In an article for Wired, Nathaniel Tkacz conducts an interview with an early Spanish Wikipedian, Edgar Enyedy, who led a couple of dozen in leaving the project to create a major fork in 2002. This is followed by responses by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-01/20/wikipedia-spanish-fork
See also this English Wikipedia article about the fork:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enciclopedia_Libre_Universal_en_Espa%C3%B1ol
On 20/01/2011 20:18, Tony Sidaway wrote:
In an article for Wired, Nathaniel Tkacz conducts an interview with an early Spanish Wikipedian, Edgar Enyedy, who led a couple of dozen in leaving the project to create a major fork in 2002. This is followed by responses by Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-01/20/wikipedia-spanish-fork
I must be very naive not to have realised, all this time, that the so-called "English Wikipedia" was actually the "American Wikipedia". Or could that nomenclature reveal a somewhat suspicious starting point?
I do think that the early history of WP is quite a good example of why we need historians, not just more self-serving memoirs. Even then I doubt we'll fully understand why things turned out the way they did.
Charles
On 21 January 2011 17:24, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I do think that the early history of WP is quite a good example of why we need historians, not just more self-serving memoirs. Even then I doubt we'll fully understand why things turned out the way they did.
I must say, I found it made things a lot clearer to see that it was Larry Sanger. Who, in his 2011 reply, insisted advertising was the right idea *even though it made an entire language community get up and leave*. Such community management skills are truly remarkable.
- d.
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-01/20/wikipedia-spanish-fork?page=1
Interesting. This article could be titled "Spanish Fork: In which Edgar Enyedy made Wikipedia what it is today." Who knew his unilateral decision to take things out of context and proportion was the crucial determining factor in the future of the English Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation?
On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 12:35 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 21 January 2011 17:24, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
I do think that the early history of WP is quite a good example of why we need historians, not just more self-serving memoirs. Even then I doubt we'll fully understand why things turned out the way they did.
I must say, I found it made things a lot clearer to see that it was Larry Sanger. Who, in his 2011 reply, insisted advertising was the right idea *even though it made an entire language community get up and leave*. Such community management skills are truly remarkable.
- d.
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On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 2:21 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-01/20/wikipedia-spanish-fork?page=1
Interesting. This article could be titled "Spanish Fork: In which Edgar Enyedy made Wikipedia what it is today." Who knew his unilateral decision to take things out of context and proportion was the crucial determining factor in the future of the English Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation?
So I guess climbing the Reichstag *does* work sometimes!
On 21 January 2011 19:32, Gwern Branwen gwern0@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 21, 2011 at 2:21 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-01/20/wikipedia-spanish-fork?page=1 Interesting. This article could be titled "Spanish Fork: In which Edgar Enyedy made Wikipedia what it is today." Who knew his unilateral decision to take things out of context and proportion was the crucial determining factor in the future of the English Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation?
So I guess climbing the Reichstag *does* work sometimes!
Yes, but you have to make sure your Spiderman costume is individual and sincere. Also, you have to wait in the queue of fellow prospective climbers.
- d.
'I must be very naive not to have realised, all this time, that the so-called "English Wikipedia" was actually the "American Wikipedia". Or could that nomenclature reveal a somewhat suspicious starting point?'
I don't see a problem with that choice of words. While there are large numbers of non-American contributors much of the English Wikipedia is about subjects of interest to American writers and written from a largely American point of view. I would not be surprised if this were even more pronounced in the early days. Note that Enyedy refers to the early Spanish Wikipedia as being padded with English language text, which must indeed have been jarring to Spanish speakers, and perhaps especially to Europeans.
America is a very big part of the English speaking world so it's okay that there is a heavy emphasis on American culture in Wikipedia. In the context of the early Spanish Wikipedia however, it probably made very little sense.
On 23/01/2011 05:13, Tony Sidaway wrote:
'I must be very naive not to have realised, all this time, that the so-called "English Wikipedia" was actually the "American Wikipedia". Or could that nomenclature reveal a somewhat suspicious starting point?'
I don't see a problem with that choice of words. While there are large numbers of non-American contributors much of the English Wikipedia is about subjects of interest to American writers and written from a largely American point of view. I would not be surprised if this were even more pronounced in the early days.
(Something odd about your citing here, Tony.) Actually I think that misrepresents the history. The early days of the English Wikipedia featured a large proportion of non-native speakers of English contributing.
Anyway NPOV is not negotiable, as we know. There is systemic bias towards American topics, as there is towards Anglospheric topics more generally, but that is another issue. (It is true that American sensibilities on 9/11 were treated with kid gloves for a while.)
Charles
Re: The early days of the English Wikipedia featured a large proportion of non-native speakers of English contributing.
Not just the early days, one can't spend long at new page patrol in particular without coming across an amazing variety of nationalities of authors. I suspect a couple of things drive this, firstly the English Wikipedia as the first and largest and most widely read is also in some ways a shared repository - people translate articles into English from everywhere and I suspect they then get translated all over wikimedia. Secondly I rather suspect that a lot of editors have at least a secondary motivation of improving their writing skills in the language they are editing in - I might try and get a question on this into one of our user surveys.
WereSpielChequers
On 23 January 2011 13:39, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 23/01/2011 05:13, Tony Sidaway wrote:
'I must be very naive not to have realised, all this time, that the so-called "English Wikipedia" was actually the "American Wikipedia". Or could that nomenclature reveal a somewhat suspicious starting point?'
I don't see a problem with that choice of words. While there are large numbers of non-American contributors much of the English Wikipedia is about subjects of interest to American writers and written from a largely American point of view. I would not be surprised if this were even more pronounced in the early days.
(Something odd about your citing here, Tony.) Actually I think that misrepresents the history. The early days of the English Wikipedia featured a large proportion of non-native speakers of English contributing.
Anyway NPOV is not negotiable, as we know. There is systemic bias towards American topics, as there is towards Anglospheric topics more generally, but that is another issue. (It is true that American sensibilities on 9/11 were treated with kid gloves for a while.)
Charles
I think we're in basic agreement on this. My point is that Americans form the largest single block of English speakers. More than that, this leads to an American cultural hegemony particularly in the sciences and popular culture, though other nationalities often punch above their weight.
I think Charles' point about the immediate after-effects of the September 11, 2001 atrocity needs some expansion. That event has exercised a narrowing effect on our view of history and of contemporary events, particularly in the anglosphere, which will only become apparent in time. The collective loss of perspective has been truly shocking in the internal affairs of several English-speaking countries, and this has been beyond the scope of application of the neutral point of view because it has been so pervasive. There's nothing we can or should do about that, it just is, but it does have significance for differences of perspective in other encyclopedias.
On 29/01/2011 18:23, Tony Sidaway wrote:
<snip>
I think Charles' point about the immediate after-effects of the September 11, 2001 atrocity needs some expansion.
Maybe so, but I wasn't trying to make a broad-brush point. [[Wikipedia:9/11 victims]] should give anyone not around at the time some idea of the issues enWP faced.
Charles
On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 2:59 PM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
On 29/01/2011 18:23, Tony Sidaway wrote:
<snip> > I think Charles' point about the immediate after-effects of the > September 11, 2001 atrocity needs some expansion. Maybe so, but I wasn't trying to make a broad-brush point. [[Wikipedia:9/11 victims]] should give anyone not around at the time some idea of the issues enWP faced.
There was a memorial wiki as well, which eventually was locked, I think. A link is on the page Charles mentioned. FWIW, Wikipedia's approach to articles on the victims of a disaster/atrocity is fairly consistent. In general there needs to have been prior coverage that would have warranted an article, for such text to survive as an independent article.
Carcharoth