I'm Canadian, and I try to work on the French wikipedia sometimes. Malhereusement, le français n'est pas ma langue maternelle. However, I'm not sure it would help to have French-Canadians there, especially as the French-Canadians on the English wikipedia can barely work together (with themselves and with English-Canadians like me) on Quebec-related articles.

Adam Bishop

From: "Constans, Camille (C.C.)" cconsta4@ford.com Reply-To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org To: "'anthere8@yahoo.com'" anthere8@yahoo.com,"'wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org'" wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Press release : Logo putsch on the FrenchWikipedia ! Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 08:18:44 -0500

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Just as Tarquin would put it (and put it on fr actually), the french wikipedia is very much French, not french speaking. Some outside call it Wikipedia Française :-( Because it is essentially poved by France culture.

Most of people one fr are french.... It will be nice if we could have some africans or canadian to work with us.

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Some articles on french cities, do not mention the city is in France, because it is obvious :-)

We dont think about other country :) But I make the same mistake for cities in other country, when I speak about Orlando, I think a Orlando in Florida...

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Date articles, current events, are focused on french events

We're french :)

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When two words are used, one canadian, one french, some think the *correct* one is the french (see previous discussion about gay and gai, and what is "correct" anyway)

Difficult question. Why dont using the two words ? with a redirect

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And this is not even mentionning that the proper way to write is the one suggested by the French Academy or the French Typographic Code. Perhaps Canada has a chance as well here, but I doubt a decree in Algeria about how to use french would be given much consideration :-)

Difficult question too, i would like to know it works between American People and british people ?

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We seek to have images legal issues respect the "french" legislation.

Because most of wikipedians are french, and they hope to be able to speak or distribute the french wikipédia "in law".

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The association will be set in France.

Others could be set in Belgium, Canada, and I hope in Senegal....

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A hosting server would be in France likely.

It's juste an idea, because the french association could be work on it. Why an another server in an another contry ?

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The idea of local association is good. But here, it will just add a layer of cultural weight.

The goal of this association is not to take the power on the french wikipedia, this association could just help the wikipedia with funds, publicity, forums, etc...

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France culture is already *so* heavy, that a Christmas logo, which in itself *could be* npov if other celebrations were respected as well, is *smelling* culture dominency again.

Yeah, it's true. But it could had a bit of fun :)

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It is just another step. Dominancy over content, over style, logo :-)))

Do you think we're really pov ? We're working to prevent that, I hope...

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Of course, many editors are french, so that is not so surprising. But that does not mean we should not try to compensate our bias.

Agree

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Not a long time ago, on ml, there was a discussion over how to reach npov on international wikipedias, given that the variety of participants is more limited than on en. This is worrying me deeply as well. We are not currently trying to work toward npov I fear, we are still trying to understand the concept. Of course, some will disagree with that opinion of mine :-)

Juste your opinion Anthere, I think most of people try to work npov. See all the battles on religious articles.

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18 months ago, I thought that if I could attract more french speaking people on the french wikipedia, from the en: stock, they could help us to fight France cultural dominancy.

I also thought that if some french users could also work on the english wikipedia, that would help, if they could see how people were doing in another place. That is what I did, even if I am not really part of the english wikipedia.

That is why I hoped so much for mixing all of us. That, if it was hard for some of us to understand npov, international mixing could help. That, if it was hard for some of us, to accept the one different, international mixing could help. That, if it was hard for us to solve conflict resolution, because we have no expert on this, international cooperation, mediation, where international would be welcome in english commitee, even at observers, to learn, it would help. Or if international commitee could be set, that would help.

But yeah, right, no. There is here, and there. No confusion. One belongs here, or belongs there. I do not know what to think of what is going on. Except that each time there is a discussion on something on fr, it can't stay polite.

Sometime it stay polite :) We have some latin blood ;-)

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So when Tarquin says he wants to talk about it on the international list, one answer is "that he should keep his ridiculous threats for himself". This is how disagreement and willingness to talk with other members of the same project is interpretated : a threat.

Tarquin present this as a war declaration : I wont work on fr wikipédia until some things changes ! And He said : I will say to international ml that fr is npov and prefer to work on style than on content. As if we were small children who didn't respect the rules! Personnaly I dislike this !

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As a matter of interest, I would be curious to know how those internationals, that are split between wikipedias assume that. I find extremely disconcerting to see two parts of a "common" project being so different. It is a bit like that psychological disorder :-)

Do you think we're really different ? I'm sure there's some probleme as ours on en, de, nl, oc, oups not oc, there's no yet enough people :)

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I hope this issue be solved Tarquin, because fr needs you badly.

As I said, leaving is not a solution. Tarquin choose to leave, it's his choice. Athymik does it some weeks ago. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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