot on the other projects,

WMF's ideal is not viable, and Montenegrin deserves its own project.

StevenJ81 (talk) 14:55, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Liuxinyu Let me clear things up a bit. I didn’t call anybody “ridiculous”, especially not you, why would I? I said that the claim that Montenegrin does not form a standard equal to Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian in SC macro language ridiculous, as nobody familiar to the language, nor a single native speaker would make such a claim (nor does any institution).

• I will refrain from commenting anybody as I agree with Steven that personal criticism isn’t a constructive way to continue the discussion, I just can’t understand why a few persons have to be so impolite to me if I was very respectful to all of them. I offered to point out crucial differences between Montenegrin and other variants, not to use that to prove anything, I don’t have to, Montenegrin is already registered with ISO-639, I’m just being polite enough to help them see why.
• Steven, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fanatic of any kind, I completely agree that a single SC Wikipedia would’ve been the best solution. But that’s not what’s been done here, so the reason I’m doing all of this is because, once again, I completely agree with points a,b,c and because SC Wikipedia as we have it is a mess and a bad foundation for our project.—Lujki (talk) 19:49, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

@Lujki: Please, say it as sh.wikipedia, the sc.wikipedia is unrelated to anything we discuss here (it's another macrolanguage that is used in Sardinia of Italy, see w:Sardinian language). --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 02:29, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Status quo now?

I'm not sure if why this is on hold for more than a year, are langcom members still interested in judging it or not? --117.15.55.177 08:47, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

@117.15.55.177: which solution do you assume to be ready for deployment? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 12:36, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

If that IP user is asking for a potential "mark-as-eligible" or "rejection", then I would say, it should still be pending, this problem will be mentioned once Language proposal policy/4-2019 proposed revision is officially applied. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 23:43, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

If it does not stay "on hold", it will be rejected at the present time. I'd rather not see it rejected yet. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:42, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Why not? Nearly all langcom members other than you already provided their against messages, I don't know how this even can't be a reason to veto-as-stale this. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 13:15, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

In my opinion, both acceptance of and rejection of this request potentially violate LPP in certain respects. If so, accepting it is a "fairer" violation than rejecting it. In any event, let me do a little legwork to see if anything in the background is still progressing. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:37, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

And then, one proposer Lujki, as seen on the above section, did wrongly called sc.wikipedia as "Serbo-Crotian", which is in fact Sardinian Wikipedia, which the language is used in Italy not Yugoslavic countries. This is at least inappropriate for me. This is just like that you're pointing a Spanish sentence as Romanian. --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 22:04, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

That proves nothing more than that the proposer is not careful with language codes. Ordinary people could easily abbreviate "Serbo-Croatian" as SC. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:06, 17 June 2019 (UTC)