Mark, so far Wikipedia's been organized around language, and not culture, because the latter would likely jeopardize the goal of NPOV.
NPOV works is because there can only be *one* article about abortion, Gdansk, Diaoyutai or scientology in English. Editors have to come to some type of consensus in that one article. Accommodating "different cultures" with different Wikipedias would be akin to forking and reduce the incentive to arrive at the consensus that makes Wikipedia useful.
-User:Fuzheado
On 7/8/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I would like to ask for some clarification of Wikimedia policy.
Is it considered acceptable to have spearate Wikipedias for different cultures and peoples rather than languages? Are any existing Wikipedias considered in this capacity?
Robin Patterson has asserted on mi: that rather than a Wikipedia in the Maori language, it's intended as a Wikipedia for the Maori people, and thus extensive usage of the English language is OK or even good, since only 5% of Maori people are fluent in Maori.
Similarly, he wanted to add English content to the Samoan Wikipedia because "tens of thousands" of Samoans speak English fluently. It should be noted that neither of these languages are his native languages. Maori, he lists as a Babel template level of 1 (his French and German are better), yet he is the sole administrator at the Maori Wikipedia. He noted on his Samoan userpage that he knows only a handful of Samoan words, yet he tried to apply there for sysop anyways.
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