[WikiEN-l] This is the English Wikipedia

[james duffy]

>Stevertigo wrote
>- Jay's announcement framed essentially "Im in an Edit war with a Chinese 
>guy who
>cant write English."

Now hold on a minute. That is a complete and utter lie and fabrication, Sv. 
I am not in an edit war with a Chinese guy who can't write english. In the 
last couple of days, on request, and having then contacted other 
contributors to a page and sought their advice, I reverted that page that 
had been rewritten by someone whose ethnic origin I am unaware of because 
there was 100% agreement that

1) the version he wrote was seriously inaccurate;
2) his translations of words from chinese to english were universally 
regarded as seriously flawed (eg, translating 'emperor' as 'lord');
3) the user had constantly removed contributions from others.

/All/ the contributors to that page argued that the particular user's 
english language difficulties contributed to the utter mess the page was in, 
but the problem was not just the linguistic mess but also the inaccurate 
translation and especially the systematic editing out of everyone else's 
contribution, and his revertion of a community edited text pulled together 
by Mav to his own unique and inaccurate one. I played no part in the 
discussion of the detail of the page, merely acted as an outsider who after 
consultation and with universal agreement reverted back to the Mav text, 
with the suggestion that everyone start again from there, along with a 
suggestion to that user on his talk page that he listen to other 
contributors on the page in question and stop deleting everyone else's 
contribution.

But that had /nothing/ to do with my letter on this list. That came about 
because six times in the last eight weeks I came across articles on wiki 
that were unreadable because of poor english. When I mentioned this to 
others, other wiki users contacted me on AIM and ICQ (on which I have been 
on a lot lately) to tell me 'wait until you see this one!', they producing 
other articles, one in particular a blurred mix of Swedish and English that 
users of neither language could make neither head nor tail of.

>As "lets make a point of singling out foreigners who cant write English 
>like
>the Queen does." A very hasty and unthought response - that was perhaps
>better expressed as a question of intent. Apo.... to James, and even 
>Robert.
>
That is /not/ what I was doing. I was making a concrete suggestion as to how 
we could /help/ users who know a lot of interesting information but who 
because of poor english linguistic skills could not express it. Some of the 
articles had been there for weeks unnoticed; one three months. Neither I nor 
the other people who contacted me had the time to fix all the articles. My 
suggestion, and I repeat it, was to create a special page to which articles 
in need of linguistic and grammatical proofing could be placed. It was to 
/help/ users with language problems, not to single out people for mockery.

BTW this is an /encyclopædia/, which means its articles /have/ to achieve 
minimum standards of accuracy, not just in content but in expression. This 
is not some sort of amateur scribble-box where any old rubbish will do. It 
is a /professional/ encyclopædia that is intended to be taken seriously, not 
as some semi-literate joke. A professional /english/ encyclopædia requires 
basic standards in terms of english. All I was suggested was that we apply 
basic professional standards to this project. Semi-literature articles, no 
matter how much quality information they contain, do no justice to the 
people who contribute them and the work they put into them, and risks 
turning a supposed professional encyclopædia into a laughing stock. I made 
my suggestion based on the professional needs of a professional encylopædia, 
and resent having my motivation twisted and misrepresented in the manner 
done by Stevertigo.

JT

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