From: Toby Bartels
The Cunctator wrote:
Much better said than I could.
Thanks!
>The only thing I'd say different is the
>text of a single language can't be a perfect encyclopedia--only the
work
that exists in
all languages is the perfect encyclopedia.
Ah, but both of these are goals that we will always approach but never
achieve.
I strive to make Wikipedia (as a whole) the best encyclopedia
possible,
and I strive to make [[en:]] the best Anglophone
encyclopedia
possible.
Neither will ever happen, but ''both''
are our goals!
(Also the goal for [[fr:]] to be the best Francophone encyclopedia,
etc.
But personally, I write almost exclusively on
[[en:]].
That is the ''individual'' Wikipedian's parochial interests.)
I've always been and will continue to be a strong advocate for
considering Wikipedia to be the multilanguage project.
I think it's perfectly fine for individual Wikipedians to have parochial
interests. But I think it is wrong for them to expect Wikipedia as a
community to promote parochial interests.
I know I'm on the losing side of this issue, but while ethnic groups
have given us lots of interesting cuisine, they've also justified a few
too many deaths for my taste.
And when we as a community promote the differentiation of the language
versions--as entire projects--based on assumptions of distinctly
different backgrounds and interests of the readership--we're
differentiating our community by ethnic groups.
You should take all of the above with the caveat that if I thought that
any differentiation by language was evil, I'd only work on the Esperanto
Wikipedia.
What I'm saying is that our goals as a community should be higher, more
neutral, less parochial, than our goals as individuals. Celebrate our
differences as individuals and celebrate our commonalities as a
community.