Hey,
Is there something wrong with the wikis? I was trying to do
some writing on ang.wikibooks.org, and ang.wiktionary.org and they don't
work. Are they down right now, or did something else happen?
Thanks,
James
On Mon, February 21, 2005 1:13 am, Sheng Jiong said:
>>> And remind you, if you have not already known, one of Chinese
>>> Wikipedia's founding member, [[User:Lorenzarius]], was from Hong Kong.
>>> And he was one of the main opposer of splitting Chinese Wikipedia
>>> into Simplified and Traditional version before there was a conversion
>>> script. And [[User:Tomchiukc]] is still an active Hong Kong
>>> Wikipedian.
>>>
>> I don't understand why that is relevant to the issue.
>>
>> I will very much like to hear their opinions on this issue. They may
>> bring some good insights. Can you invite them or should I?
>
> Sorry, I misread your words. I thought you mean that there are only 3
> Hong Kong Wikipedians in Chinese Wikipedia.
>
> I think mailing list now has become a place that is not so useful for
> discussions: there are only a few left who is speaking on this issue.
> I think we can have a page on meta to discuss the issue, and we can
> bring in more people who are interested (and are kept unaware of the
> issue).
>
I think that will be a good idea. I certainly want to hear opinions from
more people. What is the proper procedure to start a page on meta to
discuss the issue? Is there any name space restriction or things like that?
Perhaps a sub page of [[Requests for new languages]]?
> For decision making, the board has the right to have the final say.
> But in most cases I think we should let the community decide first,
> and it can take the form of either consensus(if we can reach in the end),
> or a vote(which is not a preferred way of resolution, but in my opinion
> better than a board decision).
>
> I think it is meaningless to continue arguing about the same things
> again and again, since none of us is likely to change our opinions now.
> So I have summarised some points that I think both sides can
> agree on (feel free to correct me, or add in more):
>
> 1. The current Chinese Wikipedia is purely written in Baihuawen, which
> is largely based on Mandarin.
>
> 2. Baihuawen is unversially understood by all literate Chinese,
> regardless of the dialects they speak.
>
> 3. Although written Cantonese is used, especially in informal
> writings, it is still uncommon for people to use Cantonese as a
> formal writing (eg. newspaper articles/books/academic works)
>
Not going into the details, I generally agree with the above statements.
Assuming good faith, I will take your previous assertions like "written
Cantonese does not exist" or "Cantonese is not a written language" as
hyperbole, a figure of speech.
The reason to give examples of written Cantonese was to prove its
existence and illustrate it extent of usage, not to prove that it is
as widely used now as Baihuawen was in the 1920s.
> Then we shall summaries our differences, have more debate if
> necessary. And a consensus cannot be reached. let us put it to a vote.
>
> formulax
>
More discussion is always good, but I am not sure whether a vote will
be fair when people speaking a minority language wants to start a new
Wikipedia. People speaking the majority language will always win if they
want to.
Another important question is: who should be eligible to vote? The whole
Wikimedia community? The zh: community? Everyone who can speak Chinese?
Felix Wan
First of all, forgive me if I'm on the wrong mailing list or asking in
the wrong place. I couldn't really find anywhere to ask about what's
happening. I'm not a regular contributor but lurks a lot :)
Some changes I've added just prior to the power failure aren't
appearing in the main article, while there seems to be records in the
history, requests for diff returns database errors.
My particular case was an article on MB boardgame
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Crusadehttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Space_Crusade&action=history
Changes on 21/02/2005 are all missing :(
It's no big deal if this can't be recovered, I'll just write again :)
But I'm curious whether this is the only case.
jliu
Our first quarter 2005 fund drive officially started at midnight UTC Friday
morning.
On Day 0 (Thursday eastern US timezone since PayPal data are not available in
UTC) we made $1,023.19 (USD) through PayPal (other sources unknown). As of
right now we have generated a total of $7,043.80 in the fund drive (PayPal
only; other sources unknown), so Day 1 looks like it will be big.
Some choice comments from Day 0:
See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fund_drives/2005/Q1/Day_0
"Amazing. I've spent many many hours here over the last couple months learning
about our world. Please keep it up!" by Sean Vaughan
"I wanted to be the first" by Daniel Wool (hi Danny!)
"I have learned so much from this site. I used to be frustrated because I
couldn't read about things on sites like Encarta, but now I can and it's all
here." by Anonymous
"I absolutely love Wikipedia, I have never donated to anything before but I
gladly do to this!" by Anonymous
"WikiPeida rocks!" by David Ouziel
And my personal favorite:
"May the fleas of a thousand camels infest the underpants of your enemies"
by Christopher J Hutten Czaps
Daniel Mayer,
Wikimedia CFO
PS - there still is much translating work to do at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/WMF/Fundraising_pages
__________________________________________________
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hello,
all projects will be offline at some point today while routine network
maintenance is being performed. this is not expected to last more than an
hour or so.
apologies for any inconvenience...
kate.
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but we have found a
copyright violation on cy.wikipedia and have no way other than deleting
the entire article to remove it from the history, which we would rather
not do.
