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

[Neil Harris]

George Herbert wrote:
> On 12/20/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>>
>> 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
>>
>>     
>
> This doesn't address my point.
>
> There is very little difference between "Georgewilliamherbert" and
> "Georgewi11iamherbert" in most character displays.  This is bad enough, but
> we have people aware of it and looking for it.  There are non-latin
> characters which are visually indistinguishable from "o" and others
> available as well.  We *HAVE SEEN* an impersonation of an experienced editor
> where the impersonator used a greek omega that rendered as an "o" character.
>
> Refusing to pay attention to this problem rises to the level of a
> show-stopper for en, in my opinion.  We really really should not stomp all
> over one of the en defensive mechanisms against vandals without at least
> looking at the issues raised and alerting people to the impact.
>
> The ultimate answer may well be that en.wikipedia has to remove that policy
> and deal with it.  Has anyone posted any notice of this to wikien-l or the
> Village Pump on en, or do you think it's reasonable and fair to just do it
> without proper and fair notice and time to allow en to talk about it and
> figure out how to handle it?
>
>
>   

As I say, the existing antispoofing filter supposedly works OK across 
languages, and these particular examples should no longer be possible -- 
but SUL will test this filter in a way that has not happened hitherto.

-- Neil