On 9/5/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:

I found our policy with regards to Chinese languages stranger and stranger. We do not do this if we open another Germanic or Romanic language pedia!

It's not policy. There is no policy for creating new languages (just a draft one at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed_policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages). I was just giving my opinion, and I feel that the relevant communities should be told about any language proposals, not only Sinetic ones. If some dialect of English were proposed, it would be very unfair to try to hide that from the existing English language communities within Wikimedia.

Angela.

Angela is right - the Proposal_for_Sinitic_linguistic_policy failed to make an open call to the ZH community for their opinion.

But then, it also failed to make an open call to any other Wikipedia community.

If it deserves advertising on zh.wiki, it should also be advertised on en.wiki and pt.wiki due to the relevance of those languages to the Cantonese language.

Wikipedia-l was the only public area where I saw fit to announce it: this is a request for the creation of a new Wikipedia.

If I hold a vote on the creation of a Wikipedia in Venetian, do I have to inform wikiit-l? No. Would it be nessecary? Probably not.

Due diligence has not been performed. My suggestions from July:

In fact, it has. Just because I didn't heed YOUR suggestions doesn't mean I suck.

I contacted all those users on en.wiki and zh.wiki who were listed with babel templates indicating they were native speakers of Cantonese.

You *were* proven wrong about voting separately for Cantonese and Wu, by at least two people.

I did not feel and still do not feel that links to the mailinglist discussion and Meta vote are nessecary; however as I said before you may add them yourself.

You claimed you weren't aware as to which discussions I was referring; however: There was only one major discussion re:Cantonese/Wu on wikipedia-l, and there is only one other page specifically about Sinitic languages on Meta.

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-July/041203.html http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-July/041207.html

were not heeded. The voting page does not have complete background materials; nor was the page translated into Chinese, the main relevant community; nor was the announcement made to wikizh-l or the main zh.wikipedia.org community pages.

1) What is the main relevant community is a personal judgement on your part. As Jogloran said "My mother tongue is Cantonese, not Mandarin, not 'Chinese', but specifically Cantonese", and others echoed similar sentiments, I don't think "Chinese" (aka Mandarin baihuawen) can be deemed any more relevant than can English: the English Wikipedia counts quite a few Cantonese native speaking users, and English is co-official in Hong Kong. Many Cantonese speakers live in countries where English is an official or very prominent language: Malaysia (-> Kuala Lumpur; Penang is more largely Hokkien-speaking), Singapore, overseas Chinatowns (TongSaan) in Australia, the UK, and the US... There are actually nearly identical numbers of self-identified Cantonese speakers on English and Mandarin WPs 2) I sent e-mails about it to all users who listed themselves as Cantonese native speakers with Babel templates. Thus, while Mandarin-only ppl didn't get a message, people who cared enough to note their mad Cantonese skillz on their userpage did in fact get one. Nevertheless, a few people from zh.wikipedia, like Milcheflasche, Jasonzhuocn, Pektiong, and Chun-hian, found the vote without me having to inform them of its existence. 3) Some section headings are in both languages. and I gave a list of Mandarin- and Cantonese-language links. As I noted before, it is a Wiki page, and for this reason you are and have always been welcome to be bold and add translations in any language you should so wish, from Arrernte to Mandarin to Italian to Haitian to Hopi to Luganda to Manx to Slovio. 4) The lack of announcement was partially intentional. I felt that it was most fair to send a message to wikipedia-l, and international mailing list, and then to individual Cantonese-speaking users.

Personal differences aside, the organizer of a vote, as an implicit "overseer," should show restraint in terms of commenting on individual votes and as a result, influencing the votes on the page.

I'm not sure how comments on votes could influence them. Other than those directed towards Jeromy~Yuyu, my comments were in a spirit of disambiguation rather than challenging the reasoning behind votes, as some people appeared to think we were talking about writing a Baihuawen Wikipedia in Traditional Chinese and then calling it "Cantonese Wikipedia", rather than writing a YutYuhBakWaMaan Wikipedia as was the idea.

One reason the final (sixth) GNAA VfD was accepted after several controversial rounds of voting was because of how professionally the vote was administered. We should learn from that.

And by "we", you mean "Node", right?

Mark

Actually, Jimmy, aren't they to determine consensus, not build it?

On 9/10/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

Mark Williamson wrote:

...

If I hold a vote on the creation of a Wikipedia in Venetian, do I have to inform wikiit-l? No. Would it be nessecary? Probably not.

Yes, that would be wise. I can't think of any reason why *not* to inform them.

...

In fact, it has. Just because I didn't heed YOUR suggestions doesn't mean I suck.

No, you don't suck. He didn't say that you suck, either. Chill, man, it's WikiLove, ya know...

...

4. The lack of announcement was partially intentional. I felt that it

was most fair to send a message to wikipedia-l, and international mailing list, and then to individual Cantonese-speaking users.

To me this sounds pretty much an unfair way to go about it.

...

...

One reason the final (sixth) GNAA VfD was accepted after several controversial rounds of voting was because of how professionally the vote was administered. We should learn from that.

And by "we", you mean "Node", right?

I think he means all of us. This is a tough call, and therefore in order to generate widespread support throughout the entire community, a very professionally done vote is critical.

This is why I'm opposed to rampant voting on everything. The only valid purpose for a vote in Wikipedia is actually as a *poll* which seeks to build community consensus. Deliberately excluding some interested parties is a great way to "win" a vote, but it is not a great way to get buy-in from the entire community.

--Jimbo _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

Badly organized votes don't determine consensus; they destroy it.

A vote will force a choice between two or more specific options, which may even be poorly defined. A true consensus may lie somewhere outside of those specific options.

Ec

Phroziac wrote:

Actually, Jimmy, aren't they to determine consensus, not build it?

...

This is why I'm opposed to rampant voting on everything. The only valid purpose for a vote in Wikipedia is actually as a *poll* which seeks to build community consensus. Deliberately excluding some interested parties is a great way to "win" a vote, but it is not a great way to get buy-in from the entire community.

Mark Williamson wrote:

Are you referring specifically to this case?

If so, what other options are there? The way I see it, there are two rigidly opposed options:

1. Cantonese Wikipedia;
2. No Cantonese Wikipedia.

I agree with you that these are fairly rigid alternatives.

So I don't see what was missed. I informed Cantonese speakers, and the international community. What's missing?

You did not inform Mandarin speakers. That's a pretty egregious error.

--Jimbo

I wrote:

...

This is why I'm opposed to rampant voting on everything. The only valid purpose for a vote in Wikipedia is actually as a *poll* which seeks to build community consensus. Deliberately excluding some interested parties is a great way to "win" a vote, but it is not a great way to get buy-in from the entire community.

Phroziac wrote:

Actually, Jimmy, aren't they to determine consensus, not build it?

