Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
Next time, a non-American organizer!?
That's a bit insulting since it presumes there is something wrong with being American. Erik isn't American either, BTW.
Why is it when people see that something is not going the way they want it, that they automatically assume it is some type of Anglo or "worse" American conspiracy?
This has to stop.
--mav
Consider, Daniel, that WP is largely American run-- its set up in San Diego, its
Its important that we-- the braintrust of the whole of WP, are sensitive to this sentiment. And if we value our non-English wikis and our non-English members we must be somewhat considerate. While you and I may talk to people all around the world in plain English, those people will talk with others who do not speak a word of English. The concerns of those people cannot be thought of as invalid simply because they dont speak English, and must go through a represenative who can.
This goes to the issue of governance and the eventual need for a less "trickle-down" form of Wikigovernance (if we value our non-English wikis and our non-English members). I dont mean any offense to my fellow American contingent, but this is an important discussion about the course of Wiki, and what decisions are made -- not just tactical or practical ones, but principled ones -- are what will determine if Wikipedia continues as it is doing -- growing like a weed -- or fracture into a half dozen unreconcled and uncommunicative ones. It has nothing to do at all with branding or the Wikipedia trademark, as has been stated -- it has everything to do with extending respect to people you cant see or communicate with, and answering their concerns in some way as they come in.
As for the nonsense with the name-calling and the mock ethnic squabbling -- its either intended in good fun, is limited to very few people with bad habits, or its not worth mentioning. By taking a hard line on this Dan, you just might be fanning flames -- something I know was not in your intent -- so please take my comments with a grain of salt.
(If we value our non-English wikis and our non-English members) ~S~
"It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place."- H.L. Mencken
--- Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
Next time, a non-American organizer!?
That's a bit insulting since it presumes there is something wrong with being American. Erik isn't American either, BTW.
Why is it when people see that something is not going the way they want it, that they automatically assume it is some type of Anglo or "worse" American conspiracy?
This has to stop.
--mav _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikipedia.org
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A lot of interesting points being made, hmm. Some replies, in no particular order: I'll note that the FPTP vote on voting method wasn't a great choice, but eh, we can live with it. It shouldn't be a terribly different result with any decent system. I'd recommend establishing some sort of standards for voting system... not 'we use X system always' (though if we could find one people consistently agree upon as good enough, that'd be /nice/ (I'm not holding my breath here)) but maybe 'we use system X, Y, or Z' (Which to me are Condorcet, IRV, and Average, in no particular order). And if we really feel the need, specify how we choose among X/Y/Z (I'd say by average voting). I find it distressing that our French friends think 'silly' equates to 'idiot'. Silly is mostly a friendly term... it can be considered a little patronizing to have your idea called silly, but it's not really personally offensive, and being called silly as a person can almost be a compliment. I wouldn't vote in favor of a Miwki-ed logo, but I don't have an issue with the existence of such variants. We really should have (or should have had) more variants... and I'd have liked to see some creation of new logos after the Round 1 determination of what people want to see... more fusions of logos, etc. (The black/white/grey example is a good one.) I could make more detailed suggestions, but it'd be academic now, the current system isn't bad, and suggestions of "I'd do it this way" would seem like undue criticism. I can understand if Erik gets very irritable about such things (Though he seems to show quite good restraint on this so far...) I definitely understand the concerns of the foreign-language Wikipedians about having to go through intermediaries, and possibly being ignored by the English-only-speaking majority. For starters, I suggest that posting in their language may be better than staying quiet: translation can happen. Babelfish doesn't exactly produce brilliant prose, but it rarely fails to convey the gist, and has improved drastically from how it used to be... and sometimes you'll be surprised who understands you. Also, try not to read American or Anglophonic conspiracies into things- any that exist are likely unintentional. Remember Hanlon's Razor: 'Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.' (Though I don't think stupidity is necessarily the right word here, perhaps ignorance might be better.) I have a lot of thoughts on voting, governance, and including non-Anglophonic Wikipedians, but they're lengthy and scattered, so I'll not burden you with them... maybe I'll post something on my userspace later.... though I'm still rather self-conscious about making such statements, not having been here terribly long.
Anyway, in general, the best prescription for all of us is just to relax. I'll shut up for a while now ;).
--Jake
Note on last message: There were blank lines between paragraphs when I sent that, making it much more readable. Bah. Oh, and in ' It shouldn't be a terribly different result with any decent system.', 'it' is both the choice of voting system and choice of logo.
--Jake
Jake Nelson wrote:
A lot of interesting points being made, hmm. Some replies, in no particular order: I'll note that the FPTP vote on voting method wasn't a great choice, but
eh,
we can live with it. It shouldn't be a terribly different result with any decent system. I'd recommend establishing some sort of standards for
voting
system... not 'we use X system always' (though if we could find one people consistently agree upon as good enough, that'd be /nice/ (I'm not holding
my
breath here)) but maybe 'we use system X, Y, or Z' (Which to me are Condorcet, IRV, and Average, in no particular order). And if we really
feel
the need, specify how we choose among X/Y/Z (I'd say by average voting). I find it distressing that our French friends think 'silly' equates to 'idiot'. Silly is mostly a friendly term... it can be considered a little patronizing to have your idea called silly, but it's not really personally offensive, and being called silly as a person can almost be a compliment. I wouldn't vote in favor of a Miwki-ed logo, but I don't have an issue
with
the existence of such variants. We really should have (or should have had) more variants... and I'd have liked to see some creation of new logos
after
the Round 1 determination of what people want to see... more fusions of logos, etc. (The black/white/grey example is a good one.) I could make
more
detailed suggestions, but it'd be academic now, the current system isn't bad, and suggestions of "I'd do it this way" would seem like undue criticism. I can understand if Erik gets very irritable about such things (Though he seems to show quite good restraint on this so far...) I definitely understand the concerns of the foreign-language Wikipedians about having to go through intermediaries, and possibly being ignored by
the
English-only-speaking majority. For starters, I suggest that posting in their language may be better than staying quiet: translation can happen. Babelfish doesn't exactly produce brilliant prose, but it rarely fails to convey the gist, and has improved drastically from how it used to be...
