----Message d'origine----
Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 16:11:01 +0200
De: GerardM <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>
Hoi,
This seems to be yet another fine mess that the Commons crowd is
getting itself into. The question is when will they learn that they
are serving the other projects and that their good intentions have
resulted in projects NOT adopting Commons because of the fiendly
cooperation as it is perceived.
What do they think they achieve by doing this? Is this in the interest
of the projects? Is this the considered opinion of the Commons
community or is it a solitary excercise? It is indeed a great way of
creating more hostility.
Thanks,
GerardM
I think one should be prudent on whether Wikimedia Commons is
or is not a "community". Personally I would consider Commons as
a confederacy of communities, rather than a single community. If
you consider Commons as a single community, you will hear only
the voice of the stronger ones, that is the English native speakers
and the Other-native-language+English-bilingual people. You will
quite never hear the voice of the strictly non bilingual non-English
speakers.
The person that made the changes has done a lot of good jobs on
Commons and has therefore an authoritative voice. The issue has
been discussed on the English speaking village pump of Commons.
But should we consider the English speaking village pump of
Commons as an authoritative voice in a multilingual project, which
includes tiny minority languages, and also somewhat less tiny
minority languages yet less active and dynamic than the English
speaking community (and represented there mostly by bilingual
people, non bilingual people being almost absent and
underrepresented if not unrepresented) ?
Or should we say that these languages communities are not
included, but merely tolerated under restricting conditions in a
basically English-speaking Wikimedia Commons project ?