[Foundation-l] Sigh, problems with non-Latin usernames again

[Matt R]

--- Anders Wegge Jakobsen <wegge at wegge.dk> wrote:

>  Learn to discern between squiggles then. If you claim that the
> average editor is able to remeber User:JoeBloggs from way back, then
> any claim of not beeing able to discern between squiggles revolve
> around being unable (or unwilling) to install the proper font needed
> to make sense out of User:Æøå. 

Non-Latin usernames make distinguishing and recognising users *much* harder.

How many different fonts do I have to install to cover all possible squiggles?
On all OSes on all my computers? Can I install these fonts on my old Unix
terminal? (Yes, I do use it for Wikipedia...) Can I install fonts on the
computers at my local library and Internet cafe? (Answer: No.) Do you expect
people less familiar with technology to know how to do this, or even that there
exists some way to resolve those question marks? Which will someone remember
longer: "User:JoeBloggs" or "User:some_weird_glyph"?

The inconvenience to en: Wikipedians is quite out of proportion to the
convenience of not having to spend the thirty seconds creating a Latin-1
username. 

I'm not going to spend any more of my dwindling Wikipedia time on this, fun as
it is being put in the same moral category as racists and misogynists and
sneered at for lacking a universal knowledge of the world's writing systems.

> >>  Will the next demand be that interwiki targets must only be named
> >> with latin-1 characters?
>  
> > Come on, that's a one of them strawman thingybobs: nobody's
> > demanding this, and there's no reason to thing anyone would. There
> > are few Wikipedia interactions that are affected by the ability to
> > read non-Latin-1 interwiki targets.
> 
>  You are free to call that argument a strawman, as long as you accept
> that your basic premise (that latin-1 is the bee's knees) are a
> strawman as well.

Actually, I'm just free to call a strawman a strawman. Watch carefully and I'll
do it again!

How to win an argument:

1. Make an obvious strawman argument.
2. Wait for someone to call you on it.
3. Agree to concede that it's a strawman only if the person you're arguing with
concedes your main point.
4. ????
5. Profit!

-- Matt

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Matt_Crypto
Blog: http://cipher-text.blogspot.com


		
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