[Foundation-l] Vandalism and small wikis

[Darko Bulatovic]

>
> Being multilingual and multicultural does not mean that each language 
> needs its own Bantustan.  South Africa already showed us that apartheid 
> was a bankrupt system.  Post-colonial Africa had to accept that 
> abandoning colonial boundaries in favour of a return to tribal areas 
> would be a recipe for chaos.
>
> To say that languages must be driven by politics is absurd.  Generally 
> it works the other way.  Tribes develop their own way of talking, and 
> use that as an excuse for making politics.
>   

Please Montenegro is not in Africa, and it has much to offer to the 
world, from their own culture and civilization. Many great people was 
born in Montenegro and many had a great contribution to the human 
civilization. In other sense the Montenegrin Wikipedia is great tool for 
Montenegro to put effort in building unified Encyclopedia that anyone 
can use. Many Benefits are possible for future generations of 
Montenegrin to aggregate knowledge and to continue to share their 
knowledge and to translate form English to their native language and 
vice versa.

Wikipedia and WMF had a vision when I started to use it and to use their 
tools, if that vision was changed I don't know. This vision was saying 
that Wikipedia is multilingual encyclopedia, not some -lingual encyclopedia.
> Using Wikipedia to spread nationalism is absolutely contrary to a 
> Neutral Point of View.  Wikipedia did start in the United States, but if 
> the Americans who were involved at the earliest stages had insisted that 
> Wikipedia was there to promote US nationalism it would have failed 
> miserably in all other English-speaking countries.
>
> Personally, I don't think that there should ever have been separate 
> Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian wikipedias.  If any of them are using 
> their respective projects to spread their own nationalism that is 
> wrong.  As long as they have their own wikis nobody from within the 
> Yugoslav communities will be willing to seriously criticise them for it, 
> and nobody from outside the Yugoslav communities will understand the 
> language enough to be able to do it.
>
> I can understand that Montenegrins can feel prejudiced when the same 
> mistake is not made for them as was made for the Serbians.
>
>   
But there are many articles on wikipedia that promote nationalism with 
support of some facts or invented ones. Montenegrin related articles are 
good examples, please see discussion on some of them and you will see 
what happen there. If you stop Montenegrin wikipedia I don't see how 
that will help in this effort? I think that will just do opposite. On 
other languages cold be the same ( As I know it is on some Balkan versions).
> I don't think that bringing a bad image is a factor.  It's a broader 
> question of linguistics.
>   
I am not linguist but for this occasion I gathered many material on this 
topic and I am ready to contribute to clear this part and to put it on 
light.
>   
>> I am ready to participate on any level of discussion but please don't 
>> make assumptions as that will bring bad connotation to your willingness 
>> to do right thing in this case.
>>
>>     
> The only assumption there is that what you want is the right thing.
>
> There is another alternative.  Start using the serbo-croatian (sh) 
> Wikipedia.  It was the original Yugoslav project, and is still alive and 
> well.
>
> Ec
>
>   
But I don't really see what happening here. Many people talk about 
Montenegrin wikipedia in bad way as it should be killed before it is 
born without fair trial. This not looks very good for community and for 
future development.

It is not problem with Montenegrin wikipedia it is problem with current 
wikipedias that don't obey rules to be NPOV. And it looks like no one 
are willing to be persistent to change this.  In contrary to Yann I 
think that Montenegrin wikipedia could contribute in solving this 
problem in one part. At least that could show that problem is not on 
small projects, That problem could be in people that lead and contribute 
to the projects (easy could be on much larger WP). Laziness and trouble 
fighting vandals should not be reason to stop new projects.

Yugoslavia have place in History but not in future, now future for 
Balkan nations are in EU.

Regards,
Darko Bulatovic