Wall - Tatoeba

Hello. Azul.
Did Tatoeba become the algerian government?
How can anyone explain me, the fact that a person who didn't ever contribute to a corpus, can oneday decide to change a flag? How can this be possible?
Many people who are demanding to change the Kabyle flag, are New here.
Tatoeba can check them and find out but no. Nothing is done.
You are ignoring many facts. You should reconsider your decision and listen the other side.

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Hi, these matters have been extensively discussed in the earlier threads start by Trang. I suggest reading those.

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You say discussed? No.
Sorry but Trang has just annonced the decision.
Like the algerian government, Trang just banned a flag because a person was demanding that.

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Hey, take it easy!!! Let's read again Trang's post (some very specific parts that you might not have read)

> We still *consider* that we *should/ change the Kabyle icon, but we are *not* completely decided on using the Berber flag as a replacement.

How come "consider", "should" and "we are not completely decided" means that something is going to change for sure?

> The only solution left that *I see is*:

See? She's trying to figure out what to do. As for now, that correct way *would* be (but it may change if you give Tatoeba solid reasons to not doing so).

> It's a more expensive option for us, as it takes time and creativity to design a new icon.
> But *I guess* we have to explore this possibility in order to claim we have been as fair as possible.

Again, how come "I guess" means "I'm going to do something" or "I will do something"?

»►If this idea doesn't sound reasonable to you, then please explain objectively why we shouldn't create a custom icon.

This the most interesting point you might not have read but rephrasing: The KAB flag is here. *****Perhaps***** we need to change it. If you don't agree, tell us. However, give us enough, good reasons for not doing so.

>> We also ask everyone to stop accusing and insulting each other.

;)

>> We consider that everyone who expressed their opinion is good at heart and deserves respect

;) ♥

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Well put, Ricardo.

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@Alan - Thank you! :) Just trying to make some points clearer :)

@Pfirsichbaeumchen - Yes, I do want the same: More sentences, translations, tags...

https://tatoeba.org/eng/wall/sh...#message_32964 ???

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Trang doesn't want to receive Any other explanation.
How can I take it easy? I can't.
You made a decision for only kab language.
All the flags must be removed.
The First one who has begin this is Amastan by attacking the kab team.
You can't say that the decision was not based on that.
You decided to remove my visual identity.
You're playing the same game as the algerian gov.
So, Please don't say me that it's wonderful....

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Hey, calm down, please! Tatoeba is not a political organization and DO care about people's feelings. In other words, anything that might be harmful (sentences, tags, users, language icons - which in most of the cases is a flag of a country... Everything to create peace and harmony).

Let's again analyse your sentences...

>> Trang doesn't want to receive Any other explanation.

Where on earth is it clear? At least for anyone who can read some English, it's the opposite. "But *I guess* we have to explore this possibility in order to claim we have been as fair as possible." (I guess = I'm not sure , possibility = not decided yet)

More:

"**If this idea doesn't sound reasonable to you**, then »please explain objectively why we shouldn't create a custom icon.

Again, in other words: If you don't agree what's being proposed (it means, Tatoeba is listening to your opinion). However, Tatoeba needs an explanation! That's all!!!!

>> How can I take it easy? I can't.

It ****might**** mean (possibility, perhaps, maybe) that something is wrong. If you know what's correct, put it here and explain in a clear, objective, transparent way. That's all! If I want to change Tatoeba's logo, for example, I need to tell them why: Give evidences, show them why and how the new logo would be great. No website, job, school just accepts an answer like "oh, it's right because I think so.".

>> You made a decision for only kab language.

What have Tatoeba decided? Also where can I find such evidence (a decision has been taken and ta da, game over?) Let's read her post ***again***

" We still *consider* that we *should/ change the Kabyle icon, but we are *not* completely decided on using the Berber flag as a replacement."

"consider" means "well, we don't know if we're going to do or not". How come is it a final decision? Could you please elaborate?

>> All the flags must be removed.