Super duper excellent question which allows me a nice spot to explain how I see this.

I think that all polls should be attempts to *build* consensus. Consensus means something loosely like "general agreement by nearly everyone except the lunatics and trolls". "nearly everyone" because otherwise we have paralysis, and "except the lunatics and trolls" because consensus is not a suicide pact.

What do I mean, in this context, by "build consensus"?

Suppose there is a poll about whether to include Photo A or Photo B at the top of an article. Imagine for the moment that everyone agrees that there isn't room for both, and further that going with neither is not a helpful option. In a case like this, a poll can be used to *build consensus* on the theory that most people aren't so pigheaded as to continue edit warring after the vote.

My position on many such issues would be: "Well, I like A better than B. But I looked at the poll and I see that 80% of the users liked B better than A. So, ok, I'll defer to the majority. I won't edit war about it."

In such a case, we now have a consensus on A. Yes, I still think B would have been better, but the poll has helped me to accept that A will be fine to leave in the article.

Polls are non-binding. Some people have taken to saying that voting is banned in Wikipedia, and I don't disagree with them on the substance of what they are saying. I would phrase it differently, though: there is no rule in Wikipedia which says that polls *are* binding, it is a social matter, and there can be many different possible times in which a person ought to ignore a poll. (At their own social peril, of course.)

Why is this important?

A poll which is thought to be binding can easily be designed in a way which is divisive despite getting a majority on one side. If you approach a poll as being a great way to get people to agree on something, then you take an entirely different approach to considering what options should be voted on.

--Jimbo

Fuzzyhead, I encourage you to re-read the forwarded message.

Perhaps you see it in terms of "Chinese Wikipedia" and "Chinese language issues", however the reality is very different.

Somebody who was born with and has always lived with Mandarin is just as much an interested or a disinterested party as Jimbo, David Gerard, Angela, or Ray Santoinge.

This is about Cantonese and Wu not about, as you say, "Chinese".

The few Northeasterners who can understand that act very differently in regards to this entire thing, contributing as outsiders of a group (since they don't know Cantonese) rather than the arrogant way most Northeasterns have acted here.

Now, I also "intentionally" withheld the information about the vote from Italian Wikipedians. Is that vote stacking?

The "Chinese Wikipedia", as you call it, is in its current state a BeiFangBaiHuaWen Wikipedia. The creation of a Cantonese Wikipedia or a Wu Wikipedia is as relevant or as irrelevant to a BHW Wikipedia as to an Italian or a German or an Arabic Wikipedia.

Now, you may contest this all I want, but the facts are simple:

1) I posted information about the vote to wikipedia-l, to inform EVERYONE. people who are not subscribed should subscribe if they want to receive such information, as that's the purpose of this list; 2) For their benefit, I notified ALL people whose babel templates indicated they were native speakers of Cantonese. This included 6 people who voted AGAINST it, as well as those who voted for it. When you stack votes, the votes you stack are generally all in your favour. 3) I sat back and waited. You being you, you didn't vote. Too bad. But then, the vote is open for an infinite amount of time, so. And I'm still sitting back and waiting -- anyone can vote. But I don't think it's fair that a special tipoff goes to zhwiki community, so I think I'm going to do some tipping off of my own if you don't mind (or even if you do), as so far the poll seems to indicate that non-Chinese are much more in favour of a separate Cantonese WP.

Mark

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com Date: 09-Sep-2005 20:07 Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] New request for Cantonese Wikipedia: vote at 29-6 To: wikipedia-l@wikimedia.org

Jimbo, my whole point in informing an international mailinglist, and ALL people who listed themselves as Cantonese speakers (including a few who ended up voting against a Cantonese Wikipedia), was that it seemed to me unfair to give Mandarin-only users an extra tip-off when no other community got one.

And I have been quite right so far -- since Angela posted to zhwiki-l, there have been a handful of new votes, including:

Ffootballchu, "support", from Hong Kong (a Cantonese-speaking area)

Zy26, "oppose", from "Northeast China" [zhongguo dongbei] (a Mandarin-speaking area) BenBenI, "oppose", from Chengdu (a Mandarin-speaking city) Alexcn, "oppose", from Nanjing (a Mandarin-speaking city)

Now can you see why I am worried about fairness? I don't think it's fair to let one Wikipedia vote on the creation of another Wikipedia, rather I think it should be completely international OR up to the people who speak the language.

Now, with this, it has been focused specifically towards zhwiki community comment, which is giving the impression that the Mandarin-speaking majority may have the final say on whether or not the minority gets a separate Wikipedia. Now, from some points of view, this may be fair (majority rules), but perhaps an analogy is in order:

If Kosovo wants to be internationally recognised as completely independent from Serbia, who should vote on it? All of Serbia, or just Kosovars? Certainly, if it is up to ALL of Serbia, they will remain part of Serbia, while if it is up to the Kosovars only, they may very well not.

It's similar with East Timor. Should all Indonesians have been allowed to vote?? I don't think so. And they weren't -- only East Timorese people were allowed to vote, and the overwhelming majority voted for independence.

If Indonesians in general were allowed to vote, what do you think the outcome would've been?

Now, currently this is largely unnessecary because "support" has more votes by a large margin, but it's quite possible that more people from zhwiki will come and vote. Some of them support, some of them against.

Now obviously not everybody falls within such a pattern: Hello World, Sl, Jeromy~Yuyu, all Cantonese-speaking people, voted "against", and Milcheflasch, a Mandarin speaker, voted "support".

But so far, I have been right: The majority of people for whom Mandarin is the native language have voted "oppose", while the majority of people for whom Cantonese, Wu, or Minnan is the native variety have voted "support". In fact, even if you subtract Wu and Minnan, the majority of Cantonese native speakers voted "support".

Now, this whole case has caused much frustration to me and all others involved for a few reasons.

1) Quite a few users supporting on wikipedia-l, including zhwiki members in good standing such as Milchflasch and Alex Kwan;

2) Quite a few people, including native speakers and quotes from sources, confirming that Cantonese is indeed a very different and largely mutually unintelligible written language;

3) Examples have been given;

4) Opposition almost entirely from non-Cantonese-speakers;

5) Test-Wikipedia articles have demonstrated just how different Yueyubaihuawen (contemporary written Cantonese) and Baihuawen (based on Mandarin) are, even on the most basic of levels (different words for "is", "of", quite a few other very basic words, largely different syntaxes, different vocabulary, etc.);

6) Jimbo said, and I quote: "I am told repeatedly by many people that while Mandarian and Cantonese are mutually unintelligible in the spoken form, in written form they are the same. This is pretty compelling for me." Who were these 'many people', we wondered (it was discussed via PM on IRC, via private e-mails, and via instant messaging)? What about all of the people who had come out of the woodwork to say on Wikipedia-l that they AREN'T the same in written form? Don't they count for anything?? For people working for a separate Cantonese and eventually Wu and Hakka Wikipedias, this was very confusing, discouraging, upsetting, and irritating all at the same time.

