Anthere wrote:
Kurt Jansson wrote:
I think it's very important that the people
(often just one or two)
working on a new international Wikipedia are already indoctrinated with
our ideals (or have a social Wp-habitus, if that sounds nicer ;-).
Hum Kurt, I have no idea what "Wp-habitus" means. But I would strongly
suggest not to use the word indoctrination.
First because, it smells Stalinism, Goulag and little red book (but
maybe it doesnot smell that way in english ?)
These connotations of "indoctrination" depend on the context. I would
object if such a sentence were used in and article, but not on the
mailing list where it is clearly informal and reflects a developed set
of habits rather than something that has been imposed by higher powers.
Lars Aronsson
wrote:
I think this is an important question, and my best suggestion is to
appoint one or two ambassadors for each language, who can act as
site owners towards the other users and as translators/reporters to
Bomis and developers. Therefore I welcome the newly set up embassies.
Ah, and who do you think would appoint a "site owner" ???
Ambasadors as site owners seems like a contradiction in terms. Talking
about directors of a non-profit organization would make more sense.
With a non-profit corporation, the corporation would become the owner
rather than any individual. One criterion should be that no one country
should have 50% or more of the directors. This may conflict with a
frequent requirement that a majority of directors be from within the
incorporating jurisdiction, but this varies considerably (at least
across North America). If this becomes a problem a little jurisdiction
shopping would be in order.
Jimbo ? I think it will be perceived the wrong way by
most...
People on this list ? most internat wikipedians would probably
consider it an anglosaxon decision
Internat wikipedians themselves ? They could appoint anybody with a
good reputation, rather than somebody caring about these "ideals".
Self-appointement ? Reporting and translating is one thing. "Owning"
is another.
The first set of directors might very well be arbitrary, but one of its
duties would be to develop a set of rules acceptable by Wikipedians for
the naming of future directors.
I believe that in addition to directors, the group should also have a
set of Trustees. They would not normally have corporate decision making
powers, but would be in a position to step in to ensure survival of the
project if the directors completely screw up. Their right to step in
would need to be strictly defined.
Maintaining the
neutral point of view and avoiding copyright
violations should be the easiest part of the job.
Nope, I, unfortunately, do not think so. People are not naturally
neutral. That is not so bad when many people can work at the same time
on an article (though...). But just *defining* neutrality is an issue
on the french wiki. If you are sure it is easy, and if you speak
french, come and help me please. Right now, it is on hold till
courage, time and opportunity come back :-)
You're right! Defining neutrality will always be a problem. Don't
think that the English Wikipedia is exempt just because it's bigger.
People with prejudices never see them as prejudices. As for copyright,
protecting the GFDL nature of Wikipedia copyrights is a far greater
challenge than catching copyright violations by contributors.
But how strict
are the non-English Wikipedias on issues such as
"Wikipedia is not a
dictionary" (not a gazetteer, not a product
catalog, not a consumer
report, etc.)?
Some of us support it is also a dictionary... :-)
I would consider three of these four to be secondary issues where
different languages could easily develop their own guidelines. Product
catalog is a different matter because it relates to issues of
advertising and consumerism
Is it or will
there be a problem to assert authority
to weed out poor contributions in the small and slow-growing
non-English Wikipedias?
I rather support keeping poor contributions, they might grow better in
time.
Yes. Who makes the judgement that something is a "poor" contributions?
Asserting authority would certainly be worse than anything we have now.
The ones complaining so much about the poor articles should simply
improve them themselves. If they feel that there are so many that they
don't have enough time to improve them, that's their problem for being
such perfectionists. Maybe they should just lighten up.
The fact is I think most contributors basically agree
with the main
issues (such as encyclopedia, collaboration, neutrality, consensus)
but they are not necessarily the ones that speak up. When you are a
small number, the effect of somebody speaking loudly to challenge
these "ideals" gets a lot of power, far too much power on others. I
don't think a central power "asserting authority" will solve that
point : some contributors just don't want to hear anything about what
an english might have said on that subject (like Jimbo's opinion on
what neutrality is), they just consider that, being on an
international wikipedia, their opinion has more weight.
Most political revolutions, coups-d'état, etc. are the work of dedicated
minorities, without regard to where they come from on the political
spectrum. Naturally, they want to diminish the influence of those with
opposing points of view. The large majority of people is not
confrontational, and they prefer the path of least resistance. The
majority will concede issues where they disagree for the simple purpose
of avoiding a fight. This can be a problem for a small group that has
not enough strong-willed people with opposing views. I think each
language group will need to deal with these problems separately, and,
apart from the need to adhere to a very limited number of core
principles, each may end up very different.
Eclecticology