[Foundation-l] Vandalism and small wikis

Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
Wed Nov 29 12:32:24 UTC 2006


Darko Bulatovic schreef:
> Yann Forget wrote:
>   
>> Hi,
>>
>> Some wikis are plagued with vandalism, spams and non sense. Moldavan
>> Wikipedia seems the worst at this time, but there have been others too.
>> These projects do not bring any free knowledge to anybody, just a lot of
>> works for volunteers (hopefully there are great volunteers like Pill)
>> and stewards.
>>
>> Regarding the Moldavan Wikipedia (http://mo.wikipedia.org), the
>> administrators election was already cancelled twice because of massive
>> attacks. Sincere editors have been discouraged and have left. So the
>> wiki is just a battle field for vandals, trolls and sockpuppets. There
>> is no expected improvement in the near future because the language
>> itself is in the middle of a political controversy.
>>
>> I forsee the same situation for the Montenegrin Wikipedia if it is
>> created. These wikis only give a bad image of Wikimedia. I think that
>> the Foundation should take its responsibilities and take some decisions.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Yann
>>   
>>     
> I cant believe my eyes that you Yann say this. How in the God sake you 
> can forsee such thing about Montenegrin wikipedia? Montenegrin wikipedia 
> gives bad image of Wikimedia? This statement that you did give bad image 
> to WMF.  You don't have any  argument to say this and to support your 
> statement.
> Please elaborate this on Montenegrin request for Wikipedia.
>
> Wikipedia is multilingual and multicultural project, without that WMF 
> don't have right to use that statement. What was done with Montenegrin 
> request is just showing what kind of lobbying is possible on WMF.
>
> Regards,
> Darko bulatovic
> President of IT Association of Montenegro
Hoi,
Wikipedia is in its manifestations very much a multilingual project and 
very much not a multicultural project. Cultural and political reasons 
are not a reason to start another project. When you read the article 
about Montenegrin, the language on the English Wikipedia, it explains 
quite clearly that elements that are to make Montegrin special can be 
found outside of Montenegro as well. This means that from a linguistic 
point of view the case for a Montenegrin Wikipedia is pretty weak.

There are languages where the cultural and political differences are 
quite big while there is no call for a split project. The Chinese and 
the Dutch wikipedias are good examples for this. It would be a good 
thing if you could find it in you to consider this and retract the 
application for a Montenegrin Wikipedia.

Thanks,
    GerardM




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