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

[Gerard Meijssen]

Gregory Maxwell schreef:
> On 12/22/06, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
>   
>> The en.WP Username policy has been changed.
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Username&curid=168684&diff=95920637&oldid=95900078
>>     
>
> Unfortunatly, it was changed without any valid basis.
>
> It is not acceptable to remove longstanding policy simply because some
> people on a mailing list decided to speculate randomly and accuse
> enwiki of "ethnocentricism" without substantiation.
>
> As a result I've reverted the change and contributed some suggestions
> to the talk page.
>
> I agree that the policy should be *improved* to address the real
> concerns brought up, and to be more friendly to users who work across
> many languages.  Simply removing the section does not, however,
> address the very real issues which caused the creation of the policy
> in the first place.
Hoi,
Some people congratulated me with the outcome of this affair. My 
reaction was that it did not feel like a victory because I feel bruised 
by the experience. Having said this, your suggestion that there has been 
no substantiation about the grievance that was put forward is seriously 
wrong. The notion that it is up to you to revert this change continues 
to make this affair even more painful. Simply reverting this change and 
thereby denying that many of the reasons why this policy was put in 
place is seriously wrong.

I have to say I am increasingly upset by this affair.

Thanks,
     GerardM