Why? We need evidences. No flags here hurt a ny group of people - Russian flag, Portuguese flag, German flag, Italian flag, Japanese, Chinese, Danish, Scottish, Ladin... Nobody, no "group of people" complained about them and you might noticed that in some cases we do use a neutral flag to avoid hurting people's feelings (which has been working!)

>> The First one who has begin this is Amastan by attacking the kab team.

Trang said "We consider that everyone who expressed their opinion is good at heart and deserves respect" Everyone. Point fingers is kinda childish, don't you think? Everyone deserves to be respected! She also said: "We also ask everyone to stop accusing and insulting each other." Why are you doing the opposite?

>> You can't say that the decision was not based on that.

Again, which decision? It's being discussed (a looooot), we've listened many, many opinions and the decision hasn't been made. Again:

"But *I guess* we have to explore this possibility in order to claim we have been as fair as possible." (I guess = I'm not sure , possibility = not decided yet)

"We still *consider* that we *should/ change the Kabyle icon, but we are *not* completely decided on using the Berber flag as a replacement."

How come "consider", "should" and "we are not completely decided" means that something is going to change for sure?

>> You decided to remove my visual identity.

Not clear here. you mean, your profile picture? Nothing has been said about that
KAB flag? as exposed before, nothing changed. It's being discussed.

>> You're playing the same game as the algerian gov.

Which game? Tatoeba is not a website to play games and also we're *******not****** affiliated to any government. Once more you're saying something without evidence - or worse: sating something that is untrue.

I downloaded the your application to my phone but does not allow login even though I entered the correct password I don't know how to enter. Can you help me about this problem by mail? Everyone has the same problem with the application

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There exists an *unofficial* Tatoeba application. I suggest asking the author if it does not work. People here do not know much about it.

Hello. Azul.
Did Tatoeba become the algerian government?
How can anyone explain me, the fact that a person who didn't ever contribute to a corpus, can oneday decide to change a flag? How can this be possible?
Many people who are demanding to change the Kabyle flag, are New here.
Tatoeba can check them and find out but no. Nothing is done.
You are ignoring many facts. You should reconsider your decision and listen the other side.

@ belkacem77
it's okay I recorded your last sentences, and I sent them to CK, I still have to record Hocine Benameur's.

Azul;

** Should we change our Kabyle language icon? **
Normally, this question should never be asked. A platform dedicated to linguistic and scientific work, must refuse this type of debate from the dapart. The only decision to change it or not is project promoters and contributors of the Kabyle language. They have the right to choose the visual identity with complete freedom.
Sincerely, your decision is disappointing and distressing.
I want to say this for the last time, it's a mistake to change the kabyl flag. The Kabyle contributors, their only thing that they want to work for is the kabyle corpus, a worthy scientific work.
Best regards
ZiriSut, kabyle contributor team.

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@ZiriSut
I congratulate you for your excellent and pertinent comment.
That's all!
I'm very proud of you!

Can sentences from Wikipedia be translated on Tatoeba?

Are there good sources for sentences on the internet with a compatible license?

I am asking because the random sentences I usually translate can be somewhat simple in terms of grammar and vocabulary.

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No afaik.

You cannot copy an exact sentence. But if you change word order (or replace words with synonims), this will be a different sentence.

The license for Tatoeba content is CC 2.0 attribution or more permissive; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/fr/.

This means that if you find content that you can relicense under this license, you can add it to Tatoeba.

I recommend looking for content that is not protected at all by copyright. This includes public domain material (USA legislation) and material with expired copyright. Be careful, though; the expiration date of copyright varies by jurisdiction. But, in general, material that is two hundred years old or more should be safe. But always check, and also check the extent to which international copyright law applies.

There are specific projects that collect material free from intellectual monopoly ("copyright") restrictions. You might also look into these.

People can help you more if you give the language you want material in, and what kind of material is interesting to you.

Other alternatives are:

Portuguese vocabulary people would like to see more of: https://tatoeba.org/deu/Vocabul..._sentences/por . Adding sentences that use those would be a service to the corpus.

