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

[Walter van Kalken]

David Gerard wrote:

>On 20/12/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  
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>>What Aphaia means is that people have asked to change their Japanese
>>name because of the insistence of the English project that people have a
>>Latin name. With the long hoped for single login this policy of the
>>English Wikipedia HAS to go the way of the dinosaur. It is unfortunate
>>that this policy is still active.
>>    
>>
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>Ah, got it. In that case, Aphaia may care to post to wikien-l or to
>the various anti-vandalism pages on en:wp where the policy is
>implemented ... not to a list which very few en:wp editors actually
>read, as I believe was pointed out to her last time this came up.
>
>That is: actually make a slight effort to convince the people involved
>by consensus, rather than appearing to demand top-down imposition of a
>new policy on a wiki by the Foundation. That trick is somewhat less
>likely to work.
>
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Unfortunately trying to convince people whose heads are fully entrenched 
in the arses of Euro/American culture is going to be slightly impossible 
as I have noticed myself earlier in other debates. People who do not 
travel the world nor are open to other countries ways of life will never 
ever understand why some things they feel from there pink spectacles are 
acceptable do not work outside of their own living space.

I would actually encourage Japanese wikipedia to forbid usernames in 
latin characters to get the point accross.

Waerth