[WikiEN-l] Tower of Babel - Voting to ignore MoS, NCs for language reasons.

[Peter Mackay]

> From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org 
> [mailto:wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Sam Korn
> Sent: Tuesday, 15 November 2005 09:59
> To: English Wikipedia
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Tower of Babel - Voting to ignore 
> MoS,NCs for language reasons.
> 
> On 11/14/05, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> > You appear to think that respecting you means that I have 
> to respect 
> > your opinions. This is not the case.
> 
> Sometimes it pays to say "hmm, I disagree with that.  
> Nevertheless, I can see where he/she/(insert appropriate 
> pronoun here) is coming from, so I'll respect his/her/(ditto) 
> opinion.  Maybe that will make people more keen to respect mine."
> 
> If you want people to respect you, respect them.  If you want 
> people to respect your opinions, respect theirs.
> 
> Civility is not really that hard, and would make many people 
> much happier.

The more I learn of Wikipedia and the WP community, the more I think that
true wisdom lies not in being "right", but in finding a way to gain
consensus.

These sort of nit-picking skirmishes on minor details have the potential to
brew up into major wars. This particular one looks like a prime candidate
for WP:LAME. I honestly couldn't care which name is right. As an English
speaker, I would have thought that Ivory Coast would be the name we'd use
and Cote d'Ivoire the "local" name we'd use in the template. But there seem
to be arguments for both usages, and I cannot say that I am (or want to be)
an expert on the matter.

But, um, who really cares? From a usability point of view, readers seeking
information on this quaint nation will get to the same article whichever
name they type in. Isn't that the main thing?

Much to my bemusement, I see on the discussion page for the article that
this dispute has been running for over a year, and the article retains its
French name. Has anything changed recently to upset what is presumably
enough of a consensus to see stability for twelve months or so?

However, so long as the discussion remains civil, *shrug*

Peter (Skyring)