Long English sentences (native, audio) without Portuguese translations: https://tatoeba.org/deu/sentenc...rt_reverse=yes

You can easily modify that to Japanese or French, if you prefer, but also alternating between the languages might bring variety.

Find an interesting tag at https://tatoeba.org/deu/tags/view_all and translate sentences with it, or find a keyword or two and search for non-translated material with those. If you like and know about animals, search for "snake" or "serpent", for example.

Discrepancy between "translate sentences" page and the default search results:

On the page https://tatoeba.org/eng/activit...late_sentences it reads:
"
Search for untranslated sentences
Sentences in:
Not directly translated into:
"

Selecting some languages but not otherwise messing with the parameters gives the page https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentenc...in&sort=random

But this search excludes each sentence with a direct or an indirect link (inclusive or).

Now, while it is true that none of these sentences are directly linked, would it be possible to do either of the following, for the sake of clarity:

1) Change the default search settings so that only directly linked sentences are excluded.

2) Remove the word "directly" from "translate sentences" page.

...

(I would prefer option 1, as that is the option I tend to use, but option 2 would keep the current website behaviour unaltered.)

Due to an ongoing health issue in my family, I have not had the time to write anything regarding the scuffles taking place on the site. I still don't have enough time to write everything I would like. But I do have a few minutes to say the following:

When you first join a community, whether or not you are part of a group, it is not only polite but also practical to learn how it already does things and see whether you can adapt. The more you show yourself willing to do that, the better your suggestions for change will be, and the more warmly they will be welcomed.

Tatoeba is an unusually open community in that it lets you take most of its content and use it however you like outside. However, it does have rules about what you do with it inside. Those rules are grounded not in law (which is irrelevant to most of the arguments that are taking place now) but in the experience, wisdom, and insight that this community has developed over the many years it has existed.

One of those rules is the rule of least provocation. If you already have a language supported on Tatoeba to which you can contribute your sentences, then focus on writing the best sentences you can and assigning them to that language, rather than trying to force/bully/persuade/harangue others into doing the same. If the flag associated with a language bothers people, then choose a more neutral one rather than dwelling on how much time was spent deciding on it prior to joining the Tatoeba community. If you think it would be a good idea to duplicate sentences in large numbers, ask someone who knows the site very well before you start. Wait for their answer. And if they tell you no, rechannel your energy into either making your contributions here better or developing your own site.

Someone here said recently that the effort here can serve as a good model for all northern Africa. Clearly, they were talking about constructive engagement, not civil war. Let's choose the right model.

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@AlanF_US

I admit that I should have consulted the community before creating the bot, that was a mistake that I fixed at an early stage, I stopped the bot and asked for permission. This won't happen in the future.

As for the "civil war" you're referring to, it's the consequence of bad decisions made by the tatoeba team :

-Allowing a new language to enter tatoeba while it is not on the ISO 639-3 list.
-Assigning flags for languages instead of using the native name.

Fix these two ussues and the "civil war" will -magically- vanish .

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As Sabretou said, Berber was accepted before we started following the ISO 639-3. The languages that are already in the corpus will not be deleted or transferred to any other language without the consent of the author, who has said several times that he is against it.

About that of the flags, it was like that before you chose a flag that you knew was going to provoke other people, so it is not up to Tatoeba to change to please you but up to you to change your way of seeing things so that you can create a nicer environment here. We give you a tool to keep as many sentences as you want in your language, it's up to you to use it or to waste your (and our) time with fights and complaints.

By the way Alan I hope your relative gets well soon and thank you for trying to make peace here :)

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Un gran corazón y un enorme abrazo para Alán y Rocío... Alán es un verdadero campeón de la paz :-)

@Shishir

1-I did'nt choose any flag, I proposed a global solution to avoid this futile debate: no flags at all.

