Mark,
**Intentional Top-post**
May I suggest that you calm down a bit, and actually read what people write?
Your quite lengthy response was entirely based upon things that I
never said, or even thought.
Please re-read what I wrote; I'll quote myself here:
Rich Holton wrote:
I don't think you're thinking clearly here.
Any Wikipedia, any
Wikimedia project, has potential repercussions on the other projects,
and certainly on those who are involved in coordinating and
maintaining those projects.
If native speakers want to start a wiki using the MediaWiki software,
they are of course welcome to. But if it is going to be one of the
WikiMedia Foundation projects, it's an absolute requirement that there
be some community discretion involved.
You will note that nowhere did I mention a vote, or a majority. "Some
community discretion" is a long way from "decided by majority vote." I
was very intentionally non-specific, but in no way did I think or
intend "majority vote." Exactly what form the community discretion
would take is an open question. I would think that the developers
should have some input into the decision, and probably the board of
directors. Beyond that I am unsure. Perhaps we could use a petition
model.
To allow anyone to start a new language Wikipedia without any input
from the larger community is an invitation to chaos.
(This is not comparable to those who say that the 'wiki way' is an
invitation to chaos. It's not the same, especially unless there is a
mechanism to delete wikipedias, like VFD is for articles. Anyone can
start a new one, but there can be vote to delete it? That certainly
would be the tyranny of the majority, or even just the vocal
minority.)
We could easily end up with a thousand wikipedias, many of which with
little or no traffic on a daily basis. Even if locked down, these
deserted wikipedias would simply become a headache for maintenance,
and would have no benefit.
Now, it may be that my particular suggestions for community
discernment are terrible. It would not be the first time I made
terrible suggestions. But if my suggestions are terrible, that does
not mean that the concept is terrible.
-Rich Holton
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:05:15 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote:
"Repercussions on the other projects"?
Why should it be up to the community to decide this?
In the past when the majority has been allowed to decide the rights of
the minority, it has always made bad and irresponsible decisions that
have sometimes been horrific and sometimes just unjust (if a new
Wikipedia is voted against because the majority is allowed to decide,
that would be 'unjust')
In the past there have been no votes over new projects, why should
this start now?
Zh-min-nan was created against the will of the zh.wikipedia community,
and even people such as Tim Starling suggested after its creation
shutting it down, but it is still growing constantly and I was
surprised to receive from some Taiwanese people indications of
support.
New Wikipedias may effeect other projects but their effect is
microscopic. PRC is not in the habit of blocking sites in Cantonese or
Wu just for that reason, so that isn't a worry. People in the past
worried about ridicule, but most of the ridicule for Zh-min-nan: has
come from WITHIN the community, and there has been only a minimal
amount of ridicule for tlh:.
The main problem with a complete democracy is that there is no
protection for the minority. The majority can vote in any policy to do
anything they want to the minority and nothing is said about it. This
is why direct democracies without protections for the minorities
always split up along ethnolinguistic lines or have massive civil wars
and civil unrest.
We didn't have a vote on en: wehther or not to have de:, fr:, ja:, es
- they were just created. Controversial Wikipedias such as nds: and
als: were not voted on, if they were there is a good chance the
de.wikipedia community would've excluded all possibility of their
existance as Wikimedia projects.
The creation of nn.wikipedia was controversial, and it is perhaps the best case.
There was a VOTE on no: a bit prior to the creation of nn: as to
whether or not there should be a separate Wikipedia for Nynorsk. By a
margin of just a couple votes it was decided to keep a unified
Wikipedia, however most of the voters who voted for that were Bokmål
users. A bit afterwards Nynorsk users such as Ulf Lunde brought their
complaint to this list and shortly thereafter nn: was created against
the will of the no: community and now has over 1k articles.
It's very naïve of you to assume that in cases of a problem involving
a minority out of a larger community, the majority should always be
allowed to make the decision and that they will always decide wisely.
There is no precedent suggesting that all new Foundation-sponsored
projects must have community discretion involved in their creation.
This is simply a suggestion by you which doesn't seem to me like a
good idea at all. Do you let men decide the future or right of women,
or let Spaniards decide on whether Chechnya should be independent?
Mark
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:42:03 -0600, Richard Holton <richholton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:04:41 -0700, Mark
Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I say, all those who are native speakers of the
language and are
interested in building a Wikipedia in it should be allowed to vote. It
shouldn't be anybody else's decision if they get a Wikipedia in their
language or not.
Mark,
I don't think you're thinking clearly here. Any Wikipedia, any
Wikimedia project, has potential repercussions on the other projects,
and certainly on those who are involved in coordinating and
maintaining those projects.
If native speakers want to start a wiki using the MediaWiki software,
they are of course welcome to. But if it is going to be one of the
WikiMedia Foundation projects, it's an absolute requirement that there
be some community discretion involved.
-Rich Holton
--
en.wikipedia:User:Rholton
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
--