Well, not really a new language, but I'm frustrated that Traditional Chinese is lumped into the Simplified Chinese version of Wikipedia. The problem with this is the main page is only in Simplified Chinese and when looking up articles, it does not go directly to the page but gives the option to choose whether you want to go to the simplified or the traditional version.
I strongly request that the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia be given it's own language space, tw.wikipedia.org would be better. It should be common sense that these 2 styles of writing should not be combined together. Overseas Chinese and non-China born/educated persons who studied traditional Chinese writing have difficulty reading the simplified version. The current configuration just makes it frustrating to browse articles.
A real good argument I can give for this is why does wikipedia have simple.wikipedia.org for "Simple English" instead of it being lumped into en.wikipedia.org? I hope you see what I'm talking about and split zh.wikipedia.org and tw.wikipedia.org so there's no more confusion for Chinese readers of wikipedia.org
Thanks!
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On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 06:43:44PM +0000, Ian Mackinnon wrote:
Well, not really a new language, but I'm frustrated that Traditional Chinese is lumped into the Simplified Chinese version of Wikipedia. The problem with this is the main page is only in Simplified Chinese and when looking up articles, it does not go directly to the page but gives the option to choose whether you want to go to the simplified or the traditional version.
I strongly request that the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia be given it's own language space, tw.wikipedia.org would be better. It should be common sense that these 2 styles of writing should not be combined together. Overseas Chinese and non-China born/educated persons who studied traditional Chinese writing have difficulty reading the simplified version. The current configuration just makes it frustrating to browse articles.
A real good argument I can give for this is why does wikipedia have simple.wikipedia.org for "Simple English" instead of it being lumped into en.wikipedia.org? I hope you see what I'm talking about and split zh.wikipedia.org and tw.wikipedia.org so there's no more confusion for Chinese readers of wikipedia.org
tw is the ISO-639-2 code for the language "twi".
Regards,
JeLuF
Jens Frank wrote:
On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 06:43:44PM +0000, Ian Mackinnon wrote:
Well, not really a new language, but I'm frustrated that Traditional Chinese is lumped into the Simplified Chinese version of Wikipedia. The problem with this is the main page is only in Simplified Chinese and when looking up articles, it does not go directly to the page but gives the option to choose whether you want to go to the simplified or the traditional version.
I strongly request that the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia be given it's own language space, tw.wikipedia.org would be better. It should be common sense that these 2 styles of writing should not be combined together. Overseas Chinese and non-China born/educated persons who studied traditional Chinese writing have difficulty reading the simplified version. The current configuration just makes it frustrating to browse articles.
A real good argument I can give for this is why does wikipedia have simple.wikipedia.org for "Simple English" instead of it being lumped into en.wikipedia.org? I hope you see what I'm talking about and split zh.wikipedia.org and tw.wikipedia.org so there's no more confusion for Chinese readers of wikipedia.org
tw is the ISO-639-2 code for the language "twi".
Interlanguage links are already done with [[zh-tw:]] and [[zh-cn:]], so perhaps we could simply split zh.wikipedia.org into zh-cn.wikipedia.org and zh-tw.wikipedia.org, with zh.wikipedia.org being a disambiguating portal? Of course, this is more up to Chinese-speakers than it is to myself; just a suggestion that would be consistent with our current usage. Having separate interlanguage links going to one encyclopedia that is effectively written in a mixture of two writing systems that are often not mutually intelligible is more than a little bit odd.
-Mark
Kaixo!
On Tue, Jun 15, 2004 at 06:43:44PM +0000, Ian Mackinnon wrote:
I strongly request that the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia be given it's own language space, tw.wikipedia.org would be better.
No, tw.twikipedia.org is for Twi language. "zh-tw" could be a consistent choice.
A real good argument I can give for this is why does wikipedia have simple.wikipedia.org for "Simple English" instead of it being lumped into en.wikipedia.org?
It's not the same, the articles in en: and simple: are different, not the same content. The articles in zh: wikipedia are supposed to be the same on simplified and traditional form; only some characters change (well, a lot, but not the words).
A good comparaison would be with Serbian language, which can be written in both latin and cyrillic, or Uzbek (but it didn't started yet), etc. Now, in those cases, there is zero overlap, so they can coexist on a same wikipedia if the policy is to accept both scripts; for chinese however, there is the problem that some titles may be written the same in traditional and simplified, and that makes hard to disambiguate them (plus, wikimedia software didn't support (yet?) selection of the good page when several versions of a same article exist).
I thought Chinese Wikipedians have reached consensus at the beginning of the Chinese Wikipedia project two years ago that traditional and simplified Chinese should be put together, because essentially they are one language, with the same grammar and vocabulary. The difference between traditional and simplified Chinese sometimes is even subtler than the difference between American and British English.
