[Wikipedia-l] Wikipedia - the multilingual encyclopedia

Of course, it is that we are an encyclopedia, but it is fine to have one list on the non-English Wikipedias, because we've already been suppressed to using subdomain names instead of the prestigious www. You're an American, right? I live in Rotterdam (although I'm an American too) and I don't know anyone here who would only read Wikipedia in one language. I know people who go first to Wikipedia, simple *because* it's the only multilingual encyclopedia in existence (from what I know, correct me if I'm wrong) and it's incredibly enlightening to see the different POV that articles get in different languages and my European friends thinks it's funny to see how often the English language articles in Wikipedia are biased toward an American POV. *Everyone* on the Esperanto Wikipedia can (and does) read two languages and most can read three or four. Most of the people who would have Internet access and would read Wikipedia can and will read more than one language! The majority of people who would only read Wikipedia in one language would be in the United States, England and Australia which is 0.6% of the world population... The three lists on the English Wikipedia is a temporary measure until we can make www a multilingual portal and then we can eliminate the extra language lists on en.wikipedia.org and move it down to one language list. The other question is, how many first time visitors will see their languages on just one list? How many would even notice the language list at all if it wasn't shown three times? Having the language list three times is there to appease the people who find it offensive that www isn't a multilingual portal. Don't forget that it was one of the reasons why the Spanish Wikipedia broke off from us AND why it won't rejoin. Well, it's because you don't see language discrimination around you everyday. People in French Canada are getting their native language shoved aside by English and they needed laws to protect them. Most countries of Europe don't have laws to protect their languages and are getting run over by English. Some job offers are only for English native speakers which means that even if your English is perfect, but you aren't a native speaker, you're not getting the job. This can be quite an emotional issue for some, especially those who are fighting against language discrimination full-time. That's why I'm here in Rotterdam volunteering for TEJO (www.tejo.org). Language discrimination is a tough issue and it's not going to go away anytime soon... I just want to add, that I don't think that you personally are discriminating, but that you're simply not aware of the problem. I hope I wasn't too harsh, it's just that I feel quite strongly about these issues... Chuck ===== Learn Esperanto! - http://www.lernu.net/ Enciklopedio: http://eo.wikipedia.org/ ___________________________________________________ Yahoo! Móviles Personaliza tu móvil con tu logo y melodía favorito en http://moviles.yahoo.es