7) Even non-Chinese Wikipedians have come out in support of a Cantonese Wikipedia (and potentially others): Harvey Fiji, Walter van Kalken, The Epopt, Arbeo, Nat Krause, Satyadasa, Katimawan, Chris Sundita, Chamadrae, David Gerard, Wouter Steenbeek, Milos^ Rancic, E2m, Oscar. The only non-Chinese who voted in opposition so far is Elian. (if I've made a mistake and revealed someone's real name which they prefer to keep secret, I apologise, but some are mailinglist posters or people I know elsewhere).

Before the vote, everyone who wanted a Cantonese Wikipedia was thinking, "what's the holdup?? how is it that andrew lih and shengjiong ran over us with a steamroller in the court of Jimbopinion, but we had the majority and we cited sources to support our argument when they didn't???". That was the motivation for the vote, to have something that screamed for attention by giving a concrete message of how many people support it, that would be difficult to ignore.

Cheers Mark

On 09/09/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

Mark Williamson wrote:

...

If I hold a vote on the creation of a Wikipedia in Venetian, do I have to inform wikiit-l? No. Would it be nessecary? Probably not.

Yes, that would be wise. I can't think of any reason why *not* to inform them.

...

In fact, it has. Just because I didn't heed YOUR suggestions doesn't mean I suck.

No, you don't suck. He didn't say that you suck, either. Chill, man, it's WikiLove, ya know...

...

4. The lack of announcement was partially intentional. I felt that it

was most fair to send a message to wikipedia-l, and international mailing list, and then to individual Cantonese-speaking users.

To me this sounds pretty much an unfair way to go about it.

...

...

One reason the final (sixth) GNAA VfD was accepted after several controversial rounds of voting was because of how professionally the vote was administered. We should learn from that.

And by "we", you mean "Node", right?

I think he means all of us. This is a tough call, and therefore in order to generate widespread support throughout the entire community, a very professionally done vote is critical.

This is why I'm opposed to rampant voting on everything. The only valid purpose for a vote in Wikipedia is actually as a *poll* which seeks to build community consensus. Deliberately excluding some interested parties is a great way to "win" a vote, but it is not a great way to get buy-in from the entire community.

--Jimbo _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

-- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

This was definitely POV vote stacking and was intellectually dishonest yes. Biased, unwiki and loaded with personal attacks.

OK. Then you tell me, when I set up a poll, who am I supposed to tell? Am I supposed to post to the village pump of every Wikipedia??

And how is vote stacking loaded with personal attacks?

You wonder why people don't trust you, this is why, you are not trustworthy. The question as to whether Catonese is a separaete *written* language is precisely the question that needs to be decided by the community.

That's not a question. It's an established fact, there's a zh.wiki article on "YueYuBaiHuaWen" (Cantonese written language). The question is, does it deserve its own Wikipedia.

Mark

Stirling Newberry wrote:

You wonder why people don't trust you, this is why, you are not trustworthy. The question as to whether Catonese is a separaete *written* language is precisely the question that needs to be decided by the community.

I don't think the personal attack was necessary, but nonetheless, I think it is worth noting that using a vote-stacked poll is extremely counter-productive and unpersuasive.

The *real* question here is not about polls or communities. Let's imagine for a moment that somehow the US and UK governments got into a fight, let's imagine even that it's a war. And let's imagine that in the aftermath, there is a huge community vote to split into two English Wikipedias: American English and British English. And let's further imagine that there is a huge majority.

Well, we still wouldn't split the two, because it's still lunacy to split.

Having said that, of course there are borderline cases and complexities.

What I would like to hear is *nothing* about Node's rigged poll, but about some very simple practical questions.

Those in favor of the split claim that the two languages *in written form* (as well as spoken form) are mutually unintelligible. Node has produced some testimony to that effect. I would like to hear more about that, especially from (for example) Andrew Lih.

--Jimbo

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1

Paweł Dembowski wrote:

...

Well, we still wouldn't split the two, because it's still lunacy to split.

Why don't we just have a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia then instead of separate ones for each dialect?

Hysterical raisins.

IOW: we made the wrong choice when setting both up. Let not the sins of the past bind us in eternity.

Yours sincerely, - -- James D. Forrester Wikimedia : [[W:en:User:Jdforrester|James F.]] E-Mail : james@jdforrester.org IM (MSN) : jamesdforrester@hotmail.com

Paweł Dembowski wrote:

...

Well, we still wouldn't split the two, because it's still lunacy to split.

Why don't we just have a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia then instead of separate ones for each dialect?

By historical accident more than anything else. I don't consider the current situation to be ideal, but my deep respect for the choices of the community means that any decision to merge is going to come over a time of careful discussion and consensus building.

--Jimbo

On 9/12/05, Paweł Dembowski fallout@lexx.eu.org wrote:

...

Well, we still wouldn't split the two, because it's still lunacy to split.

Why don't we just have a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia then instead of separate ones for each dialect?

Oh, but we do have that! We have BOTH a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia (sh:) AND separate Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian ones. Which I think is a HIGHLY undesirable situation.

For this reason I have locked the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia half a year ago, but the pressure to unlock it got too strong, so I unlocked it again. But only under protest. I think we should either have sh: or sr+bs+hr:, but not both.

By the way, there is an issue with the Chinese languages there too - if we get a separate Kantonese Wikipedia, we should not keep a Chinese one alongside. Rather, we should make that into a Mandarin Wikipedia, or even better, move each article to whatever language it has been written in.

Andre Engels

Paweł Dembowski wrote:

...

Well, we still wouldn't split the two, because it's still lunacy to split.

Why don't we just have a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia then instead of separate ones for each dialect?

There already is a Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia. Leaving aside the question of Cyrillic Serbian what it would take would be for the various flavours of Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian nationalism to start contributing to the common project, and letting the separate projects fade into obscurity. You won't accomplish anything by shutting down the separate projects and telling the participants that they can only contribute to the common one. It is difficult in an area that has centuries of experience at stressing differences to suddenly shift gears into a common enterprise. Tito had the sort of personality that could enforce this, but it didn't last long after his death.

In the short run it will take individuals who are willing to copy and consolidate articles from the three separate projects, preferably beginning with non-controversial subjects.

Ec

Mark Williamson wrote:

Fuzzyhead, I encourage you to re-read the forwarded message.

Perhaps you see it in terms of "Chinese Wikipedia" and "Chinese language issues", however the reality is very different.

Somebody who was born with and has always lived with Mandarin is just as much an interested or a disinterested party as Jimbo, David Gerard, Angela, or Ray Saintonge.

Hmmm! I have not significantly participated in this discussion except in the occasional side discussion. I hope that my failure to so act is consistent with the level of new light that I can cast on the subject.