2-The existance of the "ber" language (let's call it proto-berber or neo-berber, because berber is a family language) is a form of censorship to all berber languages on tatoeba and especially to the Kabyle language, do you know why? because @TRANG is against "duplicates", so he has established an implicitle rule: if any member translates a sentence to any berber language and if it matches that of proto-berber, it will be deleted. 95% of the sentences in the proto-berber language are in Kabyle, that's a direct attack against the Kabyle locale.

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> do you know why? because @TRANG is against "duplicates", so
> he has established an implicitle rule: if any member translates
> a sentence to any berber language and if it matches that of
> proto-berber, it will be deleted.

Please don’t misunderstand Trang. She said she is against copy-pasting Berber sentences into Kabyle. If the Kabyle corpus grows organically (if people translate and add their own sentences, and not copy-paste them), I’m pretty sure no one will have a problem with that, even if they will be similar to the Berber corpus.

If you don’t like the Berber corpus, just pretend it’s not there and translate sentences into your languages just like the speakers of all the other languages do.

It’s not ‘a direct attack’, it just makes Kabyle equal to all the other languages. You can’t copy-paste texts in other languages, either.

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@Impersonator

1- I have absolutely no animosity towards constructed languages such as neo-proto-berber, and I'm personally interested on how it would look like. The problem lies in point 2.

2-I am curious on how could one differentiate between a copy-paste and personal contribution? especially for short sentences.

Take for instance this sentence:

https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/2412739

eng : I have two cats.
ber : Sɛiɣ sin yemcac. (Not written proto-berber but in Kabyle)

If I add a translation in Kabyle, even without reading the one categorized as proto-berber, it will necessarly be *Sɛiɣ sin yemcac*.

You know what's the probable outcome If I did it? @Amstan will complain and @TRANG will delete the sentence.

@TRANG's logic has opposed Proto-berber to Kabyle and turned it into sabotage with the complicity of @Amstan.

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> 2-I am curious on how could one differentiate between a copy-paste
> and personal contribution? especially for short sentences.

Very easy: by looking at the contribution logs. The pattern might not be noticeable at one or five sentences, but it will be noticeable at a few dozen sentences.

The languages might be 95% same, but there is a variation even in the same language. Also, there is a variation in how people understand the same English sentence (e.g. ‘She called him’ can mean ‘She phoned him’ or ‘She shouted for him to come’).

If you give the same text to two translators, they will never arrive at the same version. Because of synonyms and different ways to interpret the original.

You tend to jump to conclusions a bit too quickly, I think.

First of all, I don't have a problem with duplicates. I tolerate them pretty well. Believe me, there are other members here who are a lot more sensitive to duplicates than me.
I do have a problem with copy-pasting, however. Whether it's performed by a bot or by a human, I think we should strive to eradicate the need to mass copy-paste.

Second of all, we are very well aware that with the way things currently work in Tatoeba, there will inevitably be duplicates between Kabyle and Berber and we know we have to find a solution to avoid this redundancy. Until we come up with a solution, we're completely fine with duplicates being created punctually, on a human scale. As Impersonator said it very well: if the corpus grows organically, no one will have a problem with that. If you're running a bot that's gonna copy-paste tens of thousands of duplicates overnight, aggravating the whole issue and forcing us to treat it as an emergency, making everybody angry while you're at it, that's definitely not fine.

Regarding the conflict between Kabyle and Berber, for the context, Berber was added to Tatoeba way before Kabyle: six years ago, in 2012[1]. Kabyle was added only a few months ago[2]. Contrary to what has been said, at the time we added Berber, we had already decided to follow the ISO 639-3 standard (this was decided at the end of 2009). And why Berber made it through even though it's not ISO 639-3, I cannot say for sure. It can be because we didn't realize it wasn't ISO 639-3 or it can be because we felt it was fine to add languages that were in further versions of the ISO 639 specification ('ber' is defined in ISO 639-5).

Anyway it doesn't matter why. What's done is done. We've added Berber, it's been around for six years and it's not gonna go away. We have to find a way, some way, to carry on with both Berber and Kabyle together. Maybe we'll find a compromise by supporting macrolanguages[3], or maybe there are other solutions. We don't know yet.

