Jimmy Wales wrote:
Constans, Camille (C.C.) wrote:
Each wikipédia has his own rules. Often the same
than en:, but not
everytime. I think each wikipedia must have his own rules. Respecting
some choosed by the wikimedia fundation, npov for instance.
I wanted to just say that although the parameters of this are
naturally open to question, I support this in concept. A lot of
customs (I wouldn't use the word 'rules') are going to be
culture-specific and there are many options where there is no
universally "correct" answer. NPOV is non-negotiable everywhere,
but a lot of the details are going to work out differently in
different languages.
Americans and Japanese people, for example, are culturally very
different. So naturally what is considered rude behavior on the two
wikis is going to be different. Americans wear their shoes in the
house, as filthy as that sounds.
Customs may be different. Things like how deletions are handled, or
bans, and so on: these will vary of course.
But the problems have not been "social", they have been to do with
technical things and principles.
* providing sufficient information on copyright status on image pages
* not using proprietary formats such as PDF
* not using animated images except where essential to *meaning* (eg
article on animation)
* not using colours in tables excessively
* not using fancy formatting (complicates wiki markup, adds no meaning
to articles: en: has this problem with someone who's made fancy borders
in maths theorems, but at least when I complained about it, people on
the en: mailing list AGREED with me.)
* not writing articles from the perspective of a particular country. (A
frequent problem is articles that don't state where a city is, because
it's in the country of the language of the particular WP. Another is the
article on trams on the Swedish WP, which speaks only on trams in Sweden.)
* treating WP as a neutral space: eg not putting up big banners for
holidays which not everyone in the world shares
If these apply to en:, they surely apply everywhere.
The problem is that when people from en: try to pass on these
principles, which en: has set out by sole virtue of it having had more
time to determine them, they are not always well-received.