On Mon, February 21, 2005 1:13 am, Sheng Jiong said:
And remind you, if you have not already known, one of Chinese Wikipedia's founding member, [[User:Lorenzarius]], was from Hong Kong. And he was one of the main opposer of splitting Chinese Wikipedia into Simplified and Traditional version before there was a conversion script. And [[User:Tomchiukc]] is still an active Hong Kong Wikipedian.
I don't understand why that is relevant to the issue.
I will very much like to hear their opinions on this issue. They may bring some good insights. Can you invite them or should I?
Sorry, I misread your words. I thought you mean that there are only 3 Hong Kong Wikipedians in Chinese Wikipedia.
I think mailing list now has become a place that is not so useful for discussions: there are only a few left who is speaking on this issue. I think we can have a page on meta to discuss the issue, and we can bring in more people who are interested (and are kept unaware of the issue).
I think that will be a good idea. I certainly want to hear opinions from more people. What is the proper procedure to start a page on meta to discuss the issue? Is there any name space restriction or things like that? Perhaps a sub page of [[Requests for new languages]]?
For decision making, the board has the right to have the final say. But in most cases I think we should let the community decide first, and it can take the form of either consensus(if we can reach in the end), or a vote(which is not a preferred way of resolution, but in my opinion better than a board decision).
I think it is meaningless to continue arguing about the same things again and again, since none of us is likely to change our opinions now. So I have summarised some points that I think both sides can agree on (feel free to correct me, or add in more):
The current Chinese Wikipedia is purely written in Baihuawen, which is largely based on Mandarin.
Baihuawen is unversially understood by all literate Chinese, regardless of the dialects they speak.
Although written Cantonese is used, especially in informal writings, it is still uncommon for people to use Cantonese as a formal writing (eg. newspaper articles/books/academic works)
Not going into the details, I generally agree with the above statements. Assuming good faith, I will take your previous assertions like "written Cantonese does not exist" or "Cantonese is not a written language" as hyperbole, a figure of speech.
The reason to give examples of written Cantonese was to prove its existence and illustrate it extent of usage, not to prove that it is as widely used now as Baihuawen was in the 1920s.
Then we shall summaries our differences, have more debate if necessary. And a consensus cannot be reached. let us put it to a vote.
formulax
More discussion is always good, but I am not sure whether a vote will be fair when people speaking a minority language wants to start a new Wikipedia. People speaking the majority language will always win if they want to.
Another important question is: who should be eligible to vote? The whole Wikimedia community? The zh: community? Everyone who can speak Chinese?
Felix Wan
I say, all those who are native speakers of the language and are interested in building a Wikipedia in it should be allowed to vote. It shouldn't be anybody else's decision if they get a Wikipedia in their language or not.
Mark
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 13:13:36 -0800 (PST), Felix Wan felixwiki@earthsphere.org wrote:
On Mon, February 21, 2005 1:13 am, Sheng Jiong said:
And remind you, if you have not already known, one of Chinese Wikipedia's founding member, [[User:Lorenzarius]], was from Hong Kong. And he was one of the main opposer of splitting Chinese Wikipedia into Simplified and Traditional version before there was a conversion script. And [[User:Tomchiukc]] is still an active Hong Kong Wikipedian.
I don't understand why that is relevant to the issue.
I will very much like to hear their opinions on this issue. They may bring some good insights. Can you invite them or should I?
Sorry, I misread your words. I thought you mean that there are only 3 Hong Kong Wikipedians in Chinese Wikipedia.
I think mailing list now has become a place that is not so useful for discussions: there are only a few left who is speaking on this issue. I think we can have a page on meta to discuss the issue, and we can bring in more people who are interested (and are kept unaware of the issue).
I think that will be a good idea. I certainly want to hear opinions from more people. What is the proper procedure to start a page on meta to discuss the issue? Is there any name space restriction or things like that? Perhaps a sub page of [[Requests for new languages]]?