I think I'm going to do some tipping off of my own if you don't mind (or even if you do), as so far the poll seems to indicate that non-Chinese are much more in favour of a separate Cantonese WP.

That's ominous.

Ec

On 11/09/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

Mark Williamson wrote:

...

Jimbo, my whole point in informing an international mailinglist, and ALL people who listed themselves as Cantonese speakers (including a few who ended up voting against a Cantonese Wikipedia), was that it seemed to me unfair to give Mandarin-only users an extra tip-off when no other community got one.

Makes zero sense to me. Mandarin-only speakers are affected by this, and deserve a voice.

And they have a voice. I don't think they deserve a specific point-out though, I mentioned it on an international mailinglist which should be enough.

...

Zy26, "oppose", from "Northeast China" [zhongguo dongbei] (a Mandarin-speaking area) BenBenI, "oppose", from Chengdu (a Mandarin-speaking city) Alexcn, "oppose", from Nanjing (a Mandarin-speaking city)

And these people should be silenced?

Did I say that?

...

If Kosovo wants to be internationally recognised as completely independent from Serbia, who should vote on it? All of Serbia, or just Kosovars? Certainly, if it is up to ALL of Serbia, they will remain part of Serbia, while if it is up to the Kosovars only, they may very well not.

This is a wildly inaccurate analogy.

Here's a better analogy: if Kosovars want a separate *wikipedia* from the Serbians, for political reasons rather than linguistic reasons, who should vote on it? All of Serbian Wikipedia? Or just Kosovars? (Or, my position, everyone who takes an interest, with the poll widely advertised to everyone who might be affected, including Bosnians, Croatians, etc.)

What you've missed here is that the vast majority of Kosovars speak Albanian, which is only distantly related to Serbian (on the same level as, say, English and Russian), and thus already have their own Wikipedia.

If Kosovars wanted a separate Wikipedia from the Albanian Wikipedia, what would my opinion be? That everybody should be informed, but that only Kosovars, if anyone, deserves to have it pointed out directly to them in such a manner.

If it's obviously an unreasonable split, the majority of Kosovars will oppose it.

...

Before the vote, everyone who wanted a Cantonese Wikipedia was thinking, "what's the holdup?? how is it that andrew lih and shengjiong ran over us with a steamroller in the court of Jimbopinion, but we had the majority and we cited sources to support our argument when they didn't???". That was the motivation for the vote, to have something that screamed for attention by giving a concrete message of how many people support it, that would be difficult to ignore.

You raise many valid points, to be sure. But it is pretty easy to ignore a poll which is admittedly rigged to exclude those most likely to dissent.

You keep using the word "rigged". I did not exclude anybody. Again, I:

1) Informed the international mailinglist; and 2) Informed all people with Cantonese-N templates who allowed other users to send them e-mail.

There is no rule on the voting page that restricts Mandarin-only speakers from voting. If they're not subscribed to wikipedia-l, that's their fault. And if anybody else wanted to inform any person or group of people on their own, nobody was stopping them.

You did not inform Mandarin speakers. That's a pretty egregious error.

That is your _opinion_. Whether or not any given person thinks I should've explicitly informed the Mandarin-speaking community depends largely on their views of the relationship between Cantonese and Mandarin. Both you and Angela have shown through various comments so far that you're not entirely convinced that they're very different at all in written form.

I would recommend that you think about who is likely to be interested, and inform them. I would not complain at all if no one posted to the Hungarian Wikipedia village pump.

I would think that all Wikipedia communities, or at least all minority-language Wikipedia communities, would be equally interested.

It assumes that Mandarin speakers are dishonest or politically motivated, and not just a little bit, but to the extent that their voice should be silenced. That's a personal attack.

That's your personal conclusion, and it's wrong. I also purposefully did not inform the English, Malay, or Japanese Wikipedias. Does that mean I think speakers of these languages are dishonest or politically motivated? Or does it mean that I think they're less likely to be as well-informed as native Cantonese speakers?

I trust Cantonese speakers. I trust Mandarin speakers. Careful thoughtful reasoned discussion will help us all come to a consensus about this. Silencing people deliberately not informing them of a vote that you know to be relevant to them does not help.

"That you know to be relevant to them" -- that's just it. This vote isn't particularly relevant to Mandarin speakers. As Wooddoo at zhwiki put it, "對中文wiki有什麼負面影響？" (what possible negative effect could this have on the Chinese wiki?). Nobody answered that question.

Or this, which describes one of the things that has happened since the post to zhwiki village pump (this time from Ffarr):

"在提出所謂「粵語的書寫和中文很像」「粵語和中文只是發音唸法上的差別」這樣的意見 ... 假如中文版維基不能容納粵語，但又要說它的書寫跟中文沒什麼差別，這是不是很大的矛盾呢？希望想要反對粵語維基的人能思考一下，提出更好的理由來反對。"

(Opinions like "Cantonese and Chinese writing are the same" and "the difference between Cantonese and Chinese is just pronunciation" have been expressed ... I hope that Chinese Wikipedians who want to oppose the Cantonese Wikipedia will think a little first and come up with better reasons than these.)

It has never been an issue because I have never before seen a case in which someone deliberately rigged a poll by not including relevant people in the announcement.

Again, that it was "rigged" is your opinion. Just because I didn't inform a community to which I didn't think it was particularly relevant doesn't mean I am evil (you didn't say "evil", of course, and that's worth noting because you are the kind of person who likes to make it clear that you don't say stuff like that).

Mark

Andrew Lih wrote:

Don't consider the lack of direct challenge to you as a sign of agreement or endoresement of the methodology. It could very well be that folks have tuned out the more farcical arguments, like how announcing a poll about Chinese language issues to Chinese Wikipedians is not necessary.

It doesn't happen many times but I kinda agree with node on this issue. Never before has it been made an issue that people from another languagewikipedia should be informed when a new languagewikipedia from a related language is being requested. Never in the two years that I have been on wikimediaprojects has it been an issue. Now only for Cantonese it is being made an issue. I find it very strange that Jimbo and Angela all of a sudden come with these statements while in the past they have not.

Fact is that any attempt to create a wikipedia for other chinese languages has been torpedo'ed (or they tried to) sofar by mandarin speakers. Who seem to agree with the Beijing government that any atempt to create information in another Chinese language should be surpressed, fact is it is an official policy by the Chinese government to discourage the use of anything but Mandarin. Question is should we adhere by the policies created in Beijing or use our own independent mindset? And yes the fact that all ZH.Wikipedians feel that they should be heard on the issue makes me feel it is a political issue rather than a normal one. When the Frysian wikipedia and the Limburgish wikipedias were created no-one on nl: was heard. And probably a couple would have voted against it if they knew it, as the feeling is those two are not necessary as our official language is dutch and everyone speaks it. Although the other language requests that are on now for other dutch dialects have been presented in the village pump, and people voiced opinions against it. No one will even think about going to meta and tell they are against it. Because they feel it is up to speakers of the languages in question to decide for themselves. Why do Mandarin speakers feel they have to block requests for other sinetic languages? It beats me .... apart from being told by their government to be against it. I personally feel that if a majority of native speakers of a language want a pedia they should be granted their request no matter how many other non-speakers of their language are against it!

