[WikiEN-l] This is the English Wikipedia

[Anthere]

--- Stevertigo <stevertigo at attbi.com> wrote:
> Robert
> > Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense. 
> That's the
> > same kind of talk that has damaged the education
> of much of
> > the inner-city youth in America.
> 
> Robert, if noone else will say it - I will. Youre so
> full of crap.
> Thank you very much for listening.
> 
> > Frankly, it is also racist in effect. This kind of
> attitude
> > has created two generations of poorly educated
> Hispanic and
> > Black youth in American cities. I couldn't think
> of a
> > better plan for the KKK  to promote if they want
> to keep
> > racism alive forever.
> 
> God, what horrible garbage.
> 
> > And frankly, many of our articles are being
> damaged by
> > people with good intentions, but who have poor
> English
> > reading or writing skills (or both.)
> 
> Oh, God, what a crapload.
> 
> > In Stevertigo's bizarre universe, it is
> egalitarian to
> > encourage this illiteracy, which in the end would
> produce
> > unreadable articles.  In our universe, we are
> trying to
> > ecudate an English speaking audience.
> 
> Well, cutting through all of Robert's crap - the one
> VALID point he makes
> (underneath all the crap, acrimony, etc...) is that
> a common language
> should'nt go willy nilly in different directions.
> But it's fucking elitist
> as tea-sipping lessons to dictate what is "proper"
> in most contexts -
> because you personally dont own it - whether it be a
> religion or a language.
> 
> Americans and Englishmen are a minority of English
> speakers. Toby(I think)
> made a valid point that there is already a page
> calling attention to pages
> in need of a rewrite - the problem is that people do
> what they are
> interested in.
> (And most pages are in need of a "rewrite" - whether
> its a complete hack
> job - or a little comma is missing somewhere.)
> 
> If people with little teeny tiny sphincters want to
> take it upon themselves
> to focus like a lynch mob on poor, unsuspecting
> Bengalis, fine. But dont
> bitch when I pull the hoods off your heads. Wanna
> correct the bad English? -
> DO IT. But dont come here talking about instituting
> ideologies that are
> fundamentally elitist.
> 
> WikiLove be upon you, Kaiser
> 
> - Steven MacGrieves


I would like to add a couple more words to the subject

The word "english-speaking" is misleading. Wikipedia
is for english-speaking clearly, but here,
english-speaking does mean any person able to
understand english, not native english-speaking
person. In that sense, english wikipedia is for
english people is true, if it encompass any person
able to read english. It should not limit itself to
native english only. You guys should be proud. So many
of us are using your language now. Even when no
native-english is around, if that is the best for us
to communicate.
I agree wikipedia should be properly written. I just
don't know along which standards, I always failed to
find a grammar book for your language, as French
language has. But in any case, the language escaped
you. English language is not only the language of
native english. It is also ours. Maybe, is it an
international english.

I know quite well I am part of this terminology gap.

I am fully aware of my limitations. Which is why I
never participate in writing meta pages on en (which I
do a lot on fr), as I know people are very keen in
having those very properly written.
Which is also why I very rarely refactor other people
prose; I add, I sometimes remove, I create mostly.
This way, I try to avoid people from accusing me of
"damaging" their work and letting an article in poorer
shape than it was before my input. I basically only
create because I think "not very good" is better than
"no article" at all.

I also several times asked other people to review my
work, and usually people did so very kindly. I must
say I don't really appreciate that some mention in the
comment box that "obviously this has been written by
an non-english and needs much work" and then leave
without doing more than correcting a typo.
If someone is willing to go through all my major
contributions to clean up after me, it is all listed
on my page and old contributions page.

I know quite well Robert is including me in these
people who should be elsewhere than here, as he
suggested a couple of times that I should quit
wikipedia if not being able to read and express myself
properly in english.

That is one of the reasons why, I quit trying to do
anythink on the knowledge article, being aware it
would risk again being considered vandalism as he said
I was guilty on the gaia articles.

Now, I have some doubts. I see that he is doing the
same with the next contributor he is sharing an
article with. Similarly, while in disagreement with
him, 

see
http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Talk:Knowledge&diff=1017714&oldid=1016720

He is using the supposed "inability to understand and
speak english" to bully people he does not agree with.

This is so embarassing


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