[Foundation-l] Throwing some data onto the flamefest fire (was: English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects other communities)

[Aphaia]

Dear Ms Walsh, and other fellow editors

On 12/23/06, Kat Walsh <mindspillage at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/22/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> Aphaia, I am very sorry that you feel this way. But I do not think
> this post is very fair.

At this point I have dirrerent point from you.
Also I would like to say now some of you have been show no interest of
my dignity. I sometimes said being addressed with family name without
honorific is a serious offence to Japanese, specially married women.
Some of you prefer to ignore my request and prefer to address me in
such a way. Because you like it. And you think it sensible, friendly
and so on.

Having a westernized username was my compromise. Once I used my
surname as my username and found it was hard to cease such rudenss
toward me and my lineage. But now I realize such compromise makes
nothing fruitful and only indulge you Westerners. I have been
embarassed to be addressing my surname, Herr Erik Moeller and other
people I think I said you sometimes but you decide to continue
embarassing with your rudeness.

I find here the similar thing - you may try to be civil and friendly,
but your civility means to place a block and tell the victims to
change their username. One user stated he didn't prefer since he used
it on over forty wikis but you English admins only repeat "change your
name".  I find here no civility nor frindliness. I find here only
condecension and arrogance.

> Here are a few things I see, on the whole thread.
>
> 1. No one is interested in blocking anyone because of beliefs about ethnicity.

No, even when they use their real name, you blocked them. You
disrespect their ethnicity and force them to .

> It is a problem for administrators on any wiki to handle usernames
> they cannot read or type. Reasonable people can disagree about whether
> the problem justifies enwiki's current ways of dealing with it. And
> reasonable people *do* disagree, which is why this thread has gone on
> for so long and why there is so much argument about it. But it is not
> about racism.
>
> 2. It is currently very difficult for users on any wiki, not just
> English, to interact with users who do not have a username in the
> script of that wiki's language.
>
> If you cannot read or type someone's username, it is hard to talk to
> them, hard to tell people apart, hard to search for their
> contributions, and many other things. In addition to the trouble
> talking to real users, vandals know that it is difficult, and because
> of this, they like to use this extra difficulty to cause trouble. And
> I don't expect users on wikis where the language is not in Latin
> script to be able to read a Latin script name, either.
>
> 3. Whether or not the policy is right, it doesn't excuse being rude to anybody.
>
> If anyone has been blocked with an uncivil message, or has not been
> asked politely about changing their username, that administrator is
> acting badly. But that is a fault of the person, not of the policy,
> and that should stop no matter what else happens.
>
> 4. Everyone would like a good solution to this.
>
> If there were currently a solution that allowed editors to keep their
> preferred names on every wiki, but allowed the users of every wiki to
> interact with them without too much difficulty, everyone would be
> happy. No one here wants to make others upset for no reason.
>
> 5. Solving this is difficult, and currently there is no fix that makes
> everyone entirely happy.
>
> There are many attempts to deal with it that make people unhappy, and
> just about every different attempted fix or work-around makes a
> *different* group of people unhappy.
>
> 6. Making the argument personal is not helping anyone get the
> solutions they want.
>
> There are a lot of people who are coming at this problem in good
> faith, even if not everyone agrees with what they are doing. There are
> a lot of people who have decided not to participate in this thread
> because they do not want to be attacked or flamed. And we lose the
> input of people who do want to help, but who either now feel like they
> are not wanted or who do not want to get into an argument in the first
> place.
>
> 7. Taking arguments personally is only going to make you miserable.
>
> No one is participating here just because they want to make anyone
> else feel bad or look foolish. It's not a personal argument, and if
> you feel like it is personal then perhaps it is time to step back and
> take a break, go outside and relax and then come back. (If everyone
> did that, there would not be so many messages to read, either.)
>
> *
>
> I would love a solution that makes everyone happy. I think there are
> possibilities for solutions that will make it easier for everyone to
> be happy. But we do not have them yet, and so it is still a real
> problem with many different sides to it.
>
> I am sorry that you feel that you are being made to look like a fool,
> or that you believe this is being done to be hurtful. But it is not
> fair to make remarks such as this, or such as have been made by many
> others at many other points in the thread, when everyone here is
> coming at the problem in good faith. Even if you disagree with them.
>
> Effe iets anders posted earlier asking everyone to step back and not
> take things personally, to recognize that reasonable people who do not
> mean harm can disagree. I agree, and I have written at more length
> than he has, but wanted to say more completely what I saw. I do not
> see anyone here who has the intention of harming anyone, and I think
> the thread would be much better and more productive if we could all
> assume this to be true.
>
> -Kat
>
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KIZU Naoko
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