The arguing that requesting a Cantonese wikipedia is the same as requesting an american english wikipedia is in my opinion a bad argument. American english and English english are mutuably intelligible. Cantonese and Mandarin are not! And they are written in different scripts according to 2 Hokkien Chinese Thai comedians that I work with day in day out (they might also be politically motivated with their answers as their parents were with the KMT and had to flee China)

Walter van Kalken (Waerth)

It is comments like these that worry me, because it means there is very little knowledge about the ZH.wikipedia community, and of Chinese language/culture. Chinese is not a language owned by the "Beijing government."

1) The vast majority of Mandarin speakers are PRC citizens (not counting Taiwanese as PRC citizens). Historically, Chinese emigration has mostly been from Cantonese-, Minnan-, and Hakka-speaking areas rather than Mandarin-speaking ones, so the larger Mandarin-speaking communities outside of China are a very recent phenomenon.

2) You have said stuff about this before, about people not knowing much about the zh.wiki community. You're being overidealistic. It's quite easy to gauge public opinion on zh.wiki, and so far I've found that every person you've told to be mistaken about the zh.wiki community has pretty much been right.

3) The linguistic authority over the sweeping majority of speakers of ALL Sinitic languages rests with the PRC gov't in Beijing. If they should decide to replace hanzi entirely with pinyin or even cyrillic, you can bet your ass such a change would be complete in a couple of decades.

Waerth, as someone who lives in Asia, you might know that most Chinese in SE Asia don't like to be referred to as "overseas Chinese" for exactly this reason. The term "Nanyang Chinese" is mostly preferred, which basically means Chinese of the Southern Seas. They are not tools or satellites of Beijing, and do not have any allegiance politically to the People's Republic of China. So it is fallacious to turn this into a political issue.

Why?? What percentage of zh.wikipedians are from south of the PRC-Vietnam border? That's what I thought. Of course there is the minority, but the vast majority of zh.wikipedians are from the mainland, and smaller but very significant groups from HK and Taiwan.

Mainlanders may not be "tools" or "satellites" of Beijing, but they are very much indoctrinated with the linguistic propaganda of the Beijing gov't, and are unlikely to disbelieve it without personal experience (thus, it seems Cantonese native speakers are voting "support")

To reaffirm this - at the Wikimania conference, there were as many Chinese Wikipedians from outside the PRC than from inside - Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Germany, United States. We all got along swimmingly.

It's very easy to explain this. The main reason is because travel costs are going to be much cheaper for a Chinese in Germany to get to the Wikimania conference, than for a Chinese in Beijing to get to the conference.

I trust you and Node_ue will agree it is a legitimate thing to discuss, and that the opinion of Hong Kong folks has some relevance to the Cantonese Wikipedia discussion. But I would not be surprised to hear objection even to that.

Of course it is relevant. The whole point here is that Waerth and I both think it's unfair to let anybody but the actual language community make decisions about whether or not they should get a Wikipedia, with exceptions for artificial languages perhaps.

And obviously, most Hong Kongers fall within the boundaries of the Cantonese-speaking group. In fact, I'd be surprised if the meetup wasn't mostly in Cantonese.

Having said that, since I can't be there, I hope that it will be made very clear that this Wikipedia, if created, will be in Yueyu-baihuawen. This seems to have confused people a little already -- obviously Mandarin-based Baihuawen just read with Cantonese readings is identical or nearly identical to normal Baihuawen.

To my knowledge, "all ZH.Wikipedians" have not collectively come out with a position on the matter. Nor are they likely to, given the over-generalization.

On this point I agree with you. Most zh.wikipedians have not voted. There are also a few zh.wikipedians who expressed opinions on the village pump at zhwiki, but didn't go vote.

...

Why do Mandarin speakers feel they have to block requests for other sinetic languages? It beats me .... apart from being told by their government to be against it.

Again, see above. Your equating a Mandarin speaker to a PRC citizen is simply wrong, and likely offensive to many ZH.Wikipedians.

It's difficult to avoid the fact that the vast majority of Mandarin speakers are PRC citizens.

Having said that, I don't think it's so much people's government telling them to, but rather inexperience with regional vernacular writing.

One user on the zhwiki village pump said something along the lines of "A Cantonese Wikipedia?? Maybe we should ask for a Chengdu dialect Wikipedia!?", which is patently absurd since Chengdu is a Mandarin dialect by any measure (although admittedly written Chengdu vernacular, when it is used, does differ from putonghua-based baihuawen, though not by enough to make it difficult to comprehend)

As Ffarr said, perhaps Mandarin speakers should try reading an article on the test wikipedia before judging. They will probably find that it's actually very difficult for them to read, which is contrary to what they have been told since childhood.

Mark

Walter van Kalken wrote:

It doesn't happen many times but I kinda agree with node on this issue. Never before has it been made an issue that people from another languagewikipedia should be informed when a new languagewikipedia from a related language is being requested. Never in the two years that I have been on wikimediaprojects has it been an issue.

It has never been an issue because I have never before seen a case in which someone deliberately rigged a poll by not including relevant people in the announcement.

--Jimbo

While there is still currently a wide margin in favour of a separate Cantonese Wikipedia (35-13), the new votes encouraged by Angela's posting have followed a distinct pattern just as I predicted:

Those people who placed votes against the proposal since Angela's post are all from areas where Mandarin is the local speech, with the exception of "Truth" and "Fanghong" whose origins I was unable to determine and Elian who is from Germany:

Zy26 -- Northeast China (Northern Mandarin) Truth -- unknown BenBenI -- Chengdu (Southern Mandarin) Fanghong -- unknown Alexcn -- Nanjing (Southern Mandarin/Northern Mandarin) Kren -- Singapore, Beijing (Beijing is Northern Mandarin; Singapore's Chinese are still a mostly Hokkien-, Teochew-, and Cantonese-speaking population, but Mandarin has been "adopted" for many years now thanks to the government liking to bedek kacang)

...whereas the origins of the more recent votes FOR the proposal are a bit more diverse:

Millosh -- Serbia E2m -- Portugal (or Brazil?) Ffootballchu -- Hong Kong (Cantonese) Oscar -- Netherlands (?)

Now, if we just count the votes of confirmed native Cantonese, Wu, Minnan, or other non-Mandarin Sinitic varieties' speakers:

Support: Pektiong (Minnan) Chun-hian (Minnan) Kaihsu (Minnan) Bourquie (Cantonese) Connie (Cantonese) Eternal (Cantonese) Jogloran (Cantonese) Felix Wan (Wu) Enochlau (Cantonese) CantoneseWiki (Cantonese) Ffootballchu (Cantonese)

Oppose: Hello World (Cantonese) Zektonic (Cantonese) Crosstimer (Cantonese) Jeromy~Yuyu (Cantonese)

That's still 11-4. And even if you only count Cantonese-speakers, you get 7-4.

What I'm worried about is that a busload of people from Beijing who have never heard of Yueyu-baihuawen will pile on their "oppose" votes, which as I noted before is a bit like allowing other Serbians to vote on whether or not Kosovo should be independent, or allowing all Indians and/or Pakistanis to vote on the future of Kashmir, or allowing everybody in the world to vote for EU parliament or US president.

Mark

On 05/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

"Some dialect of English" implies that Cantonese is merely a dialect of Chinese.

Anyhow, if a Wikipedia in an English dialect were requested, and the person organising the vote sent private e-mails to all people claiming that to be their home dialect notifying them of the vote, those people would most likely vote "against" the creation of such a Wikipedia.

Why should we leave the future of a Cantonese Wikipedia up to Mandarin speakers? That would be like not only letting (which is what we're already sort of doing by allowing non-speakers to vote), but actually ENCOURAGING all of Serbia to vote in a referendum on Kosovar independence, which is by no rational measure fair.

Given the current results of the vote, and the fact that a huge portion of the people who voted are actually native Cantonese speakers (on both sides -- in fact,

Mark

On 05/09/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:

...

On 9/5/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:

...

I found our policy with regards to Chinese languages stranger and stranger. We do not do this if we open another Germanic or Romanic language pedia!

It's not policy. There is no policy for creating new languages (just a draft one at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposed_policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages). I was just giving my opinion, and I feel that the relevant communities should be told about any language proposals, not only Sinetic ones. If some dialect of English were proposed, it would be very unfair to try to hide that from the existing English language communities within Wikimedia.

Angela. _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

-- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

On 9/24/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

Since it's now been 4 days over 2 weeks since a posting about this was made at the zhwiki village pump, as Angela proposed, and the voting is currently at 44-15, still a large margin of "support" votes.

Therefore, I am re-submitting the request.

The issue was discussed at the Hong Kong Wikipedian gathering last week, which is important since HK is the most prominent place in the world where Cantonese is used in official government communication, school teaching and the media.

The conclusion was emphatic among the Cantonese speakers. The consensus was - "not at this time." In fact, it was unanimous. (See below for full description of the meetup).

This was not a group without expertise. Among those present - Lorenzarius, one of the original zh: Wikipedians; Little Alex, currently studying for a degree in translation; Mcy_jerry, studying medicine in Chinese University (an institution coping with Mandarin/Cantonese/English issues as the medium of instruction); and Simon Shek, Carlsmith, W.F. Siu, Mapocathy, all folks who've grown up in the mixed language school environment.

And to quote from Mark's previous message:

"The whole point here is that Waerth and I both think it's unfair to let anybody but the actual language community make decisions about whether or not they should get a Wikipedia, with exceptions for artificial languages perhaps." (Sat Sep 10 20:58:59 UTC 2005, http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-September/041477.html)

This seems clear this idea should put this out to pasture, for now.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

Recap of September18, 2005 HK Wikipedia meetup: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E8%81%9A%E4%BC%9A/2005%E9%A6%99%E6%B... or http://tinyurl.com/apmch

Excerpt related to Cantonese Wikipedia: [...] Obviously, one of the biggest issues was Cantonese Wikipedia. After discussing it for a while, there was consensus (in fact unanimity) that though there is legitimate and desirable use for vernacular written Cantonese in casual use, arts, film, newspaper columns and the like, the conclusion about Cantonese Wikipedia was - "not at this time."

Several things stood out:

* Current state of Chinese Wikipedia. There was agreement that the general quality of the average article in Chinese Wikipedia is relatively poor, even though it has 40,000+ articles. The recent stats on "short articles" showed zh: contained unusually high number of them, and empirically Mcyjerry made the point that they are generally lacking in content. Folks felt that it was more important to shore up the existing zh: Wikipedia instead of splitting the effort.

* Universities and Cantonese use. Mcyjerry and Lorenzarius, students at Chinese University of Hong Kong explained that their science and medicine classes were not done in Cantonese, and if they were it would be confusing. They can elaborate more as to why, but Chinese University was setup to promote Chinese education in a (then) British Colony.

[...]

On 9/25/05, Walter van Kalken walter@vankalken.net wrote:

And another time someone on this list quotes offlist people. I should get some celebrity names in my posts as well. It seems to be the trend to quote offlist people to strengthen ones arguments. I

When did membership to the email list constitute any more legitimacy than folks who are "offlist"? That's one of the more odd arguments I've seen about this issue.

Yes, and many people from that language community have voted in favour as well. Why are the votes of the people you quoted Andrew more important than those of the ones that already voted?

No, because the vote pertaining to Wu and Yue (Cantonese) was all stuck together into one combined poll, which I pointed out as a flaw very early on. In effect, the "votes for" became a union of folks interested in one or the other. You shouldn't take the AND of an OR vote.

...

Obviously, one of the biggest issues was Cantonese Wikipedia. After discussing it for a while, there was consensus (in fact unanimity) that though there is legitimate and desirable use for vernacular written Cantonese in casual use, arts, film, newspaper columns and the like, the conclusion about Cantonese Wikipedia was - "not at this time."

Ok so the concensus was that the Cantonese users found it a legitimate request ...... interesting.

How do you draw that conclusion? The issues brought up were that written Cantonese is used today in nonstandard ways, and that it is unusual to use it in formal writings. That might change over the years, but for now, to folks at the meetup it was not desirable to embark on the starup of an entire project in writing Cantonese encyclopedia entries the way you find in zh:, en:, de:, etc.

This is another repetition of the same argument that so many have rebunked. It is an argument with little to no value. You cannot measure a gain or downfall in activity on the Chinese wikipedia. Has Minnan effected it? With the same reason we could delete all languages but the 5 major ones. I am happy this debate wasn't held when wikipedia started. It might have ended with .... we need to shore up Nupedia before we can start up Wikipedia.

Pretty weak strawman argument. See Tim Starling's post earlier today. Wikipedia's goal is to make the sum of all human knowledge available for free. And right now, zh: is one, if not the most, prominent weakness in the Wikipedia universe.

Now I am going to draw a parallel here with Thailand.

The parade of parallels and comparisons are deeply flawed. Debate this case on its own merits.

