I lately noticed that lexemes can now have klingon language codes (see T282512) 🥳
Unfortunatly monolingual strings in klingon language are still unsupported:
Which is especially bad because usage example is a monolingual field:
Description
Description
Details
Details
Related Objects
Related Objects
Event Timeline
Comment Actions
Sigh. I have the same reluctance about it as about the other thing: it may have copyright implications. I am not a lawyer and I cannot say anything about this.
Comment Actions
The data will be there whether the code is added or not. If it's not approved, people will continue lumping it under mis along with all the other languages whose codes aren't accepted.
Here's a bunch of examples:
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2012993
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1027770
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11352202
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q56192539
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q262983
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1243582
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2936533
As for copyright implications, I don't think enabling the code will introduce any issues which aren't already there. Wikidata is already storing Klingon text (as you can see above), just without a proper language code. There are 20 Wiktionaries with entries in Klingon. The English Wiktionary has over 2000 entries. Some Wiktionaries have entries over 15 years old.
Comment Actions
I think we should proceed now. There is no further feedback by langcom since 3 months.
Comment Actions
Change 734715 had a related patch set uploaded (by Mbch331; author: Mbch331):
[mediawiki/extensions/Wikibase@master] Add klingon for monolingual codes
Comment Actions
Change 734718 had a related patch set uploaded (by Mbch331; author: Mbch331):
[mediawiki/extensions/cldr@master] Add language codes mcn and tlh-latn / tlh-piqd
Comment Actions
Change 734718 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/extensions/cldr@master] Add language codes mcn and tlh-latn / tlh-piqd
Comment Actions
“No further feedback” doesn’t equal approval, though. To me this task doesn’t look like it’s okay to proceed with adding this to Wikidata.
Comment Actions
Well, [[:d:Help:Monolingual text languages]] says:
''A language code does not have to fulfill the requirements of the language proposal policy for new Wikis.''
''In general, if you need a language code to correctly model real-world data, it should be accepted as long as it's a valid language code.''
I do not see any reason not to add tlh.
Comment Actions
Hi @Lucas_Werkmeister_WMDE I already made the decision and moved the task to our iteration board. Can you please elaborate on your reasons to recommend against it?
Comment Actions
My understanding was that we require LangCom approval for new language codes, and I don’t see a LangCom approval in this task. (My interpretation of the passage @Ameisenigel quoted is that LangCom can use less strict criteria for approving monolingual language codes than other language codes, not that we bypass them altogether.)
Comment Actions
This language code is valid, but Klingon has a history of copyright litigation, so I'd say this should also have some legal advice, which I cannot provide.
Comment Actions
Originally, I thought that we could just implement the monolingual codes without having to clarify the legal situation and/or automatically endorsing their use. I do not believe this anymore. As the Klingon language is not obviously aligned with Wikimedia's vision or the movement strategy I see little value in Wikimedia investing further resources here. This is why I am declining this task for now. I am happy to consider this again in case of more legal clarity and a broader community consensus are reached elsewhere.
Thank you all again for your input!
mIvDaq pogh cha'
Comment Actions
If we're rejecting tlh as a monolingual text code (and not as a lexeme language code), would someone like to do the honors and purge the Lexeme: namespace of Klingon lexemes?
Comment Actions
I do think this needs reconsidering.
Regarding community consensus:
The closure of the Klingon Wikipedia in 2005 that you linked was seemingly a unilateral decision by Jimmy Wales rather than community consensus.
In the 17 years since then, Klingon content has been added to a number of different Wikimedia projects in a range of different languages and those communities have not chosen to delete it.
For example:
- Audio files and images of the writing system on Commons since 2006.
- Entries for Klingon words and/or Klingon translations in the Afrikaans, Asturian, Breton, Catalan, German, English, Spanish, Basque, French, Frisian, Hindi, Italian, Greenlandic, Kurdish, Latin, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Swedish and Turkish Wiktionaries. There are links to the main categories on Q8574920 and some of those categories have existed for a long time. I didn't check them all, but they include German and Italian (since 2005), French and Russian (since 2006), and Afrikaans, Breton, Hindi and Spanish (since 2007).
- Pages in the English (2005), Esperanto (2018), Spanish (2015) and Chinese (2017) Wikibooks (links on Q10134).
- Pages in the English (2007) and Japanese (2017) Wikiversities (links on Q10134).
- Pages in the English (2004) and Polish (2011) Wikiquotes (links on Q16531565).
- Pages in the English (2006), Icelandic (2009) and Portuguese (2022) Wikipedias about the writing system (links) and in the German (2012), English (2013), French (2013) and Hebrew (2016) Wikipedias about the grammar (links).
That to me shows broad acceptance for including Klingon content within individual projects, even if a dedicated Klingon Wikipedia would probably always be controversial.
Regarding legal clarity:
If someone believes including anything in Klingon is problematic, they're welcome to make a case for deleting all the existing content in Wikimedia projects, such as all the things I've linked so far (including previously in T286239#7317285). If there's no Klingon text in any Wikimedia projects, then nobody will have a use for tlh.
But that's not what this ticket is about.
This ticket is not asking to allow adding Klingon text. That's already possible, people are already doing it and the text is already there. It's asking to allow using the correct language code for it. I am not a lawyer but I am very sceptical that, in the event of a copyright complaint, saying "we knew that people were adding Klingon text but we're doing nothing wrong because we're not allowing people to use the correct language code for it... in some places" would convince anyone.
In particular, rejecting this while still allowing tlh for lexemes is completely nonsensical. Either tagging Klingon text as tlh instead of mis is a problem or it isn't. If WMDE thinks it is a problem, why aren't you doing anything about tlh being allowed for lexemes? And if it's not a problem, then there's no reason to reject this request.
Comment Actions
IANAL, but from what i could google, the history of litigation seems to be https://torrentfreak.com/klingon-language-copyright-battle-ends-for-now-170113/ where the matter at hand wasn't really about the Klingon language itself but a more typical derrivative fictional work, and all references to the klingon language got excluded from the final case. I know the internet isn't the best place for legal advice, but this seems really overly cautious when most of the internet seems to think that conlangs cannot be copyrighted, and there doesn't seem to be a single case ever having happened about the subject.
In comparison, things like PD-Art or even PD-ineligible that are widely accepted at commons seem much more risky.
Comment Actions
Thank you @Bawolff and @Nikki for your arguments! As this seems to still be an important concern for you, I will not block it anymore. I am still not convinced about the viability of this type content, but I am following your argumentation that a language code is not where this decicion is made.
@Arian_Bozorg: Can you please pick this up?
Comment Actions
It was never removed from CLDR, so CLDR doesn't need to be repatched.
I rebased my patch for Wikibase on the current master.
Not sure if anything else needs to be done (besides approving my Wikibase patch). Not up to date with the steps that are needed nowadays for adding new monolingual languages.
Comment Actions
Change 734715 merged by jenkins-bot:
[mediawiki/extensions/Wikibase@master] Add klingon for monolingual codes