Just keep in mind that this conflict has emerged within Tatoeba only recently and sadly there is now a lot of resentment between the two factions. We're dealing with an issue that deeply involves ideology and politics. There is absolutely no way we're gonna solve this in a matter of days, nor weeks, nor months even. But we acknowledge the problem and we will work on a solution. It will take time, that's all. Hopefully it will end in a more peaceful way than it all started.

Regarding the problem with flags, this is not a new problem. And your suggestion to get rid of flags is not a new solution. There are people who will agree with you, there are people who will disagree with you.
At the end of the day, we will keep using flags and no amount of rhetorics will change that. Were you there 10 years ago when Tatoeba was in its infancy, having flags or not was perhaps still negotiable. Now it's too late.

Removing flags doesn't solve everything. It only replaces one problem with another. Without flags, you'll have, for sure, people telling you they have a harder time spotting sentences in their desired language and protesting to get the flags back. Flags are one of the core elements of Tatoeba's UI. You cannot just remove them and expect that nobody will care.

It is a design choice and yes, it costs us, once in a while, very intense and even violent discussions. But it's a price we have agreed to pay in exchange of the possibility to give our languages a visual identity. You don't have to agree with this choice and you don't have to get involve in what you consider futile debates.

All that aside, I guess, welcome to Tatoeba :)

---

[1] https://github.com/Tatoeba/tato...b4297434d0f15a
[2] https://github.com/Tatoeba/tato...82ef1ad2478357
[3] https://github.com/Tatoeba/tatoeba2/issues/1673

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@TRANG,

Thanks for your detailed explanation + ur welcome but please don't take my comments too seriously because I have a tendency to what could be called *positive provocation* (reductio ad absurdum/Raisonnement par l'absurde) in order to demonstrate illogicalness.

I really value your project and your work as a founder and a contributor.

Just to be precise, I belong to neither *fractions*, I respect both for their work, but I hate when ideology dictates science (whatever fraction be it): ber is a language family -and not a macrolanguage as you described it- composed of 27 living languages and Kabyle is a berber language composed of at least 4 dialects.

More than that, 'ber' regroups dead languages such as proto-berber 1 (-5000 BCE) and proto-berber 2 (-1000 BCE).

Some want to create a neo-proto-berber language, as I said before, that's absolutely fine as long as they name it correctly such as : neo-berber, neo-tamaziɣt. Morocco has created a label for it and it has an ISO 639-3 code 'zgh' and a name 'Standard Moroccan Berber'. I think Algeria will follow with another ISO code. If Tatoeba wants to create a new 'Standard Northern Berber' with @Amstan that's also fine, but please name things correctly, be precise, don't use an ISO 639-5 that will generate useless wars.

'ber' in Tatoeba respects none of these standards, neither in name nor in morpho-syntax : 90% of its sentences are in Kabyle, the clash with Kabyle was not only inevitable but predictable.

My suggestion is to rename the 'ber' code to 'zgh' or anything else but 'ber'. Please don't go against science.

As for the flags, that was just a suggestion in order to avoid futile debates. Symbols, flags and rituals mean nothing to me : a daesh flag, a satanic flag nor scientologist flag would prevent me from participating, but I'm not 100% unemotional and I can understand that it'll prevent others from participating, that's a shame and could be avoided.

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«I hate when ideology dictates science» — scholarship (or science) doesn’t really decide what is a language and what is not.

«Please don't go against science» — please don’t pretend that you’re ‘scientific’ while others are not. ‘Language vs. dialect’ is ultimately an extra-linguistic problem.

+1 @AlanF_US Hope everything be OK with your family!

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Thanks for your concern, Ricardo, Rocío, and Amastan. My mother is recovering very nicely.

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I'm praying for her.

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Thank you, Ricardo!

Alan, I wish your mother a quick recovery.

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Спасибо!

> Fix these two ussues and the "civil war" will -magically- vanish .

Not really. We had ‘civil wars’ over issues like English punctuation (some older books are printed with spaces before question marks, should they be allowed on Tatoeba? sacredceltic added them, some other contributors were opposed to them).

