Jake Nelson a écrit:
Which is what this is, and I didn't see until I wrote that last line- censorship. What's being suggested in the argument that the different languages of Wikipedia should have different content is that some people, because they don't think speakers of my language would be interested in a topic, block our access to information on it. Sure, it's mild, and without malice, but one thing I cannot abide is other people choosing for me what information I should and should not be able to receive. Correspondingly, it is a good act for someone to make information available to those who would not otherwise have it- if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be contributing. (My biggest complaint against Wikipedia is WWIN.) As such, I think that it is one of the most important contributions a user can make to bring content across the languages wherever they're able to do so. (I'm still a novice with any other language, or I'd do it myself. It might go faster if I were ever trying to learn less than 5 at a time, heh.)
One action I thought very good is the following one. An article about a rather little known french artist was posted on fr: and en: some time ago. It was posted along with a handfull of articles related to him. For french people, he is rather obscure, for english people, he just does not exist. The article was listed on votes for deletion. But before deleting it, the opinion of french people about the fame of the guy was asked. Apparently, even though "nobody" for english people, people were ready to keep the article if we "decided" to keep it as well (which we did not).
I thought that was a very positive move. The consideration the guy was important to be included in english relied on his fame somewhere else, for other people. Otherwise, Jack, you would only have a french version to read. This would not be censorship, but definitly limiting access to information.
Second point is that if google hits constitute a "certain" indicator of inclusiveness, they may not constitute the same indicator in other languages less represented on internet.