Hi!
I think the case of "local political
extremism" is actually the most
clear-cut case in which we *must not* have two separate Wikipedias.
That is a recipe for a non-neutral encyclopedia, akin to having an
encyclopedia for a particular political party, which is contrary to our
basic goals.
In principle I can only agree. I'm currently studying a number of eastern
European wikies and I hope to publish some first results pretty soon. They
are quite scary, indeed.
Anyway, as a matter of fact, we do have but two ways out this:
1) two separate independent and opposed fields
2) brute force (an international "protectorate"?)
As for WMF, principles are principles, too bad we also have facts, of which
reality is made. And reality is that WMF hosts:
1)
sr.wikipedia.org
2)
hr.wikipedia.org
3)
sh.wikipedia.org
Which one(s) should be deleted, redirected, enclosed in another, if any?
We are also hosting a
be.wiki.org whose graphic conventions are not
corresponding to the ISO code it uses (actually there is no ISO code for the
version we host, since it's not even the pre-revolutionary graphic
convention, and an ad-hoc code should be requested for it), while we keep
waiting until forever in the incubator the version in the official graphic
convention.
It's lots of interesting things we do, apart from having MO-RO carnivals...
What we mostly miss is a policy regarding our pillars. We do have wikies
that publish calls to racial hatred and we do absolutely nothing about it.
As a result, we have full admin structures taking up a totalitarian control
of entire cultures (within wmf). Why? The answer is simple: because we don't
care.
All that is interesting to us is whether we are the 6th or the 7th place in
the Alexa bar, and how much money Coca Cola will give us for that. So it's
no wonder if in the end such embarrassing things happen and never get
solved. It's not about single people; this is what is interesting to the
community itself, as it becomes evident by analyzing what is DONE, and not
just what is said.
It's normal. A wiki reflects the culture writing it. Most westerners do not
give a damn about anyone but themselves. And this is the outcome. Can't see
why one should be astonished this...
Berto 'd Sera
Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html