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> We had ‘civil wars’ over issues like...

Also, Tom & Mary vs Sami & Layla is quite a spectacular fight.

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While a simple way to avoid this one fight is to simply not translate the sentences involving Tom, Mary, Sami and Layla lives...

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Why not? I translate them if I don't actively dislike them, no matter what names are involved.

Aiji + deniko

Try to imagine this, gentlemen:

There is a spaceship that took off from a planet 17,000 light years away from our solar system, flies by our solar system, then flies on thousands of light years away, not giving a damn about our star and its planets. The spaceship is just on a very long journey. We don't know where it exactly came from and where it's exactly headed. It's just minding its own business. That's kind of what I'm doing here. I'm here to contribute. End of the story. All I can guarantee you is that I'm not a teenager anymore (I'm a mature and a reasonable person, I don't do things to antagonize people - I tell the truth in the person's face) and that I don't have bad intentions towards Tatoeba. What else can I do? What can I do beyond this?

As I said: I am not deliberately copying that admin's sentences to make them near-duplicates. Their occurrence is accidental (and somewhat inevitable). While I'm adding sentences, I come across my own sentences all the time with this message that pops up: "Your sentence was not added because the following already exists." So please let the man work and let the spaceship carry on its long journey. The guys who are onboard the ship love the galaxy (Tatoeba) and they wouldn't like to be distracted by this little star that's just in the middle of nowhere for them for they have a very, very long journey to make.

I hope this has been clear.

P.S. I like your idea of translating both sentences, deniko.

> While a simple way to avoid this one fight is to simply
> not translate the sentences involving Tom, Mary, Sami
> and Layla lives...

That’s actually what I’m doing: I try to avoid translating sentences with the names Tom and Mary because I feel there are too many of these.

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Most of Tom and Mary and Sami and Layla sentences would be perfectly fine if all those names were replaced by third-person pronouns. This is what I've been doing with my Latin sentences.

I'm not saying that using names is wrong, though.

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Alexmarcelo & Impersonator

I think that we should let the corpus be just natural. Names, pronouns... it shouldn't matter much. Also when I try to avoid a certain type of sentence, I often don't find much to translate.

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+1

I wonder why some people here don't make effort to produce much better & longer sentences than "Tom ran away". That would help us all to learn languages better, both spoken & written.

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You could also visit my corpus with these long sentences:

https://tatoeba.org/eng/sentenc...rt_reverse=yes

Note that all my sentences will eventually be translated into Arabic. You're welcome to translate them into Berber-Tamazight, the other official language of Algeria. This way, we would have a wonderful trilingual corpus that could be very helpful for Algerian students who are willing to learn any of those three languages. You could also help translate a few sentences into Arabic or French if you want. I'd be glad to see that, too.

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I'd also be glad to see that (the last sentence, obviously ^^) although it'd be hard to proofread such a combination.

+1

Hi Alan.
I wish a quick recovery for your family member and welcome back.

you know, we started our locale (Kabyle) within some open projects and among them common voice to bring the kab language within STT and TTS tools (all Mozilla's projects are now localized into Kabyle) and we never got any resistance due to the graph chart, language name.... we just wanted a good scientific job.

We can"t gather together multiple individual languages in one corpora for linguistic reasons (phonology, grammar structure... and so on). We also seeking to develop learning tools involving kab language( (Android, iOS, online...) so we have to get a separated corpora. Other projects involving the kab language dealing with Pos Tag, Grammar and Semantics are also on the Pipe.

So I beg tatoeba memebers to let the other members work their own corpora. We don't need to copy, but when sentences within 2 languages are same, It's normal within berber and kabyle since berber is a macrolanguage and not individual. If people speaking these languages ( Central Atlas Tamazight, Standard Moroccan Tamazight, Tachawit, Tumzabt, Tamasheq, Tarifit, Tachelhit, Nafusi, Awjilah, Ghadamès, Judeo-Berber, Tidikelt Tamazight, Temacine Tamazight, Siwi.... ) join the berber corpora, every one will write his own sentence with his own morphology and grammar and read it with it's own phonology system.

