[Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the Wikipedia family

[Toby Bartels]

I haven't voiced an opinion on this yet;
however, I do feel strongly about it.
Now, I disagree with mav often enough that I don't want to appoint him
my diplomatic ambassador in perpetuity for all matters,
but I do want to say that I agree entirely with what he wrote.

(I quote the post that I'm referring to in its entirety below,
lest you confuse it with some other post that maybe I disagree with.
But you can stop reading once you recognise it ^_^.)


-- Toby


Maveric149 wrote:
>I would just like to point out that part of the
>frustration that the current non-English Wikipedians
>seem to feel is that there appears to be a hierarchy
>where the English Wikipedia is considered to be far
>more important than the non-English Wikipedias in
>some. This is also one of the reasons why we had a
>Spanish fork to begin with. Part of the reason why we
>were getting good vibes from them on reunification is
>due to our then tentative plans to move the English
>Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org. So without this small
>concession by us, I don't think there is a good chance
>for them rejoining our project. The English Wikipedia
>won't be harmed by being placed at en.wikipedia.org --
>this is the only fair and neutral thing to do. If the
>English Wikipedia continues to push its weight around
>over these types of issues then there will be other
>forks. How is that for Balkanizaiton?

>As I stated before, the URL thing is symbolic and each
>Wikipedia encyclopedia in my view should be treated as
>siblings. Granted the English Wikipedia is the oldest
>and largest but it shouldn't be vaulted as /The Main/
>Wikipedia with the other languages relegated to second
>class status in The Main Wikipedia's shadow. The Main
>Wikipedia is the /whole/ project which includes all
>languages not just one, no? I furthermore don't see a
>move as Balkanization when we will soon all be on the
>same software, all use the same Metapedia and all have
>interlanguage links going back and forth from all the
>different languages. I now will often take info from
>articles in other languages to update their English
>counterparts and I also see the reverse being done by
>non-English Wikipedias. www.wikipedia.org should be
>home for the Foundation and a portal to each of the
>different language sub-projects as I stated in my
>previous post. The English Wikipedia would be just one
>click away from the portal and so would all the other
>wikipedias. This is only fair.

>--- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)