What is the approved method of getting rid of copyvios on small
Wikipedias? Do we have to attract a developer's attention somehow? Just
in case someone here is able to help us, the article in question is
[[cy:Dewi Sant]] and we want to get rid of all versions from 18 February
except the oldest.
--
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/
On Sat, February 19, 2005 8:49 pm, Sheng Jiong said:
>> I believe that earlier on Sheng Jiong claimed that there is not even
>> one book written entirely in Cantonese. Now obviously he has raised the
>> bar: even if X books are written in Cantonese, those are exceptions. I
>> don't know how many will be significant.
>
> It would be sufficient if there begins a movement calling native
> Cantonese/Hong Kong writers to write in Cantonese (as in the May
> Fourth Movement, when scholars abaondoned classic Chinese and write in
> baihuawen), and when there start to be newspapers printed in Cantonese,
> scholars writing academic essays in Cantonese.
>
If you say that, then I can understand your requirement.
No, the level of acceptance of written Cantonese has not reached that of
baihuawen at the time of May Fourth Movement yet.
> Basically anyone with a common sense would know if Cantonese is widely
> accepted as a written language. But obviously you are deliberately
> making that seems difficult.
>
No, I was not making it difficult. I was just expressing my frustration,
and trying to present an accurate image of how much written Cantonese is
accepted.
What was frustrating was that sometimes you said Cantonese did not meet
such and such requirement, and then when someone provided prove that it
did, you switched and said that that was an exception.
>> Even if we can find a school teaching written cantonese, I believe that
>> will be an exception. He may require that it must happen in
>> government sponsored grade schools.
>
>> If we can many articles written in Cantonese, he may require a
>> newspaper or magazine written completely in Cantonese. And if there is
>> one, then of course that on newspaper is an exception.
>
> Do you have common sense? If you decide today to found a school
> teaching only in Cantonese and have a grand total of 2 students, do you
> take it as a proof that Cantonese has been widely accepted?
>
Of course I will not take that as a proof. However, even common sense
can differ from person to person. If a university in Hong Kong starts
to offer courses on written Cantonese, I will count that as very
significant proof of acceptance, will you? That evidence *alone* will
not proof *wide* acceptance though.
> You are purposely missing my central point of argument: Cantonese
> written language is not widely accepted. The rest are examples/proofs that
> they are not accepted. You try to prove me wrong on giving a
> counter-example to my example, but that does not touch the basis of my
> argument. Because you failed to prove it has been *widely* accepted.
>
I was not purposely missing your central point of argument because I
stated that clearly in the later part of my email, but either you forgot
to remove that comment after you read that part, or you purposely left
it there so that if I forgot to reply, people may get the impression that
I was really missing your point.
> Anyone can invent a language. If five people invented an artificial
> language and decide to set up a Wikipedia using that language, do we allow
> it? Of course Cantonese is quite different as you are just trying to write
> in the way you talk, and I have no problem with that if everybody does
> this. But the thing is, has this idea been accepted? Apparently no.
>
Apparently that is not done by everyone, but some people. That means
this idea has been accepted by some people. If the Wikimedia community
wants, we can set up criteria and start to measure the level of acceptence.
>> I understand that the main point of Sheng Jiong is that Cantonese has
>> to be widely accepted as a written language before we consider using it
>> to write Wikipedia. However, we all understand that there are different
>> degrees of acceptance. How much acceptance is enough?
>
> That is my main point. And I agree that it is impossible to give an
> accurate definition regarding the acceptance level. But we can all tell
> that Cantonese as written language is not yet accepted widely enough.
> Examples include the previous examples I have given. (which you take as
> a "bar" for the set up of Cantonese Wikipedia)
>
We may say that "Cantonese as written language is not as widely accepted
as Baihuawen circa 1920-1930". That is what I believe, and that is an
objective statement verifiable by scholars. But "Cantonese as written
language is not yet accepted widely enough" is a subjective judgement.
What is enough and what is not enough differs from people to people.
>> But if that is not
>> the goal, I will invite the board to read all the arguments, learn the
>> facts, weigh the pros and cons, and make the best decision.
>
> I am not against letting the board making the decision at the end. But
> the Wikipedian tradition should be to let the community decide whenever
> possible.
>
I am confused. First I thought there was a clear guideline on how to
start a new Wikipedia, then I found that it was ambiguious when there is
opposition, then I found this mailing list. When I wrote to this mailing
list, of course I am appealing to the community. But then someone here
said that the board will make the final decision. So of course I will
address the board when I state my arguments.
So at the end, who should make the decision?
Felix Wan
Having recently tried a bot run on nn:, I learned that there is a
difference between nb: and no: interwiki links. They both go to
no.wikipedia.org, but nb calls it "Norsk (bokmål)" whereas no calls it
"Norsk". What policy should be used for deciding which one to apply?
Previously, the bot used no: always, I have now changed it to use nb:
if there is also an nn: link (and of course if working on nn:).
Perhaps I should always use nb:? What are people's opinion on this,
both from the no: community and from outside?
Andre Engels