[WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] stupid anglicization

[Toby Bartels]

Lir wrote in part:

>Yes, I agree there should be some agreement about what is done on wikipedia.
>This is why I, and others, keep advocating that wikipedia start becoming a
>democracy and voting on stuff.

Democracy is by no means the same thing as voting.
With the exception of Jimbo's rarely used dictatorial powers,
we're a pretty good democracy now -- nobody has much opportunity
to force their view on others.  There's room for improvement --
like automatic old hand status instead of sysophood on request --
but some improvement will be possible in any system, however good.

>Atm, wikipedia is pretty totalitarian-basically if mav, larry, vibber, and one
>of a couple others doesn't agree with something, it doesn't happen.

Larry?  Larry's one of the people that keeps trying to *change* things.
Personally, I think that his ideas are much more appropriate
for an auxiliary project and that he should leave Wikipedia itself alone
(I mean in the sense of not changing how Wikipedia works,
not in the sense of not participating here!), and that's what he's doing.
He only began the sifter project after several other suggestions
on the mailing list received little support; he has no particular power.

As for mav and Brion, yes, they are more conservative voices.
But they're never close to alone.  Only The Cunctator regularly
stands in the way of proposals that almost everybody else wants,
and even then, he doesn't get his way if he's truly alone.
Furthermore, Larry, mav, Brion, and even Cunc have no special powers;
anybody can block (or spur) progress just as much as they can.

>Sadly, one of wikipedias basic premises amounts to, "And we should always
>strive for a anglo-americanized naming schema because this is america and if
>you want foreign names then maybe you should leave the country cuz this is
>america and this is the american wikipedia and we are gonna use american
>names here and thats the end of the discussion"

If you think this, then you don't understand Wikipedia at all.
The English Wikipedia is the *English*language* Wikipedia,
not the *United*States* Wikipedia.  That's why, for example,
American spellings have no favoured position WRT British spellings.
America is a red herring; it's English that's at issue here.

>however, as far as I can tell far more people seem to support using native
>spellings of names, and that includes the use of non-western alphabets, an
>ability we have due to the power of #REDIRECT.

Then you should get these people to come onto the mailing list to discuss it.
I hope that they do (and one or two are starting to already),
since I'd like to make this change in policy as well.
But right now, the change is being held up because the voices on the list
are a clear majority of opposition.  No vote would help you here.

>It is also noteworthy that most of the people who speak out against using such
>"unamerican and inappropriate" naming generally make an argument stating,
>"Well, I tend to agree that we should use the native names but it's really
>not a big argument"

You're not helping our cause by presenting this sort of strawman.
That's not at all what they're saying; they think that the current system
is *right*.  You and I disagree with that, but we won't get anywhere
by implying that they secretly agree with us and are just stubborn.


-- Toby