For decision making, the board has the right to have the final say. But in most cases I think we should let the community decide first, and it can take the form of either consensus(if we can reach in the end), or a vote(which is not a preferred way of resolution, but in my opinion better than a board decision).
I think it is meaningless to continue arguing about the same things again and again, since none of us is likely to change our opinions now. So I have summarised some points that I think both sides can agree on (feel free to correct me, or add in more):
The current Chinese Wikipedia is purely written in Baihuawen, which is largely based on Mandarin.
Baihuawen is unversially understood by all literate Chinese, regardless of the dialects they speak.
Although written Cantonese is used, especially in informal writings, it is still uncommon for people to use Cantonese as a formal writing (eg. newspaper articles/books/academic works)
Not going into the details, I generally agree with the above statements. Assuming good faith, I will take your previous assertions like "written Cantonese does not exist" or "Cantonese is not a written language" as hyperbole, a figure of speech.
The reason to give examples of written Cantonese was to prove its existence and illustrate it extent of usage, not to prove that it is as widely used now as Baihuawen was in the 1920s.
Then we shall summaries our differences, have more debate if necessary. And a consensus cannot be reached. let us put it to a vote.
formulax
More discussion is always good, but I am not sure whether a vote will be fair when people speaking a minority language wants to start a new Wikipedia. People speaking the majority language will always win if they want to.
Another important question is: who should be eligible to vote? The whole Wikimedia community? The zh: community? Everyone who can speak Chinese?
Felix Wan
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:04:41 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I say, all those who are native speakers of the language and are interested in building a Wikipedia in it should be allowed to vote. It shouldn't be anybody else's decision if they get a Wikipedia in their language or not.
Mark,
I don't think you're thinking clearly here. Any Wikipedia, any Wikimedia project, has potential repercussions on the other projects, and certainly on those who are involved in coordinating and maintaining those projects.
If native speakers want to start a wiki using the MediaWiki software, they are of course welcome to. But if it is going to be one of the WikiMedia Foundation projects, it's an absolute requirement that there be some community discretion involved.
-Rich Holton
"Repercussions on the other projects"?
Why should it be up to the community to decide this?
In the past when the majority has been allowed to decide the rights of the minority, it has always made bad and irresponsible decisions that have sometimes been horrific and sometimes just unjust (if a new Wikipedia is voted against because the majority is allowed to decide, that would be 'unjust')
In the past there have been no votes over new projects, why should this start now?
Zh-min-nan was created against the will of the zh.wikipedia community, and even people such as Tim Starling suggested after its creation shutting it down, but it is still growing constantly and I was surprised to receive from some Taiwanese people indications of support.
New Wikipedias may effeect other projects but their effect is microscopic. PRC is not in the habit of blocking sites in Cantonese or Wu just for that reason, so that isn't a worry. People in the past worried about ridicule, but most of the ridicule for Zh-min-nan: has come from WITHIN the community, and there has been only a minimal amount of ridicule for tlh:.
The main problem with a complete democracy is that there is no protection for the minority. The majority can vote in any policy to do anything they want to the minority and nothing is said about it. This is why direct democracies without protections for the minorities always split up along ethnolinguistic lines or have massive civil wars and civil unrest.
We didn't have a vote on en: wehther or not to have de:, fr:, ja:, es - they were just created. Controversial Wikipedias such as nds: and als: were not voted on, if they were there is a good chance the de.wikipedia community would've excluded all possibility of their existance as Wikimedia projects.
The creation of nn.wikipedia was controversial, and it is perhaps the best case.
There was a VOTE on no: a bit prior to the creation of nn: as to whether or not there should be a separate Wikipedia for Nynorsk. By a margin of just a couple votes it was decided to keep a unified Wikipedia, however most of the voters who voted for that were Bokmål users. A bit afterwards Nynorsk users such as Ulf Lunde brought their complaint to this list and shortly thereafter nn: was created against the will of the no: community and now has over 1k articles.
It's very naïve of you to assume that in cases of a problem involving a minority out of a larger community, the majority should always be allowed to make the decision and that they will always decide wisely.
