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

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.

Gerard, I don't mean to insult you. I agree that we need to improve
our behavior.

It's not at all clear to me that the enwiki community supports a
complete removal of that text... in fact, quite the opposite: A
recommendation against non-locally-readable question seems as well
supported as it ever was from the on wiki discussion. That some people
mostly outside the enwiki editing community have been especially loud
about the matter does not by itself justify the complete removal.

I have provided a list of all accounts that have been blocked that
have non-ascii characters. It is clear from even the most cursory
glance that the majority of these were created not by speakers of
other languages but as attempts to be cute or harmful.

After reading these painful threads and factoring in the above data, I
can only conclude that the view that enwikis policy was created as a
result of "ethnocentricism" rather than because such usernames are
widely used for vandalism and due to the inconvenience they present,
has yet to be supported by anything concrete.

This doesn't mean that I am dismissing your position: I share the view
that an improvement should be made, I do not share the your position
on the level or seriousness of the problem not your ease of dismissing
the real troubles that unprouncable/untypable names present to
shameful monoglots like myself.

Can we stop fighting against each other and instead work with each other?