Berber corpora is a good project for some tasks and we encourage the team to go on with its work, but let our team members working on their own corpus and select the graph chart that fits them.

As you said, we also don't want to start our own tatoeba platform just because some people don't like.

Thanks for everyone.
M. Belkacem

I10N Admin for the kab locale on Mozilla
Admin of the Kabyle locale on LibreOffice
Member of several I10N Kab teams

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Thank you for your good wishes.

I hope you don't think I was criticizing you. Your approach and your reasons for choosing a separate language seem quite sensible to me. Your statement that you encountered no resistance suggests that you communicated with existing members of the community beforehand, which is great. However, I'm not quite sure what you mean by a "graph chart". Did you mean the flag icon associated with the language?

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@AlanF_US, better late than never: I wish a quick recovery for your mother.

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Thank you.

The problem of identifying as "one" (one kabyle locale, one team, etc.) is that when one of "your" overzealous member is going wild, the bad impression sticks to "the team".
Identifying as "a team" on an open community intercultural website seems to me a pretty good way to start making people turn their back.
So if somebody is not part of "the team", he cannot write kabyle sentences?
If somebody is not part of "the team", he cannot say anything about the kabyle corpus on Tatoeba? Since "ce ne sont pas ses oignons", to quote one of yours.
If somebody (let's say a kabyle speaker) DOES NOT WANT to be part of "your team", what is he supposed to be?
And so many other questions that one poor wandering lamb could wonder...

As Alan said, here is not like Wikipedia or others where one group works on his stuff and that's it, everybody's happy when it's running. Everybody works together by the mere definition of Tatoeba. Lately, we've got some people asking to be "left alone" - on the principle of freedom - when people tell them anything, but going that way is not very "community-friendly" if you want my opinion.

Of course, I don't have anything against the Kabyle corpus, just as I don't have anything against any corpus. (As long as you're careful when adding French sentences! ^^)

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Aiji:
You have noticed that problem, and it's your message that I choose as a departure point to formally ask Tatoeba to change the flag of Kabyle on

the website.

@cueyayotl @MessDjaaf @BakirHamou @Nassimus @kouriet15 @Uyezjen @Ubezwi1 @samir_t @HocineBenamer @Mqidec

If the flag of the PKK can't represent the Kurdish language, then even the flag of the MAK (Movement of the Self-Determination of Kabylie) shouldn't and can't represent the Kabyle variety/language.

The MAK is a political movement which seeks the creation of an independent state in Kabylie. This political movement far from being popular in Kabylie and Algeria. If some of the members of the Kabyle variety/language aren't supporters of this openly separatist movement, then Tatoeba (as a website) should absolutely change this flag.

A few weeks ago, a member of the Kabyle variety/language team named Mqidec mailed me in private on Tatoeba and asked me if I could do anything to change the language flag for Kabyle. When he noticed that nothing was done immediately, he chose to leave the team and the website altogether and I felt that that was a loss for Tatoeba as a project.

My friend and colleague MessDjaaf also mailed me about this issue and that was one of the reasons that led him to leave the Kabyle team.

Some have told me that since the language I am contributing in on Tatoeba is Berber/Tamazight, then I shouldn't involve myself in this issue.

Well, I consider that I have the right to get involved into the sensitive issue for the following reasons:

1- As an Algerian citizen, I am Kabyle myself. The Amazigh variety I speak is Kabyle and as a Kabyle, I consider that I have my say in anything regarding Kabyle, Kabyles, and Kabylie in general.

2- Participating in the name of the Amazigh language shouldn't exclude me from participating in discussions and useful and valuable information exchange between me and the other Tatoeba members that are participating under the Kabyle variety/language label.