There is no precedent suggesting that all new Foundation-sponsored projects must have community discretion involved in their creation. This is simply a suggestion by you which doesn't seem to me like a good idea at all. Do you let men decide the future or right of women, or let Spaniards decide on whether Chechnya should be independent?
Mark
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:42:03 -0600, Richard Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:04:41 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I say, all those who are native speakers of the language and are interested in building a Wikipedia in it should be allowed to vote. It shouldn't be anybody else's decision if they get a Wikipedia in their language or not.
Mark,
I don't think you're thinking clearly here. Any Wikipedia, any Wikimedia project, has potential repercussions on the other projects, and certainly on those who are involved in coordinating and maintaining those projects.
If native speakers want to start a wiki using the MediaWiki software, they are of course welcome to. But if it is going to be one of the WikiMedia Foundation projects, it's an absolute requirement that there be some community discretion involved.
-Rich Holton
--
en.wikipedia:User:Rholton
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:05:15 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
"Repercussions on the other projects"?
Why should it be up to the community to decide this?
There is a difference between saying that the entire Wikipedia userbase must approve any new language, and disagreeing with your suggestion that
all those who are native speakers of the language and are interested in building a Wikipedia in it should be allowed to vote. It shouldn't be anybody else's decision if they get a Wikipedia in their language or not.
For myself, I don't much buy the argument that approving a related language/dialect Foo of an existing Wikipedia language Bar will lead a to a huge drain on the userbase of Bar: Plattsdeutsch or Luxembourgish have apparently not drawn too many people away from German, etc. Furthermore, I agree with you in opposing any idea that general speakers of Bar should vote on the inclusion of Foo.
However, the question of developer and network administrator resources seems to me to be important. Wikimedia is a nonprofit organization with many goals in its mission, one of which is to promote the distribution of knowledge in many languages, including minority ones. While this is an important goal, I would not want to see the foundation constrained by explicit policy to spend its resources on minority languages if it decided that its mission could be better served another way.
Steve
My main point is that no matter who gets to decide, it should NOT be the general community. I personally think it should be the community that uses that language, but obviously if the board does not like it they have ultimate veto power.
Also, while individual Wikipedias DO take up developer resources, I would severely question any argument to halt all creation of new Wikipedias based on that alone - an individual Wikipedia, especially if it's not a success, does not cost the foundation a significant amount of money. If it did, all inactive Wikipedias would've been outright deleted by now because they would be a waste of valuable resources, but given that they don't take up anybody's time and money right now but a lot of mine and a little of Angela's (at least to my knowledge), they have all been left intact and the sole locked inactive Wikipedia, the Bashkir Wikipedia, was unlocked recently.
Given that we have an existing Wikipedia in Englisc/Anglo-Saxon, one in Gothic, one in Klingon, one in Lojban, and the like, I find it extremely strange that anybody thinks we should bar the existance of a new Wikipedia in a living, natural language who has at least some native speakers who want a Wikipedia.
Mark
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 19:52:17 -0500, Stephen Forrest stephen.forrest@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:05:15 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
"Repercussions on the other projects"?
Why should it be up to the community to decide this?
There is a difference between saying that the entire Wikipedia userbase must approve any new language, and disagreeing with your suggestion that
all those who are native speakers of the language and are interested in building a Wikipedia in it should be allowed to vote. It shouldn't be anybody else's decision if they get a Wikipedia in their language or not.
For myself, I don't much buy the argument that approving a related language/dialect Foo of an existing Wikipedia language Bar will lead a to a huge drain on the userbase of Bar: Plattsdeutsch or Luxembourgish have apparently not drawn too many people away from German, etc. Furthermore, I agree with you in opposing any idea that general speakers of Bar should vote on the inclusion of Foo.
However, the question of developer and network administrator resources seems to me to be important. Wikimedia is a nonprofit organization with many goals in its mission, one of which is to promote the distribution of knowledge in many languages, including minority ones. While this is an important goal, I would not want to see the foundation constrained by explicit policy to spend its resources on minority languages if it decided that its mission could be better served another way.
