(English explanation follows) " 我正在和开发人员联系，马上在wikimedia commons就可以使用繁简转换的程序。重要的是内容，不是繁简。你可以用繁体翻译一些文章。简体用户也能够看懂。没有必要做重复的劳动。维基百科在没有繁简转换程序的时候也是繁简内容并存的。谢谢你的参与！

--vipuser(talk) 17:47, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

关于wikimeidia commons的名称，是经过维基社区中繁简用户投票最终确定的，并不能按照习惯繁简转换。请参与维基百科了解详细情况，谢谢！)--vipuser (talk) 17:50, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

谢谢你的热心参与，关于繁简的问题在维基中一直都在讨论，也走过不少弯路，请先和其他的维基百科中繁体维基人讨论后再翻译不迟，你可以去中文维基百科咨询一下虎儿，泅水大象等各位使用繁体中文的维基人。他们可能给你一些帮助！谢谢你参与！--vipuser (talk) 17:58, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)"

For those non-Chinese speakers among us, with this vipuser has informed me that there are plans to implement SC<>TC conversion on extra-zh: projects (ie, Meta, Commons, Foundation-l), in conjunction with developers.

This is, for the reasons I've already given, unsatisfactory for these wikis.

So far as I can tell, the only people who have been in direct cooperation in this task are Simplified users.

I think that it is high time that the Wikimedia Foundation took a logical look at the situation and realised that for any activity, users of BOTH SCRIPTS need to be involved.

For example, for advice on the sc/tc issue originally (with the zh-tw: crisis), the Foundation consulted (unofficially I believe) an unnamed-but-supposedly-prominent journalist.

Of course, a journalist must have qualification to deal with grammar, writing, etc, at least to a certain capacity because it's part of their job.

But... what was the journalist's script background? A primary user of Simplified, from the Mainland.

Also, prior to the implementation of script conversion on zhwiki, the Foundation used the fact that most opinions expressed on the ml were that there should be a single Wiki for both varieties as justification for keeping the two unified.

But let's take a look at the demographics involved. All those who expressed opinions clearly in favour of unification were users primarily of Simplified with, I believe, the exception of Andrew Lih. Those who expressed opinions which were not very clear one way or the other were users primarily of Traditional, as far as I know, but there were only a couple of opinions expressed by Traditional users so it wasn't a very representative sample anyhow.

Similarly, on the issue of the Cantonese Wikipedia, the Foundation consulted (again unofficially) a China expert at a prestigious East Asian studies institution.

But, was this person fluent in Cantonese, from a Cantonese area, or specialising in regional (read: "dialectology" -> fangyanxue) issues?

So far as I can tell, no.

If you want to know about the issue of Taiwan independence, would you consult a source from the Mainland or one from Taiwan? Or would you use both in conjunction and use your own judgement to sort out what was most true?

If you wanted to know whether your firm should have separate product localisations for Brazil and Portugal, would you ask a non-expert from one country or rather bring in one person from each country?

In the future, if the Foundation is going to consult anybody in any capacity, I would appreciate it if they would first consider a person's qualifications and if they can be reasonably expected to see the issue from both sides, and in those cases where they cannot, at least two separate people should probably be consulted in conjunction.

Best Mark Williamson

On 02/06/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

Hi all,

I have received a response from VIPUser which I reproduce in full here:

"about sc and tc

please stop clean the translation! the reason: 请问你了解维基百科处理简体中文和繁体中文的原则吗?如果你不清楚建议你到维基百科去了解一下，内容的书写可以暂时使用繁简两种字体，到时候使用程序自动转换就可以。这样可以大大增加中文的有效内容，减少重复的内容和劳动，谢谢! if you can't understand the content, you can do the clean job after you learn some chinese! thank you very much for your attention to the chinese version wikimedia commons!"

What the Chinese part says is that basically asking if I understand Wikipedia's policy towards Simplfied and Traditional Chinese, if I want to know more I can check Chinese Wikipedia, that for temporary purposes it's OK to use both but in the long term conversion... not duplicate content... improve effectiveness... reduce workload... etc.

As a user of primarily Traditional Chinese, I can tell you that, although it is manageable, the conversion software is certainly '''not perfect'''' and that for official press releases, sites like commons, and the like, it's best to have two separate versions.

One simple example is that the Simplified Mainpage on Commons uses Roman numerals for dates and times; the Traditional uses Chinese numerals. In other cases, there are special conversions which need to take place concerning legal terms, computer terms, and all sorts of other things which are not currently covered by the conversion software.

If you go through zh.wikipedia, you'll quickly find that much text is either converted incorrectly or sometimes left entirely unconverted.

I don't complain about it because it's still readable although it's somewhat poor quality.

But in these cases, it's more important that people be able to read content written in a correct manner.

Also keep in mihd that the situation is still basically a majority of Simplified users who, from their point of view, are accommodating for a minority to whom they can't relate - while most Simplified users know Traditional pretty well and don't mind much reading content in it occasionally, Simplified characters are very difficult and grating on the eyes and mind of most people for whom Traditional is their first script: Traditional is occasionally used on the Mainland because it is used in historical documents, calligraphy (theoretically - calligraphic forms are often more similar to the Simplified form), sometimes as titles of books, and to make something seem a little fancy. However, in Taiwan you will never see Simplified with few exceptions. In Hong Kong, it used to be similar to Taiwan. Simplified is becoming more common in Hong Kong and Macao, but still the situation is not the same as the reverse on the mainland because its use is still very rare in HK and Macao. In Singapore, although Simplified is used officially, people actually use both (the same is true in Malaysia).

So while a Simplified user might not mind a page written in Simplified but with some words or phrases in Traditional, the reverse is very annoying and visually displeasing to a Traditional user.

Mark

-- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE