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

[Jeff V. Merkey]

Brion,

I'll give you $500.00 if you get it done by January. You also have to 
fix my SVG bug too.

Jeff

James Hare wrote:

>Brion, I will redirect my $100 donation to Wikimedia straight to you if you
>get SUL up by January.
>
>On 12/20/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>George Herbert schreef:
>>    
>>
>>>On 12/20/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>The Cunctator wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>On 12/20/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>>>Hello,
>>>>>>today a user on Japanese Wikipedia whose account is in Kana (a
>>>>>>Japanese script) came to our Admins' noticeboard to request for
>>>>>>chaning his username. He said he would have liked to do so because he
>>>>>>had changed his username on English Wikipedia.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I repeat again the English Wikipedia community should reconsider how
>>>>>>shameful and discriptive policy they has about users' identity and
>>>>>>respect of cultural diversity, and how badly it affects other
>>>>>>communities. I am very sorry to see such a request fullfiled to our
>>>>>>request page.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>            
>>>>>>
>>>>>Although there are strong relationships between language and culture,
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>I
>>    
>>
>>>>>believe you are off the mark.
>>>>>
>>>>>It is not unreasonable for the English Wikipedia to have a policy of
>>>>>Latin-alphabet usernames.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>Then it wouldn't be unreasonable for the Japanese wikipedia to have a
>>>>policy of only Kana usernames. You bloody yanks, limeys and ozzies and
>>>>other anglo saxon idiots are so fucking biased about everybody needs to
>>>>speak your f*******g language and nees to understand your f*****g
>>>>cultures it is disgusting. There are more peopel around speaking non
>>>>english based languages then there are people speaking the lingo. Learn
>>>>to adapt to that. I can only predict the whining of stupid Americans
>>>>about feeling discriminated when they would be requirde to login in
>>>>Chinese on the Chinese wikipedia or Thai on the Thai wikipedia.
>>>>
>>>>Why the f*** should everybody learn your pissant of a language if you
>>>>refuse to learn others.,
>>>>
>>>>Waerth .... extremely pissed off
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>It is also unacceptable for dedicated vandals to show up, register an
>>>account whose visual depiction is not at all distinguishable from the
>>>accountname of an existing administrator or long-time editor due to the
>>>      
>>>
>>use
>>    
>>
>>>of similar ISO characters, and then go on a vandalism rampage which gets
>>>blamed on the normal admin.
>>>
>>>We had this happen a week ago with an omega character substituted for an
>>>      
>>>
>>O.
>>    
>>
>>>I've seen it done with 1/L and 0/o.  Someone tried to impersonate me
>>>      
>>>
>>with
>>    
>>
>>>one letter dropped; I'm suprised they didn't do the 1/L thing instead.
>>>
>>>There are some very nasty, creative people out there.  If you start
>>>      
>>>
>>enabling
>>    
>>
>>>them to cause more trouble, you are a problem.
>>>
>>>I'm all for multiculturalism, but this issue HAS to get looked at and
>>>thought about.  That does not mean that en.wikipedia may not end up just
>>>having to abandon that policy in the end, but if we do that there's
>>>      
>>>
>>going to
>>    
>>
>>>be an opening for vandals to impersonate us.
>>>
>>>We might have to do something like go from (username) to (username, ID#)
>>>tuples to ultimately get around this, which is terribly ugly.
>>>      
>>>
>>Hoi,
>>With Single User Login, this scheme will not be possible anymore .. a
>>user is THAT user and no one else can impersonate him by having the same
>>user. So the basic argument here is incorrect. It will no longer be
>>possible and, this whole ugly affair demonstrates admirably that we need
>>SUL as soon as possible ..
>>
>>PLEASE BRION .. get this over and done with.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>    Gerard
>>
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>>    
>>
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