Steve
On Feb 21, 2005, at 8:27 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
My main point is that no matter who gets to decide, it should NOT be the general community. I personally think it should be the community that uses that language, but obviously if the board does not like it they have ultimate veto power.
The God-King drives a Hyundai, I don't believe you drive a Hyundai, therefore I don't believe you are the god-king. Please stop being so stingy with other people's rights.
So you feel that you and you alone have the /right/ to deny or approve the existance of a new Wikipedia, Mr Newberry?
Mark
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 20:31:54 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
On Feb 21, 2005, at 8:27 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
My main point is that no matter who gets to decide, it should NOT be the general community. I personally think it should be the community that uses that language, but obviously if the board does not like it they have ultimate veto power.
The God-King drives a Hyundai, I don't believe you drive a Hyundai, therefore I don't believe you are the god-king. Please stop being so stingy with other people's rights.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Stirling's "God-king" was not a reference to himself.
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 21:54:08 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
So you feel that you and you alone have the /right/ to deny or approve the existance of a new Wikipedia, Mr Newberry?
Mark
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 20:31:54 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
On Feb 21, 2005, at 8:27 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
My main point is that no matter who gets to decide, it should NOT be the general community. I personally think it should be the community that uses that language, but obviously if the board does not like it they have ultimate veto power.
The God-King drives a Hyundai, I don't believe you drive a Hyundai, therefore I don't believe you are the god-king. Please stop being so stingy with other people's rights.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Do you really think I'm /that/ stupid?
He said "stop being so stingy with other people's rights".
And on a tangent... how does he know I don't drive a Hyundai?? And who says there can only be one god-king? "God-king" is a relative term. I am God-king of myself, and a few other things, although not of Wikipedia.
Mark
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 14:03:31 +0800, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
Stirling's "God-king" was not a reference to himself.
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 21:54:08 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
So you feel that you and you alone have the /right/ to deny or approve the existance of a new Wikipedia, Mr Newberry?
Mark
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 20:31:54 -0500, Stirling Newberry stirling.newberry@xigenics.net wrote:
On Feb 21, 2005, at 8:27 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
My main point is that no matter who gets to decide, it should NOT be the general community. I personally think it should be the community that uses that language, but obviously if the board does not like it they have ultimate veto power.
The God-King drives a Hyundai, I don't believe you drive a Hyundai, therefore I don't believe you are the god-king. Please stop being so stingy with other people's rights.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
--
Andrew Lih, Assistant Professor Journalism and Media Studies Centre University of Hong Kong Email: alih@hku.hk | Web: http://jmsc.hku.hk/faculty/alih AOL IM: fuzheado | ICQ: 231894253 Yahoo Messenger: andrew_lih | MSN Messenger: andrew_lih@msn.com
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 23:35:59 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
And on a tangent... how does he know I don't drive a Hyundai??
From my calculation, you've been old enough to drive for one year,
maybe two. So it's likely there have not been too many cars in your driving history. So *do* you drive a Hyundai? :)
You're close, but a bit off - I don't drive at all yet. So no, I do not drive a Hyundai.
Mark
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 16:32:53 +0800, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 23:35:59 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
And on a tangent... how does he know I don't drive a Hyundai??
From my calculation, you've been old enough to drive for one year, maybe two. So it's likely there have not been too many cars in your driving history. So *do* you drive a Hyundai? :)
Mark Williamson wrote:
Do you really think I'm /that/ stupid?
He probably does, actually. Despite repeated hints that it's counterproductive, you continue to try to browbeat people into doing what you want.
As someone who's lived on the net for some 23 years now, let me pass along a bit of advice. You start with a default fund of reputation from other netizens. You do good things, like copyedit a thousand articles or supply a bit of requested info, your fund goes up. You do bad things, like call someone a nasty name in public, your fund goes down.
Why does this matter? If your fund of reputation is high, you can merely suggest an idea, and people will rush to make it happen. If your fund is low, others will dislike your idea, *even if it's a good idea*. Unfair, perhaps, but that's how interpersonal relationships work, on the net as elsewere.
