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

[George Herbert]

On 12/21/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> geni schreef:
> > On 12/21/06, Yann Forget <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> >
> >> Yes, one big part of the  problem goes away: that to find out if the user
> >> is a vandal or a known user on some other wikis.
> >> If I understand GerardM's explanations correctly, it will be possible to
> >> easily find out on which wikis this user has edits, so you will know if
> >> it is a new account or not.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > Sleeper accounts are a common tactic so age means little.
> >
> >
> >> Beside that, don't you think that the English Wikipedia is not the only
> >> wikis in which most of the users can't understand non Latin scripts?
> >>
> >> Actually as the English Wikipedia is much more international than other
> >> languages wikis, it is propably the opposite, i.e. there are many
> >> editors on the English Wikipedia whose mother tongue is not English,
> >> compared to other European languages where there are very few editors
> >> whose mother tongue is the language of the wiki.
> >>
> >> But yet no other Wikipedia has created or applied such a policy.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > No other wikipedia could survive the level of continious attacks en
> > has to deal with for a non trivial length of time.
> Hoi,
> No other WMF project has as many resources as the English language
> Wikipedia does. No other project gets as much attention from the
> developers. No other project does as well as a result. No other project
> can therefore withstand the constant abuse from vandals as successfully.
>
> However, this does not mean that might is right. It also does not mean
> that arguments used that are in opposition to some of its policies can
> be ignored as is currently happening. There are many things I do not
> care about. Having people decently treated is one. With the improvements
> that have happened like the prevention of mixed script user names and
> the upcoming the SUL the arguments for the practice of blocking non
> Latin users on sight have been largely removed. It is sad that this is
> not acknowledged and that discussion has deteriorated into little more
> than denial and name calling.
>
> Thanks,
>      GerardM

You keep saying that these things fix our problems, but you aren't
showing how they do, and from where I can see they don't.

Just asserting that they do over and over again is not helpful.
Please explain how you believe they do.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com