and
sometimes you'll be surprised who understands you. Also, try not to read American or Anglophonic conspiracies into things- any that exist are
likely
unintentional. Remember Hanlon's Razor: 'Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.' (Though I don't think stupidity is necessarily the right word here, perhaps ignorance might be better.) I have a lot of thoughts on voting, governance, and including non-Anglophonic Wikipedians, but they're lengthy and scattered, so I'll
not
burden you with them... maybe I'll post something on my userspace
later....
though I'm still rather self-conscious about making such statements, not having been here terribly long.
Anyway, in general, the best prescription for all of us is just to relax. I'll shut up for a while now ;).
--Jake
Perhaps you can't imagine how sometime it is frustrating to don't be able to get to the heart of something just because of a language lack. It's not a problem to speak about weather, but for deeper subject it can be. Sure we have to develop embassy, but found someone fluent in English who are agree to read all post and make summary for those who don't speak English is not an easy thing ;o) We have better to learn English that is the in facto international language. In fact, this time we had a lack of information inside the French Wikipedia, mainly because this vote occurred in a period of many « main » French wikipedians were missing. I am very interesting to hear your proposition to develop collaboration with non-Anglophonic wikipedians.
Aoineko
Just for fun, here is the Babelfish translation of my text above:
Perhaps that you cannot imagine how much it is sometimes frustrating not to be able to go at the bottom of the things simply because of a problem of language. It is not a problem to speak about time, but that can be it for a major subject. We must certainly develop the embassies, but finds somebody who speaks usually English, and who is close with reading all the messages and to make of them summaries for those which do not speak English, is not an easy thing;o) One shoed to better learn English who is in facto, the language international. In fact, this time there was a lack of information inside French-speaking Wikipédia, in particular because owing to the fact that the vote intervened at one period or much of the French-speaking wikipédiens "major" missed. I am very interest to hear your proposals to develop collaboration with the wikipédiens not english-speaking.
Aioneko, please forgive me for saying this, but the Babelfish text was actually very good -- *perhaps in some ways better than your current English :D
Which dispenses with the nonsense claims of some that machine translation is generally useless.
May my French someday be as good as your English is now, ~S~
Perhaps you can't imagine how sometime it is frustrating to don't be able to get to the heart of something just because of a language lack. It's not a problem to speak about weather, but for deeper subject it can be. Sure we have to develop embassy, but found someone fluent in English who are agree to read all post and make summary for those who don't speak English is not an easy thing ;o) We have better to learn English that is the in facto international language. In fact, this time we had a lack of information inside the French Wikipedia, mainly because this vote occurred in a period of many � main � French wikipedians were
missing. I
am very interesting to hear your proposition to develop collaboration with non-Anglophonic wikipedians.
Aoineko
Just for fun, here is the Babelfish translation of my text above:
Perhaps that you cannot imagine how much it is sometimes frustrating not to be able to go at the bottom of the things simply because of a problem of language. It is not a problem to speak about time, but that can be it for a major subject. We must certainly develop the embassies, but finds somebody who speaks usually English, and who is close with reading all the messages and to make of them summaries for those which do not speak English, is not an easy thing;o) One shoed to better learn English who is in facto, the language international. In fact, this time there was a lack of information inside French-speaking Wikip�dia, in particular because owing to the fact that the vote intervened at one period or much of the French-speaking wikip�diens "major" missed. I am very interest to hear your proposals to develop collaboration with the wikip�diens not english-speaking.
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Aioneko, please forgive me for saying this, but the Babelfish text was actually very good -- *perhaps in some ways better than your current English :D
No problem, I don't have a good opinion of my English ;o)
Which dispenses with the nonsense claims of some that machine translation is generally useless.
May my French someday be as good as your English is now, ~S~
May my japanese and my english be as good as Erik English ;o)
By the way, I will be out for 2 weeks so don't take offense if I don't answer your mails. I will try to found a PC to be able to vote :o) Good luck everybody!
Aoineko
Guillame, what you're talking about is exactly the stuff I'll write about on that page, but didn't include in the mail because I couldn't figure out how to say it well (and it was long). And that Babelfish translation was quite understandable, I think. (Not as good as your English, despite what some may say, but understandable.) And while German, Japanese, and Esperanto currently top my list of languages to learn in the near future, maybe I'll try to pick up some French. :)
-- Jake
Daniel Mayer wrote:
Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
Next time, a non-American organizer!?
That's a bit insulting since it presumes there is something wrong with
being
American. Erik isn't American either, BTW.
Why is it when people see that something is not going the way they want
it,
that they automatically assume it is some type of Anglo or "worse"
American
conspiracy?
It's not because thing was wrong I thought he was american, but just because we speak very well english :op I already said it was a regrettable stupid sentence. In fact my means was not about americain, but about majority. If we use a majority vote method, the fact the english wikipedians are as numerous, make their choice to have large probability to be choosed. I just wanted to say that take someone from a small Wikipedia to organize may help non-english wikipedians to fell more concern by decisions.
This has to stop.
Keep cool ;o)
--mav
Aoineko
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