Some people even tried to let you know when your fund crossed zero and headed into negative territory, but you blew right on by without slowing down. So, if you want to have any chance at all of having any influence on things, I suggest you cool it with all the accusations and criticism - I think you do enough worthwhile things normally that your reputation will eventually get back to the positive side again.
Stan
Stan Shebs wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
Do you really think I'm /that/ stupid?
He probably does, actually. Despite repeated hints that it's counterproductive, you continue to try to browbeat people into doing what you want.
As someone who's lived on the net for some 23 years now, let me pass along a bit of advice. You start with a default fund of reputation from other netizens. You do good things, like copyedit a thousand articles or supply a bit of requested info, your fund goes up. You do bad things, like call someone a nasty name in public, your fund goes down.
Why does this matter? If your fund of reputation is high, you can merely suggest an idea, and people will rush to make it happen. If your fund is low, others will dislike your idea, *even if it's a good idea*. Unfair, perhaps, but that's how interpersonal relationships work, on the net as elsewere.
Some people even tried to let you know when your fund crossed zero and headed into negative territory, but you blew right on by without slowing down. So, if you want to have any chance at all of having any influence on things, I suggest you cool it with all the accusations and criticism - I think you do enough worthwhile things normally that your reputation will eventually get back to the positive side again.
Well put!
What I would add is that another thing that moves someone into negative territory is continuing "ad nauseam" with a subject. This "Quenya" thread seems to keep going on ... and on ... and on ... and on ... and on ... with the same cast of characters, and often lengthy posts. It gets to the point where I don't even bother to look to see if there are accusations and criticisms. My finger on the delete button just gets very heavy.
Ec
Ditto. There's only so far I'm willing to read a thread. I think I got the basic arguments of the Quenya thread within the first 10 mails.
James
-----Original Message----- From: wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org [mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces@Wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ray Saintonge Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2005 9:07 PM To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Subject: Re: Reputation (was Re: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request,and Chinese Wikipedia again)
Stan Shebs wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
Do you really think I'm /that/ stupid?
He probably does, actually. Despite repeated hints that it's counterproductive, you continue to try to browbeat people into doing what you want.
As someone who's lived on the net for some 23 years now, let me pass along a bit of advice. You start with a default fund of reputation from other netizens. You do good things, like copyedit a thousand articles or supply a bit of requested info, your fund goes up. You do bad things, like call someone a nasty name in public, your fund goes down.
Why does this matter? If your fund of reputation is high, you can merely suggest an idea, and people will rush to make it happen. If your fund is low, others will dislike your idea, *even if it's a good idea*. Unfair, perhaps, but that's how interpersonal relationships work, on the net as elsewere.
Some people even tried to let you know when your fund crossed zero and headed into negative territory, but you blew right on by without slowing down. So, if you want to have any chance at all of having any influence on things, I suggest you cool it with all the accusations and criticism - I think you do enough worthwhile things normally that your reputation will eventually get back to the positive side again.
Well put!
What I would add is that another thing that moves someone into negative territory is continuing "ad nauseam" with a subject. This "Quenya" thread seems to keep going on ... and on ... and on ... and on ... and on ... with the same cast of characters, and often lengthy posts. It gets to the point where I don't even bother to look to see if there are accusations and criticisms. My finger on the delete button just gets very heavy.
Ec
_______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005, Stan Shebs wrote:
As someone who's lived on the net for some 23 years now, let me
It's been 13 years this month for me. I think perception of online discussions does change when you've hung out online for a long period of time.
pass along a bit of advice. You start with a default fund of reputation from other netizens. You do good things, like copyedit a thousand articles or supply a bit of requested info, your fund goes up. You do bad things, like call someone a nasty name in public, your fund goes down.
Yes well put.
My company keeps a list of resumes for contractors we'll subcontract work to. I have deleted resumes because of poor attitudes I've seen people display on mailing lists. I think a lot of people underestimate how their words impact how other perceives them.
