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

[Andre Engels]

2006/12/20, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com>:

> 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.


Then BLOCK THEM FOR HAVING AN IMPERSONATING USER NAME. Is it that hard to
think of that solution? Surely, George WiIIiamherbert is much easier to
mistake for George Williamherbert than any combination of kana would be. Yet
the second one is blocked on the policy, the first one is not.**


> 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.


See my comment above. Surely someone who has found weird characters that
look like "Jimbo Wales" can be blocked for having an impersonating name
without having to resort to blocking everyone with a non-latin-1 name?

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?
>

It's been brought up several times at several places.

-- 
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels