Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
If there is a significant population of people who can not read/write standard written Chinese, but *can* read/write Cantonese in some writing system that is different, then I want to learn about that, because that would be a very compelling factor in the other direction.
Well, it shouldn't be necessary that they *can't* read/write standard written Chinese, merely that they there's some significant population that prefers another writing system. We don't shut down the Irish Wikipedia just because nearly all Irish speakers can also speak English (and in fact a large majority speak primarily English)---the fact that there are people who can read/write Irish and wish to do so is sufficient.
-Mark