For the record I've been ignoring the Quenya thread so I have no idea how much or little flaming has been going on.
My advice when people get to hung up on a thread in email:
1. Relax.
2. Having the last say does not impart any sort of legitimacy to an argument.
3. Accept that others will have different opinions.
4. Accept that many people will not change their minds even when presented with sound logic.
5. There is every likelihood that open mailing list archives will be retained indefinitely. One day our great great grand children are going to be able read what we wrote online. They will have unprecedented ability to understand their ancestors. I wonder what they will think of us.
6. Understand that many terrible things are going on in this world. Consider diverting some of that energy to helping others.
Cheers, Rob
"Thanks" for the advice.
I have some for you, too - cool off a bit, and quit acting so condescending. It's very irritating, even in small doses. And as I have noted before, while friendly advice is usually appreciated by me, when it is given in a tone like this it really doesn't help anybody.
Mark
On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 07:04:25 -0800, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
Do you really think I'm /that/ stupid?
He probably does, actually. Despite repeated hints that it's counterproductive, you continue to try to browbeat people into doing what you want.
As someone who's lived on the net for some 23 years now, let me pass along a bit of advice. You start with a default fund of reputation from other netizens. You do good things, like copyedit a thousand articles or supply a bit of requested info, your fund goes up. You do bad things, like call someone a nasty name in public, your fund goes down.
Why does this matter? If your fund of reputation is high, you can merely suggest an idea, and people will rush to make it happen. If your fund is low, others will dislike your idea, *even if it's a good idea*. Unfair, perhaps, but that's how interpersonal relationships work, on the net as elsewere.
Some people even tried to let you know when your fund crossed zero and headed into negative territory, but you blew right on by without slowing down. So, if you want to have any chance at all of having any influence on things, I suggest you cool it with all the accusations and criticism - I think you do enough worthwhile things normally that your reputation will eventually get back to the positive side again.
Stan
Mark,
**Intentional Top-post**
May I suggest that you calm down a bit, and actually read what people write?
Your quite lengthy response was entirely based upon things that I never said, or even thought.
Please re-read what I wrote; I'll quote myself here:
Rich Holton wrote:
I don't think you're thinking clearly here. Any Wikipedia, any Wikimedia project, has potential repercussions on the other projects, and certainly on those who are involved in coordinating and maintaining those projects.
If native speakers want to start a wiki using the MediaWiki software, they are of course welcome to. But if it is going to be one of the WikiMedia Foundation projects, it's an absolute requirement that there be some community discretion involved.
You will note that nowhere did I mention a vote, or a majority. "Some community discretion" is a long way from "decided by majority vote." I was very intentionally non-specific, but in no way did I think or intend "majority vote." Exactly what form the community discretion would take is an open question. I would think that the developers should have some input into the decision, and probably the board of directors. Beyond that I am unsure. Perhaps we could use a petition model.
To allow anyone to start a new language Wikipedia without any input from the larger community is an invitation to chaos.
(This is not comparable to those who say that the 'wiki way' is an invitation to chaos. It's not the same, especially unless there is a mechanism to delete wikipedias, like VFD is for articles. Anyone can start a new one, but there can be vote to delete it? That certainly would be the tyranny of the majority, or even just the vocal minority.)
We could easily end up with a thousand wikipedias, many of which with little or no traffic on a daily basis. Even if locked down, these deserted wikipedias would simply become a headache for maintenance, and would have no benefit.
Now, it may be that my particular suggestions for community discernment are terrible. It would not be the first time I made terrible suggestions. But if my suggestions are terrible, that does not mean that the concept is terrible.
-Rich Holton
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:05:15 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
"Repercussions on the other projects"?
Why should it be up to the community to decide this?
In the past when the majority has been allowed to decide the rights of the minority, it has always made bad and irresponsible decisions that have sometimes been horrific and sometimes just unjust (if a new Wikipedia is voted against because the majority is allowed to decide, that would be 'unjust')
In the past there have been no votes over new projects, why should this start now?
