[Foundation-l] On certain shallow, American-centered, foolish software initiatives backed by WMF

[Fred Bauder]

No good, the Grinch already stole Christmas. A juggernaut of foolishness
and play is bearing down on you...

Fred

> The WMF has been recently backing softwares that are a breach of
> "Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not" (1). Recently a totally stupid pink
> heart was added to user talk pages, making people believe it is
> Valentine Day everyday, with the result that Wikipedia is now being
> used as a social network or a game. For example see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Alleahruiz .
>
> This sort of software enhances shallow relationships between people.
> That might be fine for American people or americanized people but
> everybody in the world is not American or Americanized or belonging to
> a culture close to that one. I believe that in this world some people
> value something else than shallow relationships based on US-centered
> cultural codes such as a pink heart, for example trusting
> relationships based on working together in the long term, using true
> words really felt rather than just picking an icon on a game
> interface.
>
> Do you know that the pink heart tool was imposed on Wikimedia COmmons
> by the English speaking community without consulting other language
> communities ?
>
> Now we are seeing the appearance of a feedback tool on the English
> Wikipedia ? How long are the non-English Wikipedias going to be free
> from this new stupid tool which has nothing to do with writing an
> encyclopaedia ?
>
> Where is the usability when adding new features at a confusing hurried
> rythm ?
>
> (1)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_a_blog.2C_webspace_provider.2C_social_network.2C_or_memorial_site
>
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