3- Since the MAK's (Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie) reputation has been significantly tarnished by the call of its historic leader, Ferhat Mehenni, last June, for the setting up of armed militia in Kabyle (in preparation for an armed conflict?), supporting this
potentially violent political movement could expose people residing in Algeria to legal issues. This is extremely important and Tatoeba shouldn't be dragged into an ongoing and potentially dangerous political issue that might also personally affect some of its members. I have been visiting the contributions of the Tatoeba members contributing under the Kabyle variety/language label but I was very reluctant to comment on them and offer help and advice or even ask questions and learn things simply because of that extremely sensitive issue.

This is why, no matter how passionate or overzealous some politicized members of the "Kabyle team" are, and no matter how sacred they consider the symbols of their separatist radical political organization, I personally consider that it is a mistake that Tatoeba accepts the use of this flag as a language flag on this website.

Here is a link to a newspaper article (in French) covering the call of Ferhat Mehenni, the founder of the movement, for the setting up of armed militia (euphemestically referred to as "constraint groups"):

http://www.lematindalgerie.com/...ps-de-securite

Here is a link to an article (in French, too) showing some reactions to Mehenni's call:

https://algeriepart.com/2018/06...imite-algerie/

For your reminder, back in 1991, and right before the beginning of Algeria's civil war started by armed Islamist groups, Islamist activists used to organize rallies, dressed in Afghan combat fatigues and marching like the troops of an army. Just months later, thousands of them became militants, took to the mountains, and started Algeria's civil war that cost the lives of more than 200,000 people. Therefore, such calls are unwelcome and political movements that stand behind them shouldn't be promoted in any way.

Keeping the MAK flag on Tatoeba could give a very bad image to the website especially for Algerians visiting or using/contributing to the website.

This is why I publically ask you, @cueyayotl, to please change this flag. If somebody from the "team" claims that they are apolitical, then they should accept the change of the flag and that would be an absolute proof of their "apoliticalness."

Thank you
Amastan

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I'm seeing a lot of @username in Wall messages, so I'd like to make sure people are aware: if you @someone from the Wall, they will *not* receive email notifications. This notification feature only exists for the comments on sentences.

On the Wall, the only notification that is sent is a notification to the author of the message you're replying to.

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As we (Tatoeba members) use this a lot, wouldn't that be great if "pings" work on the Wall as well? Shouldn't we add a ticket on GitHub?

https://github.com/Tatoeba/tatoeba2/issues/1961

En quoi le drapeau Kabyle dérange t-il les responsables de Tatoeba? répondez moi objectivement ? car là ou vont les choses, vous êtes entrain d'ouvrir la boite de pandore qui risque de s'ouvrir sur Tatoeba entre certaines communautés qui sont en conflit avec d'autres sur leurs territoires respectifs (pour des raisons qui leurs sont propres mais,généralement d'ordre identitaire,linguistique...) Et vous le savez très bien, que cette cabale anti-kabyle est absolument politique voir idéologique qui n'a rien de scientifique.

Je vous demande de vous éloigner de ce faux débat qui ne rime à rien et qui fatigue tout le monde sauf ceux qui l'ont provoqué!!

Je vous demande de voir le travail accompli par notre fabuleuse équipe de divers horizons (scientifiques,artisans, étudiants,professeurs,retraités...) n'est ce pas que ça crée de la jalousie?

Je vis en France, un pays ouvert avec ses diversités multiples ,une société extraordinairement et humainement attachante ou chacun à des droits et des devoirs,ou chaque région à son propre drapeau,sa propre langue... Peut-on dire aux Corses de retiré leurs drapeau,aux Bretons de retiré leur drapeau... et pourtant en Corse vous avez les séparatistes,en Bretagne aussi... donc voyez-vous ici,nous buttons sur la logique et le principe d'une plateforme comme la votre qui devrait plutôt imposer sa voix et dire que ici il n y a point de place à la haine,à la politique... ce qui compte c'est le travail qui ce fait.

Je vous pris de croire en ma profonde sincérité et vous demande de clore le débat car vous êtes les seuls à le faire.

Cordialement,

Alem

Please keep current kabyle flag icon.
Best regards !

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