Zh-min-nan was created against the will of the zh.wikipedia community, and even people such as Tim Starling suggested after its creation shutting it down, but it is still growing constantly and I was surprised to receive from some Taiwanese people indications of support.
New Wikipedias may effeect other projects but their effect is microscopic. PRC is not in the habit of blocking sites in Cantonese or Wu just for that reason, so that isn't a worry. People in the past worried about ridicule, but most of the ridicule for Zh-min-nan: has come from WITHIN the community, and there has been only a minimal amount of ridicule for tlh:.
The main problem with a complete democracy is that there is no protection for the minority. The majority can vote in any policy to do anything they want to the minority and nothing is said about it. This is why direct democracies without protections for the minorities always split up along ethnolinguistic lines or have massive civil wars and civil unrest.
We didn't have a vote on en: wehther or not to have de:, fr:, ja:, es
- they were just created. Controversial Wikipedias such as nds: and
als: were not voted on, if they were there is a good chance the de.wikipedia community would've excluded all possibility of their existance as Wikimedia projects.
The creation of nn.wikipedia was controversial, and it is perhaps the best case.
There was a VOTE on no: a bit prior to the creation of nn: as to whether or not there should be a separate Wikipedia for Nynorsk. By a margin of just a couple votes it was decided to keep a unified Wikipedia, however most of the voters who voted for that were Bokmål users. A bit afterwards Nynorsk users such as Ulf Lunde brought their complaint to this list and shortly thereafter nn: was created against the will of the no: community and now has over 1k articles.
It's very naïve of you to assume that in cases of a problem involving a minority out of a larger community, the majority should always be allowed to make the decision and that they will always decide wisely.
There is no precedent suggesting that all new Foundation-sponsored projects must have community discretion involved in their creation. This is simply a suggestion by you which doesn't seem to me like a good idea at all. Do you let men decide the future or right of women, or let Spaniards decide on whether Chechnya should be independent?
Mark
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:42:03 -0600, Richard Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:04:41 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I say, all those who are native speakers of the language and are interested in building a Wikipedia in it should be allowed to vote. It shouldn't be anybody else's decision if they get a Wikipedia in their language or not.
Mark,
I don't think you're thinking clearly here. Any Wikipedia, any Wikimedia project, has potential repercussions on the other projects, and certainly on those who are involved in coordinating and maintaining those projects.
If native speakers want to start a wiki using the MediaWiki software, they are of course welcome to. But if it is going to be one of the WikiMedia Foundation projects, it's an absolute requirement that there be some community discretion involved.
-Rich Holton
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"Community discretion" implies to me actual community involvement.
The board and the developers != the "community". The Board tries to speak for the community, yes, but that doesn't mean the involvement of the board is community involvement.
I think you are having some misconceptions about the resources used by inactive Wikipedias. Even if we had 1000 Wikipedias - which isn't a bad thing because according to the Ethnologue there are over 6k languages spoken on Earth, which excludes almost all conlangs - if half of them were inactive that would take up almost no resources except developer time. The vandalism argument can no longer be used because I now constantly monitor every single Wikipedia for vandalism using an RSS feed aggregator and thus msot of the work reverting vandalism and trying to assist new users on inactive Wikipedias is now mine.
Mark
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 19:23:46 -0600, Richard Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Mark,
**Intentional Top-post**
May I suggest that you calm down a bit, and actually read what people write?
Your quite lengthy response was entirely based upon things that I never said, or even thought.
Please re-read what I wrote; I'll quote myself here:
Rich Holton wrote:
I don't think you're thinking clearly here. Any Wikipedia, any Wikimedia project, has potential repercussions on the other projects, and certainly on those who are involved in coordinating and maintaining those projects.
If native speakers want to start a wiki using the MediaWiki software, they are of course welcome to. But if it is going to be one of the WikiMedia Foundation projects, it's an absolute requirement that there be some community discretion involved.