Most native speakers of the Chinese language can read both sets of writing system. No one has yet complained that they cannot read simplified Chinese or traditional Chinese. Our ultimate goal is to develop an auto conversion script that would display simplified or traditional Chinese according to users' preference. Progress is slow, but efforts have been put in. (See http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:%E7%B9%81%E7%AE%80%E4%BD%93%E9%9...)
The Chinese Wikipedia is not a Simplified Chinese Wikipedia or Traditional Chinese Wikipedia, but rather a mixture of the two. You can contribute in both simplified or traditional Chinese. Currently very few articles are split into two versions, and we now encourage all contributors to concentrate their efforts in one version of the article with both traditional and simplified Chinese. Of course majority of the articles are written in Simplified Chinese, as most contributors come from mainland. But still there are many articles written mainly in traditional Chinese, especially those articles associated with Taiwan.
formulax
On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 18:43:44 +0000, Ian Mackinnon ianm2000uk@hotmail.com wrote:
Well, not really a new language, but I'm frustrated that Traditional Chinese is lumped into the Simplified Chinese version of Wikipedia. The problem with this is the main page is only in Simplified Chinese and when looking up articles, it does not go directly to the page but gives the option to choose whether you want to go to the simplified or the traditional version.
I strongly request that the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia be given it's own language space, tw.wikipedia.org would be better. It should be common sense that these 2 styles of writing should not be combined together. Overseas Chinese and non-China born/educated persons who studied traditional Chinese writing have difficulty reading the simplified version. The current configuration just makes it frustrating to browse articles.
A real good argument I can give for this is why does wikipedia have simple.wikipedia.org for "Simple English" instead of it being lumped into en.wikipedia.org? I hope you see what I'm talking about and split zh.wikipedia.org and tw.wikipedia.org so there's no more confusion for Chinese readers of wikipedia.org
Thanks!
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Although I would favour choice through user preferences, I find it unfortunate that this matter should come up at a time when a segment of the interested people are being blocked from the 'pedia.
Ec
Jiong Sheng wrote:
I thought Chinese Wikipedians have reached consensus at the beginning of the Chinese Wikipedia project two years ago that traditional and simplified Chinese should be put together, because essentially they are one language, with the same grammar and vocabulary. The difference between traditional and simplified Chinese sometimes is even subtler than the difference between American and British English.
Most native speakers of the Chinese language can read both sets of writing system. No one has yet complained that they cannot read simplified Chinese or traditional Chinese. Our ultimate goal is to develop an auto conversion script that would display simplified or traditional Chinese according to users' preference. Progress is slow, but efforts have been put in.
Ian Mackinnon wrote:
I strongly request that the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia be given it's own language space...
A real good argument I can give for this is why does wikipedia have simple.wikipedia.org for "Simple English" instead of it being lumped into en.wikipedia.org?
I don't feel this is a strong argument for splitting Traditional and Simplified Chinese. The Simple English Wikipedia has only attracted 1500 articles so far. I expect it may have been far more successful had it been better merged with the English Wikipedia at the beginning.
Angela.
Yes, and to emphasize Angela's (and others') points:
The relationship of Simple and English Wikipedias is not the same relationship as Simplified and Traditional Chinese. It's just an unfortunate clash of terminology as the former is about grammar usage and vocabulary, and the latter is about visual appearance of logographic characters.
-Andrew
On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 06:13:28 +0100, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
Ian Mackinnon wrote:
I strongly request that the Traditional Chinese version of Wikipedia be given it's own language space...
A real good argument I can give for this is why does wikipedia have simple.wikipedia.org for "Simple English" instead of it being lumped into en.wikipedia.org?
I don't feel this is a strong argument for splitting Traditional and Simplified Chinese. The Simple English Wikipedia has only attracted 1500 articles so far. I expect it may have been far more successful had it been better merged with the English Wikipedia at the beginning.
Angela.
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On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 13:58:01 +0800, Andrew Lih wrote:
the latter is about visual appearance of logographic characters.
(And minor changes in vocabulary, but as I understand it, not more than between British and American English - e.g. diannao vs. jisuanji for computer.)
Cheers, Philip
Yes, however that difference in usage isn't specific to simplified vs. traditional. Even in the traditional Chinese domain, one can use either term.
It seems the community places hope that a technical solution will eventually be found so that there is automatic mapping of characters so that something less than a complete fork is necessary. This will happen only after ZH is accessible again and Chinese-knowledgeable developers can pitch in.
-Andrew
On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 07:01:11 +0200, Philip Newton philip.newton@gmx.net wrote:
On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 13:58:01 +0800, Andrew Lih wrote:
the latter is about visual appearance of logographic characters.
(And minor changes in vocabulary, but as I understand it, not more than between British and American English - e.g. diannao vs. jisuanji for computer.)
Cheers, Philip
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