John Lee wrote:
"I've never set foot in the US and I've still seen and heard more references to Georgia the state than Georgia the country in my entire life. I think making [[Georgia]] a disambig is a good compromise."
I must disagree. I live in India and I've heard far more about Country Georgia than the US state. This is just like, as someone else said, disambig-ing Paris. An example of demographic bias?
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Molu Bosu Palit stated for the record:
John Lee wrote:
"I've never set foot in the US and I've still seen and heard more references to Georgia the state than Georgia the country in my entire life. I think making [[Georgia]] a disambig is a good compromise."
I must disagree. I live in India and I've heard far more about Country Georgia than the US state. This is just like, as someone else said, disambig-ing Paris. An example of demographic bias?
Yes, demographic bias. As in the bigger region, in population, size, economy, or familiarity to the majority speakers of the encyclopedia's language, gets the primary link.
- -- Sean Barrett | There's very little advice in men's magazines, sean@epoptic.org | because men think, "I know what I'm doing. | Just show me somebody naked!" --Jerry Seinfeld
On 4/11/06, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.org wrote:
Yes, demographic bias. As in the bigger region, in population, size, economy, or familiarity to the majority speakers of the encyclopedia's language, gets the primary link.
Is this a formal policy, I wonder? Is English Wikipedia only intended for English speakers? I didn't think so. Well, not until the other Wikipedias all have a million articles as well.
Steve
On 4/11/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
Is English Wikipedia only intended for English speakers? I didn't think so. Well, not until the other Wikipedias all have a million articles as well.
No, but it is intended *primarily* for English speakers. Let's put this another way: if I were to go to frwiki, I would thoroughly expect topics to be disambiguated with bias towards what French-speakers would generally expect.
I am, however, interested to look at http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9orgie
And they haven't had any controversy.
-- Sam
On Apr 11, 2006, at 12:56 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
Yes, demographic bias. As in the bigger region, in population, size, economy, or familiarity to the majority speakers of the encyclopedia's language, gets the primary link.
Is this a formal policy, I wonder? Is English Wikipedia only intended for English speakers? I didn't think so.
How else, my friend, are people supposed to read the English Wikipedia? If we ever get around to translating en. articles to the other language wikis, we can reorganize them there. I'm sure in the Russian Wikipedia, the country has priority over the state.
On 4/11/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
How else, my friend, are people supposed to read the English Wikipedia? If we ever get around to translating en. articles to the other language wikis, we can reorganize them there. I'm sure in the Russian Wikipedia, the country has priority over the state.
There are a massive number of people in the world who are not "English speakers", but can certainly read it. Hell, I work with lots of them. English is almost certainly the most understood language in the world, if not the most spoken as a first language.
I'm also taking a guess here, but I suspect that for some languages, your best bet to get information would be to use machine translation of EN Wikipedia. I'm not totally positive though, because the languages that have machine translation on google are probably our best Wikipedias as well (German, Spanish, French...) but maybe Portuguese or something.
Damn I wish we had some more stats :) Especially readership stats, if my hunch that there are silent masses reading Wikipedia from other countries without contributing much, is correct.
Steve
On Apr 11, 2006, at 12:37 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
There are a massive number of people in the world who are not "English speakers", but can certainly read it. Hell, I work with lots of them. English is almost certainly the most understood language in the world, if not the most spoken as a first language.
I'm also taking a guess here, but I suspect that for some languages, your best bet to get information would be to use machine translation of EN Wikipedia. I'm not totally positive though, because the languages that have machine translation on google are probably our best Wikipedias as well (German, Spanish, French...) but maybe Portuguese or something.
Damn I wish we had some more stats :) Especially readership stats, if my hunch that there are silent masses reading Wikipedia from other countries without contributing much, is correct.
So we translate en. articles into other languages--and deal with the issues of non-English speakers *then*. You denounce people for being arrogant Americans because they want [[Georgia]] to be a disambiguation page, but then you suggest that non-English speakers should read Wikipedia through *machine translations of the English edition*!?
On 4/11/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
So we translate en. articles into other languages--and deal with the issues of non-English speakers *then*. You denounce people for being arrogant Americans because they want [[Georgia]] to be a disambiguation page, but then you suggest that non-English speakers should read Wikipedia through *machine translations of the English edition*!?
Hi Philip, I don't think I denounced any arrogant Americans. And if I did, I'm not sure what double standard would be committed by suggesting to a speaker of some non-Wikipedia-fied language that he read the English Wikipedia, rather than wandering in the ignorant wilderness.
But that's ok.
Steve
On Apr 11, 2006, at 3:50 PM, Steve Bennett wrote:
So we translate en. articles into other languages--and deal with the issues of non-English speakers *then*. You denounce people for being arrogant Americans because they want [[Georgia]] to be a disambiguation page, but then you suggest that non-English speakers should read Wikipedia through *machine translations of the English edition*!?
Hi Philip, I don't think I denounced any arrogant Americans. And if I did, I'm not sure what double standard would be committed by suggesting to a speaker of some non-Wikipedia-fied language that he read the English Wikipedia, rather than wandering in the ignorant wilderness.
It's not that. It's that the onus shouldn't be on the reader to translate en. for himself: the onus is on us to translate en. for him.
On 4/12/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
It's not that. It's that the onus shouldn't be on the reader to translate en. for himself: the onus is on us to translate en. for him.
Sure. But that's taking a while. In the meantime...
Steve
On 4/11/06, Philip Welch wikipedia@philwelch.net wrote:
On Apr 11, 2006, at 12:56 AM, Steve Bennett wrote:
Yes, demographic bias. As in the bigger region, in population, size, economy, or familiarity to the majority speakers of the encyclopedia's language, gets the primary link.
Is this a formal policy, I wonder? Is English Wikipedia only intended for English speakers? I didn't think so.
How else, my friend, are people supposed to read the English Wikipedia? If we ever get around to translating en. articles to the other language wikis, we can reorganize them there. I'm sure in the Russian Wikipedia, the country has priority over the state.
Actually, http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B6%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B4%D0%B6%D0%B8%D1%8... appears to be about the state, while the country is at http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%8F.
-- Mark [[User:Carnildo]]
On Apr 11, 2006, at 3:14 PM, Mark Wagner wrote:
How else, my friend, are people supposed to read the English Wikipedia? If we ever get around to translating en. articles to the other language wikis, we can reorganize them there. I'm sure in the Russian Wikipedia, the country has priority over the state.
Actually, http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%B6%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%B4%D0%B6%D0%B8%D1%8... appears to be about the state, while the country is at http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B7%D0%B8%D1%8F.
Okay, then the Slovak Wikipedia :)
I'm sure you get my point.