English people
and Japanese people also have the same universe, sun,
planet, species, maths, logic, and universal history, yet we have
separate Wikipedias for English and Japanese...
By your logic, there shouldn't even be a zh: and we should only have
one Wikipedia (which would probably be en: although I would much
prefer is: or lb: or something of that sort)
You just missed my point. That's my fault not to express my point clearly.
I mean we have the same vocabulary in most cases,
we call things using the same name and same concepts in most cases,
this is important, this means we enjoy the same language.
The writing system is different, but most of them can be mapped each other.
So what? The writing system is different. That is what counts. A
unified zh: might work, but only extremely clumsily.
So what? One
could make the same arguments for not having separate
Wikipedias for different languages.
You can't synchronize en: and jp: easily,
because they are different language.
But we can someday find a way to synchronize zh-cn: and zh-tw: easily.
That is the different.
Chances are, someday there will be a way to synchronize en: and jp:
easily too. How is that relevant?
But the
difference between the two isn't merely a "difference of
character sets". Rather than converting on the level of the individual
character which will inevitably produce poor results, it is nessecary
to convert documents on the level of lexemes, for which one needs some
sort of artificial intelligence capable of separating Chinese texts
into individual lexemes before conversion. It is also nessecary to
convert names of countries, special terminology
Did you not try the link I mentioned above?
please visit
http://fengzz.net/wiki/ to try.
We are using some markup to solve this lexemes problem,
and it works.
Yes, I tried it. So what?
I agree with you that it is inconvenient for
traditional Chinese users now.
and I think the request on creating zh-tw version is proper.
But we'd better have a good evaluation of different solutions before we decide.
In my opinion, to keep a single version is benefit for future,
and this is also the consensus of the Chinese Wikipedia community now.
Maybe we should discuss this issue more.
"Community consensus"? Let me give you a scenario here which I find
comparable to the "community consensus" on zh:
The People's Republic of China decides to hold a vote on the fate of
Taiwan. Taiwanese people as well as mainlanders get to vote. The
result is an overwhelming majority in favour of immediate
"reunification" using force if nessecary. This is not a fair vote,
because since the PRC is by far the majority here their opinion is
much more well-represented than that of Taiwan. I think this is
similar to the situation on zh:, with a group of simplified users -
including you - and a mere handful of traditional users who agree with
them reaching a "consensus" to keep a unified zh:.
So, you have two choices here: we can run Wikipedia like it is the PRC
and hold a sham vote where one group of people gets to decide the fate
of another group of people, or we can run it *fairly* where we have
private e-mail discussions between Traditional users and the relevant
Wikipedia people, ie Tim Starling, Jimbo, etc etc.
rsy Jin Junshu/Mark