[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects other communities

[Neil Harris]

Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Neil Harris schreef:
>   
>> Stephen Bain wrote:
>>   
>>     
>>> On 12/20/06, Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>   
>>>     
>>>       
>>>> I can understand the rationale for this policy, but it _is_
>>>> ethnocentric, and it counters the problem from the wrong side, if you
>>>> know what I mean. Instead of trying to fix the problem, they try to
>>>> remove it.
>>>>     
>>>>       
>>>>         
>>> I think it's horribly rude for the other admins on en: to be blocking
>>> people for using non-Latin characters in their username. A more polite
>>> approach would be to ask them to add a transliteration to their
>>> signature, that would satisfy many people.
>>>
>>> The problem is fairly simple, people who speak only English don't
>>> bother installing language support on their computers, even though
>>> (AFAIK) it is included with all operating systems these days. All they
>>> need to do is get their installation CD out and turn it on.
>>>
>>>   
>>>     
>>>       
>> The major problem is that, to most Latin-script-only contributors cannot 
>> accurately memorize or distinguish many non-Latin names. For example, 
>> the average Western user cannot clearly visualize -- or communicate to 
>> others -- the differences between (chosen at random) 漢, 源, and 装, all 
>> of which look remarkably similar to them, even though they are 
>> immediately and obviously distinguishable by any Chinese reader.
>>
>> Since Wikipedia needs names to be human-recognizable in order to 
>> function, this needs fixing, and since it is impractical to educate all 
>> Wikipedia contributors to literacy in all major world script systems, 
>> transliteration -- or some other disambiguation system -- will be 
>> necessary in order to make names distinct to human readers who are 
>> unfamiliar with other writing systems.
>>
>> Possibility 1:
>>
>> For example, a user with the Japanese name 武 could add a Latin-script 
>> transliteration ("Takeshi"), and appear on Latin-script wikis as
>>
>> [[User:武 (Takeshi)]]
>>
>> or possibly:
>>
>> [[User:Takeshi (武)]]
>>
>> Of course, to avoid any appearance of linguistic imperialism, the same 
>> facility should be available for users with Latin-script names to add 
>> transliterations in other scripts.
>>
>> Possibility 2:
>>
>> All usernames could have their internal Wikipedia IDs appended, perhaps 
>> in the form of hex numbers, allowing them to be uniquely identified, 
>> regardless of the culture of the readers, providing only that they can 
>> read hex digits. For example:
>>
>> 武 (x610d49)
>>
>> Ideally, a unique fixed-length hash of the internal ID number would be 
>> used, to avoid the emergence of a "pecking order" based on one user 
>> having an earlier-issued ID number than another.
>>
>> -- Neil
>>     
> Hoi,
> Given how you phrase things you assume that all wikipedia users can read 
> the Latin script. That is incorrect. When you assume that the English 
> language Wikipedia can set the policies in this, I would hate it when 
> the non Latin language Wikipedias by retaliating and expect the 
> transliteration of the users. This is a wrong route. Do not go this way.
>
> Thanks,
>       *ゲラルド・メイセン*
>   

Gerard,

The problem does indeed occur symmetrically, and while I phrased my 
reply in terms of making non-Latin names unambiguous on 
native-Latin-script Wikipedia editions, you might want to re-read my 
comment, and notice the bit that said:

> Of course, to avoid any appearance of linguistic imperialism, the same 
> facility should be available for users with Latin-script names to add 
> transliterations in other scripts.

-- Neil