Jimmy Wales wrote:
I totally agree about the flags -- I'm against them. Flags are for countries, not languages.
That seems to be emerging as a consensus.
lcrocker@nupedia.com wrote:
I do, however, like the idea of representing languages with images of famous contributors in that language; this could be used in lots of places writing about Wikipedia. I'd suggest Shakespeare, Hugo, Cervantes as the obvious English/French/Spanish ones. I don't know who would be appropriate for the others.
This idea is neat, but several problems have been pointed out: 1. not all of these people are recognisable 2. it's a bit simplistic to reduce an entire language to one person 3. (not yet been raised, but...) they're all male. 4 (another not-yet raised) they're all literary figures. The scientists might complain. The Two Cultures and all that!
Despite the above, I think it's a nice idea, *IF* we don't depend on it for comprehension -- that is, have the name of the language in words, and a small thumbnail image to make the portal page a bit more interesting.
Further, I suggest we have several people for each language, and rotate them on a regular basis.
At any rate, have we agreed on the move from www. to en. ?