[Foundation-l] #wikipedia , english and other languages

Pedro Sanchez pdsanchez at gmail.com
Wed Jun 20 22:14:04 UTC 2007


I was wondering, if on the new rules, it was decided that #wikipedia
is to become an english-only channel

You'll see, traditionally #wikipedia is the "all wikipedias" channel,
unlike #wikipedia-fr which is the french one, #wikipedia-en  the
english wikipedia, and so.

So, since it's the equivalent of a "meta" channel, all languages have
been traditionally accepted, since visitors from any wikipedia may get
there first.

Now, every once in a while, people there get to think it's the english
wikipedia channel and start acting aggresive when people talk in
languages other than english along the lines
"If you want to talk spanish, go #wikipedia-es"
which is silly, we don't people "if you want talk english, go #wikipedia-en"

That attitude is not new, I've seen it several times since I've been
around (which is by the way, about 3 years ), and usually after a bit
of drama, it's accepted that #wikipedia is a multilanguage channel.

However, it seems that today several users (teh_tennisman and others)
were pushing out people because they weren't speakign english. So I
wonder, now that channel policies are being set

could it be made explicit once and for all that #wikipedia is a
multilingual channel or that it's an english only channel? Either way,
it would help to stop this hostile attitude towards non english
speakers (by either makign clear they're accepted or making clear they
shouldn't stop by).

-- drini



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