[Wikipedia-l] New request for Cantonese Wikipedia: vote at 29-6

[Andrew Lih]

On 9/10/05, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> 
> Fact is that any attempt to create a wikipedia for other chinese
> languages  has been torpedo'ed (or they tried to) sofar by mandarin
> speakers. Who seem to agree with the Beijing government that any atempt
> to create information in another Chinese language should be surpressed,
> fact is it is an official policy by the Chinese government to discourage
> the use of anything but Mandarin. Question is should we adhere by the
> policies created in Beijing or use our own independent mindset? 

It is comments like these that worry me, because it means there is
very little knowledge about the ZH.wikipedia community, and of Chinese
language/culture. Chinese is not a language owned by the "Beijing
government."

Waerth, as someone who lives in Asia, you might know that most Chinese
in SE Asia don't like to be referred to as "overseas Chinese" for
exactly this reason. The term "Nanyang Chinese" is mostly preferred,
which basically means Chinese of the Southern Seas. They are not tools
or satellites of Beijing, and do not have any allegiance politically
to the People's Republic of China. So it is fallacious to turn this
into a political issue.

To reaffirm this - at the Wikimania conference, there were as many
Chinese Wikipedians from outside the PRC than from inside - Malaysia,
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Germany, United States. We all got along
swimmingly.

Next week, there will be a meetup of Hong Kong Wikipedians, and we'll
be sure to discuss the issue of Cantonese Wikipedia. If you're in the
neighborhood, stop by. :)
(http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:%E8%81%9A%E4%BC%9A/2005%E9%A6%99%E6%B8%AF%E7%B6%AD%E5%9F%BA%E4%BA%BA%E8%81%9A%E6%9C%83)

I trust you and Node_ue will agree it is a legitimate thing to
discuss, and that the opinion of Hong Kong folks has some relevance to
the Cantonese Wikipedia discussion. But I would not be surprised to
hear objection even to that.

> And yes
> the fact that all ZH.Wikipedians feel that they should be heard on the
> issue makes me feel it is a political issue rather than a normal one.

To my knowledge, "all ZH.Wikipedians" have not collectively come out
with a position on the matter. Nor are they likely to, given the
over-generalization.

> Why do Mandarin speakers feel they have to block
> requests for other sinetic languages? It beats me .... apart from being
> told by their government to be against it. 

Again, see above. Your equating a Mandarin speaker to a PRC citizen is
simply wrong, and likely offensive to many ZH.Wikipedians.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)