There are few situations similar to the one with Cantonese and baihua (what zh: has), in that Cantonese speakers who are literate read/write baihua. There is a reading grammar and vocabulary which is very different than the spoken vernacular. This is a situation unfamiliar to most people. And usually when other "parallels" are drawn, it's to project other types of irrelevant ethnic/cultural conflicts onto a situation one does not understand. And all simply to make an uninformed point.

To quote Mark again: "Waerth and I both think it's unfair to let anybody but the actual language community make decisions about whether or not they should get a Wikipedia whether or not they should get a Wikipedia."

Yet here we are, with non-Cantonese folks spearheading the effort, and a Cantonese-based meetup saying no, they don't want one.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

Yet here we are, with non-Cantonese folks spearheading the effort, and a Cantonese-based meetup saying no, they don't want one.

And all the voting Cantonese speakers were there? Why are your Cantonese speakers who met there more valuable than the many supporters? You act like the group that met has Veto rights on the issue.

Waerth/Walter

I don't see how it's interesting.

If you take a look at the vote, and exclude all non-Cantonese speakers (at least, as far as I am aware):

Support: Jasonzhuocn Bourquie Connie Eternal Jogloran Felix Wan Enochlau CantoneseWiki Xingmu Ffootballchu Seasurfer (Maybe -- Seasurfer is a Malaysian Chinese; in most of Malaysia, Chinese people can speak Cantonese, including Kuala Lumpur, but there's the notable exception of Penang where the main language is Hokkien, so it could be either way and we'd have to ask)

Oppose: Sl Zektonic Crosstimer Jeromy~Yuyu Simon Shek

Now, you may claim the vote was rigged all you want.

But if it _was_ rigged, it was actually _in favour_ of Cantonese speakers, given that I personally informed everyone who had a Cantonese babel template and was accepting Wikipedia e-mails. AND, _all_ of the Cantonese speakers who voted "oppose", with the exception of Simon Shek, were informed by me of the vote via e-mail.

Now, even if you add the 7 users from the meetup (not counting Simon Shek, who voted as well) as "oppose" votes, you end up with equal numbers in favour and opposed.

Having said that, I'm still a bit surprised that Alex would change her mind when it seemed before like she was really interested in a Cantonese Wikipedia...

And it also seems suspect to me that while the majority of Cantonese speakers who VOTED were in favour, those at the meetup were "unanimous" in their opposition.

You may think that this has to do with the alleged vote rigging, however all that consisted of was me e-mailing Cantonese speakers to tell them about the vote. The message said, quite basically, that there was a vote, and that their input was requested. I didn't include my views, an endorsement of either side, etc.

Mark

On 25/09/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

Walter van Kalken wrote:

...

...

Yet here we are, with non-Cantonese folks spearheading the effort, and a Cantonese-based meetup saying no, they don't want one.

And all the voting Cantonese speakers were there? Why are your Cantonese speakers who met there more valuable than the many supporters? You act like the group that met has Veto rights on the issue.

No, but it sure is interesting, isn't it?

--Jimbo _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

-- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

Ah, and to add to #3:

There is at least one person who doesn't seem to have contributed much or any to zhwiki, but seems a very likely candidate to be one of the biggest contributors on a Cantonese WP, namely CantoneseWiki (that's their username), who has been primarily active on Commons, but also Meta and Wikispecies (translating the mainpages and occasional other things to written Cantonese).

Also, I'm not sure, but I think that worries of failure may play some part in this. But I think that the support shown by native Cantonese speakers so far should be enough to dispell these worries.

Mark

On 25/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

And, if I can, let me try to provide concise counterarguments for what I understand to be Andrew's reasons for not creating a Cantonese Wikipedia:

1. That it's not used in formal situations (at least not in written

form). Neither are languages such as Sicilian, Javanese, Sundanese, Cebuano, and many other languages which already have Wikipedias. And just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean it can't be done now. If there are people willing and ready to create real encyclopaedic content in Cantonese, then how is this one a problem? 2) That all people literate in Yutyuh-Bakwahman are also literate in Mandarin (= Puntonghua-based Baihuawen). The same applies to many other languages which already have Wikipedias, and often quite large (although Mandarin isn't nessecarily the language in which all or most are literate): Catalan, Basque, Galician, Asturian, Aragonese (with Spanish) Ukrainian, Belarusian (with Russian, at least to a great degree), Sicilian, Sardinian, Friulian (with Italian), Corsican, Catalan, Basque, Breton, Occitan, Walon, Haitian Creole, Luxembourgish (with French), Sundanese, Javanese (with Indonesian), Frisian, Limburgish (with Dutch)... and the list goes on. Some might even argue that those literate in Finnish are all literate in Swedish, or even at an extreme that those literate in Dutch are all literate in English (certainly not true, but perhaps it would be in the future). And, again, just because a Wikipedia isn't "needed" doesn't mean it shouldn't be created, if there are people willing to work on it and it has at least some possible uses. 3) That it will take away contributors and potential contributors from the already-starving Chinese Wikipedia. Now, you have said that "every little bit counts", but in all likelyhood that's just what it will be: a little bit. I don't have a factual argument against this since both of our arguments on this seem to be purely conjecture, but I think it's rediculous to think that enough users would leave (or never arrive in the first place) zhwiki to cause even the tiniest noticable decrease in productivity and/or growth.

If I have missed one, please forgive me.

Mark

On 25/09/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

...

I don't see how it's interesting.

If you take a look at the vote, and exclude all non-Cantonese speakers (at least, as far as I am aware):

Support: Jasonzhuocn Bourquie Connie Eternal Jogloran Felix Wan Enochlau CantoneseWiki Xingmu Ffootballchu Seasurfer (Maybe -- Seasurfer is a Malaysian Chinese; in most of Malaysia, Chinese people can speak Cantonese, including Kuala Lumpur, but there's the notable exception of Penang where the main language is Hokkien, so it could be either way and we'd have to ask)

Oppose: Sl Zektonic Crosstimer Jeromy~Yuyu Simon Shek

Now, you may claim the vote was rigged all you want.

But if it _was_ rigged, it was actually _in favour_ of Cantonese speakers, given that I personally informed everyone who had a Cantonese babel template and was accepting Wikipedia e-mails. AND, _all_ of the Cantonese speakers who voted "oppose", with the exception of Simon Shek, were informed by me of the vote via e-mail.

Now, even if you add the 7 users from the meetup (not counting Simon Shek, who voted as well) as "oppose" votes, you end up with equal numbers in favour and opposed.

Having said that, I'm still a bit surprised that Alex would change her mind when it seemed before like she was really interested in a Cantonese Wikipedia...

And it also seems suspect to me that while the majority of Cantonese speakers who VOTED were in favour, those at the meetup were "unanimous" in their opposition.

You may think that this has to do with the alleged vote rigging, however all that consisted of was me e-mailing Cantonese speakers to tell them about the vote. The message said, quite basically, that there was a vote, and that their input was requested. I didn't include my views, an endorsement of either side, etc.