You will note that nowhere did I mention a vote, or a majority. "Some community discretion" is a long way from "decided by majority vote." I was very intentionally non-specific, but in no way did I think or intend "majority vote." Exactly what form the community discretion would take is an open question. I would think that the developers should have some input into the decision, and probably the board of directors. Beyond that I am unsure. Perhaps we could use a petition model.
To allow anyone to start a new language Wikipedia without any input from the larger community is an invitation to chaos.
(This is not comparable to those who say that the 'wiki way' is an invitation to chaos. It's not the same, especially unless there is a mechanism to delete wikipedias, like VFD is for articles. Anyone can start a new one, but there can be vote to delete it? That certainly would be the tyranny of the majority, or even just the vocal minority.)
We could easily end up with a thousand wikipedias, many of which with little or no traffic on a daily basis. Even if locked down, these deserted wikipedias would simply become a headache for maintenance, and would have no benefit.
Now, it may be that my particular suggestions for community discernment are terrible. It would not be the first time I made terrible suggestions. But if my suggestions are terrible, that does not mean that the concept is terrible.
-Rich Holton
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:05:15 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
"Repercussions on the other projects"?
Why should it be up to the community to decide this?
In the past when the majority has been allowed to decide the rights of the minority, it has always made bad and irresponsible decisions that have sometimes been horrific and sometimes just unjust (if a new Wikipedia is voted against because the majority is allowed to decide, that would be 'unjust')
In the past there have been no votes over new projects, why should this start now?
Zh-min-nan was created against the will of the zh.wikipedia community, and even people such as Tim Starling suggested after its creation shutting it down, but it is still growing constantly and I was surprised to receive from some Taiwanese people indications of support.
New Wikipedias may effeect other projects but their effect is microscopic. PRC is not in the habit of blocking sites in Cantonese or Wu just for that reason, so that isn't a worry. People in the past worried about ridicule, but most of the ridicule for Zh-min-nan: has come from WITHIN the community, and there has been only a minimal amount of ridicule for tlh:.
The main problem with a complete democracy is that there is no protection for the minority. The majority can vote in any policy to do anything they want to the minority and nothing is said about it. This is why direct democracies without protections for the minorities always split up along ethnolinguistic lines or have massive civil wars and civil unrest.
We didn't have a vote on en: wehther or not to have de:, fr:, ja:, es
- they were just created. Controversial Wikipedias such as nds: and
als: were not voted on, if they were there is a good chance the de.wikipedia community would've excluded all possibility of their existance as Wikimedia projects.
The creation of nn.wikipedia was controversial, and it is perhaps the best case.
There was a VOTE on no: a bit prior to the creation of nn: as to whether or not there should be a separate Wikipedia for Nynorsk. By a margin of just a couple votes it was decided to keep a unified Wikipedia, however most of the voters who voted for that were Bokmål users. A bit afterwards Nynorsk users such as Ulf Lunde brought their complaint to this list and shortly thereafter nn: was created against the will of the no: community and now has over 1k articles.
It's very naïve of you to assume that in cases of a problem involving a minority out of a larger community, the majority should always be allowed to make the decision and that they will always decide wisely.
There is no precedent suggesting that all new Foundation-sponsored projects must have community discretion involved in their creation. This is simply a suggestion by you which doesn't seem to me like a good idea at all. Do you let men decide the future or right of women, or let Spaniards decide on whether Chechnya should be independent?
Mark
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:42:03 -0600, Richard Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:04:41 -0700, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I say, all those who are native speakers of the language and are interested in building a Wikipedia in it should be allowed to vote. It shouldn't be anybody else's decision if they get a Wikipedia in their language or not.
Mark,
I don't think you're thinking clearly here. Any Wikipedia, any Wikimedia project, has potential repercussions on the other projects, and certainly on those who are involved in coordinating and maintaining those projects.
If native speakers want to start a wiki using the MediaWiki software, they are of course welcome to. But if it is going to be one of the WikiMedia Foundation projects, it's an absolute requirement that there be some community discretion involved.
-Rich Holton
--
en.wikipedia:User:Rholton
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
--
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