Mark

On 25/09/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

...

Walter van Kalken wrote:

...

...

Yet here we are, with non-Cantonese folks spearheading the effort, and a Cantonese-based meetup saying no, they don't want one.

And all the voting Cantonese speakers were there? Why are your Cantonese speakers who met there more valuable than the many supporters? You act like the group that met has Veto rights on the issue.

No, but it sure is interesting, isn't it?

--Jimbo _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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-- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

-- SI HOC LEGERE SCIS NIMIVM ERVDITIONIS HABES QVANTVM MATERIAE MATERIETVR MARMOTA MONAX SI MARMOTA MONAX MATERIAM POSSIT MATERIARI ESTNE VOLVMEN IN TOGA AN SOLVM TIBI LIBET ME VIDERE

On 9/25/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:

...

The conclusion was emphatic among the Cantonese speakers. The consensus was - "not at this time." In fact, it was unanimous. (See below for full description of the meetup).

I have a hard time believing this, since Littlalex was in fact an ardent supporter of a Cantonese Wiki the last time around.

That seems a bit silly to me. If you take a look at the vote, and exclude all non-Cantonese speakers (at least, as far as I am aware):

Consider the folks who were at the meeting part of the "no" votes.

That _still_ gives a majority for "support". Now, just because 7 people at a meetup agreed "unanimously", according to you (which I still doubt, given the fact that it would mean a drastic change in position for Littlalex),

If you look at the photo from the meeting, you'll see I am sitting right next to Little Alex. But why not ask her yourself?

You are still spreading the silly idea that a Cantonese Wikipedia will take away lots of people and resources from zhwiki. Why not use an example based on experience -- zh-min-nan?? How much did that take away?

Your exaggeration again. I never said it will take away "lots of people and resources" away. But every bit put behind zh: would help. The exaggerated case helps you try to make your case, but that's your error.

It's a shame we don't have an audio or video recording of this meetup. I sort of doubt the veracity of your claims here. And if these people have these feelings, they're welcome to vote, as they have always been.

LOL.

The meeting was attended by eight Wikipedians and two guests. The summary is sitting on a public wiki that anyone who attended could amend. Shek translated it into Chinese, so that's one more check on the record. Feel free to leave a message for any and all the folks who showed up, and ask for verification of the meeting observations.

But you, sitting in Arizona have a better sense of it, I'm sure.

This is bordering on tinfoil hat territory now.

...

• Current state of Chinese Wikipedia. There was agreement that the

general quality of the average article in Chinese Wikipedia is relatively poor, even though it has 40,000+ articles. The recent stats on "short articles" showed zh: contained unusually high number of them, and empirically Mcyjerry made the point that they are generally lacking in content. Folks felt that it was more important to shore up the existing zh: Wikipedia instead of splitting the effort.

I'd not be surprised if you were the one who brought this up in the first place, trying to make it sound logical when it makes no sense whatsoever.

Wrong. It was Mcy_jerry who brought it up, talking about the generally poor article quality of the average zh: article compared to others.

"splitting the effort" is not going to happen. There will be no mass-exodus.

"Mass exodus" - these are your words, not mine or those of anyone at the meetup. It is not a case that was made.

...

• Universities and Cantonese use. Mcyjerry and Lorenzarius, students

at Chinese University of Hong Kong explained that their science and medicine classes were not done in Cantonese, and if they were it would be confusing. They can elaborate more as to why, but Chinese University was setup to promote Chinese education in a (then) British Colony.

Well, others have testified here to the exact opposite. How are we to sort out which is correct, and which is not?

Again, this shows the whole flaw with the "Sinitic policy" vote, because there was no finding of fact laid out or debated to provide proper background on the merits of the idea, not to mention the selective publicity it received. It became a straight up or down vote with the flaw of roping Wu and Yue into one bin, pandering to the inclusionist, embrace anything-and-everything-attitude at the expense of any subject knowledge or first hand experience with the language, culture or issues.

The reason why I (and others) have not participated in the vote, is because of the major flaws with it. Participating in it would be implicitly endorsing the flawed methodology and structure setup by the originator of it (ie. you). The hope was that the existing discussion would dissipate with folks realizing the invalid "vote". But since it keeps being brought up as an indication of the will of the community, here's directly why it's not only nonbinding, but flawed and useless.

A few folks commented to me they did not want to get involved in the rancorous nature of the vote or the mailing list debate, even though they had opinions on the matter. To me, that's understandable and disappointing. I can only speak for myself here.

A properly run vote would have:

- Laid out the issues in an NPOV-like manner using community input, with historical background and a preset amount of time for crafting the parameters of the vote. A list of liks to generic articles about Chinese and Cantonese is not good enough. - Had separate voting sections for Wu, Yue and Hakka, like other proper votes in Wikipedia. See how reform of speedy deletion was handled: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Proposal - Made an open call for participation in all relevant communities. Certainly, not advertising it on wikizh-l until late was problematic. Even the after-the-fact advertisement was not adequate, as the yea/nay lists had already been influenced by one particular set of constituents. - Avoided singling out folks right away as this one did with Shizhao and myself as the main opposition. I don't particularly care about being singled out, but it's improper to personalize a vote on the issues.

So we get to this point - you have somehow disregarded your own advice:

"The whole point here is that Waerth and I both think it's unfair to let anybody but the actual language community make decisions about whether or not they should get a Wikipedia, with exceptions for artificial languages perhaps."

The fact is with the prevailing mood - the case for creating a Wikipedia has to meet a very high threshold with respected members of the Wikipedia community, and it's not there now.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

See my explanation later in the email about the flaws of that vote.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

On 9/25/05, Pawe³ Dembowski fallout@lexx.eu.org wrote:

...

Consider the folks who were at the meeting part of the "no" votes.

They should have voted where they were supposed to vote then.

-- Ausir Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia http://pl.wikipedia.org

Ray Saintonge wrote:

Pawe³ Dembowski wrote:

...

...

Consider the folks who were at the meeting part of the "no" votes.

They should have voted where they were supposed to vote then.

An interesting observation. Is there a policy anywhere saying where people are "supposed" to vote?

Ec

Hoi, When there is a vote, when this vote is considered in a meeting like it has, they should either put up or shut up. When a small group of people meets and decide on something, in essence this is just what happened: a small group of people who decided something. Nothing special in and of itself. Obviously they do not need to vote, but when they do not vote, they should not moan when their voice is not considered when the vote is evaluated. Thanks, GerardM

Gerard and Pawe, you perhaps already know the voting process was badly flawed (even rigged). Plenty of folks on this list have noted the same thing.

... That's Pawel (slash-l).

With a lack of due process and due diligence for this vote, there's only so much [[Sofixit]] can repair.

Name one thing wrong with the vote that you couldn't have easily fixed with a quick edit.

Mark