[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia, a world without borders with borders?

Tue Jun 19 23:49:12 UTC 2007

I would not remove them, just as I would not remove the St. in St.
John the Baptist. It's essentially a courtesy title. Any religious
believer wants all to be blessed, and what harm is it to the others. ?

On 6/17/07, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/17/07, b m <shoombooly at gmail.com> wrote:
> > L.S.
> >
> > I am a newly registered user, but not new to wikipedia, i registered to
> > contribute. But i have noticed something that strikes me as quite odd. Being
> > fluent in both my mothertongue, Dutch, and English, i traverse from one
> > wikilanguage to another. While doing so i noticed some things. When i
> > registered in order to be able to edit pages, i read an email by Jimbo Wales
> > in which he notified everyone that citing references was very important, and
> > another in which he stated that (negatively) biased writing is to be dealt
> > with harshly. With this in mind (and seeing that it works well on the
> > English wikipedia) i went back to Hollandipedia, where i saw a different
> > picture. For example, search for Einstein on the English wikipedia, and
> > you'll find a nice long article with (as of now) 55 notes and a long list of
> > references. Now, for the sake of argument, click on "Nederlands" in the
> > other language list. It doesn't matter whether you can read it or not, just
> > scroll down (it's also a long article, right?) to where the references and
> > notes ought to be. You'll find none. Not one reference or note on an article
> > about Einstein. How is that possible when keeping in mind what Jimbo has
> > said?
> > It is possible because wikipedia has (for lack of a better word) cultural
> > borders. On the Dutch wikipedia it's more about quantity than about quality.
> > For such a small language it has a huge amount of articles. The downside is
> > that i can find a factual error of spelling/grammar mistake in just about
> > every article. They are hastily compiled and left that way. (however, there
> > are of course plenty of well written articles by dedicated people who try to
> > maintain a standard, but they are not the rule in my opinion)
> > So there's a "quantity over quality" way of doing things on the dutch
> > wikipedia...i was sure it was unintentional.
>
> A couple of things going on here. First En has a lot more resources
> than other projects and is a fair bit older. En articles well tend to
> have been around for longer so have had longer to fix problems. This
> doesn't mean there are not a lot of low quality articles on en.
>
>
> > It appears though, that the gap between the Dutch and English wikipedia is a
> > bit wider than that. The Dutch don't have a "citation needed" template, it
> > was voted off or carried off by the admins, i haven't studied that topic too
> > intensely. Either way, it was proposed, and it's not here now. So, instead
> > of being able to flag unreferenced articles with "citation needed" or
> > something similar, we are supposed to discuss it on the discussion page.
> > Which is a pain, of course. My question is, how independent are
> > wikicountries? If Jimbo says something, and the English wikipedia has a
> > system for something, isn't it odd that the Dutch (or any other language)
> > doesn't?
>
> In theory languages can ignore anything below the level of board
> resolution. In practice it would take a very determined community to
> push things that far. The board and Jimbo tend to interfere with en
> far more than they do in other projects partly because of it's profile
> and partly because they all speak English and thus may have at least
> some idea what is going on there.
>
> For small projects below say 1K articles the stewards would hold
> considerable power.
>
> > One can see the result in the Einstein article. Overdoing it is one
> > thing, but not one single reference? And on the discussion page they talk
> > about a lot, but not about that. Is it desirable that a connected system
> > like wikipedia has "autonomous zones" that make their own rules? Or is that
> > freedom? But what about the basic rules the founder holds so dear? They
> > don't apply to people who come from somewhere else? I would really like
> > those questions answered by someone! There are more examples of things not
> > overlapping when crossing a language barrier, but this struck me most.
> > Also, as i understood, anyone can be elected to the wiki Board (if they
> > qualify). So the country does not matter, but still the countries don't all
> > play by the same rules?
> >
>
> The key rules are by tradition:
>
> Neutral point of view
> No original research
> wikipedia is an encyclopedia
>
> By board ruling:
>
> Content shall be under a free licence except where there is an
> approved Exemption Doctrine Policy.
>
> > Another strange thing, which has less to do with wikiborders, and more with
> > real ones, according to Dutch copyright law it is apparently forbidden to
> > display album covers on the Dutch wikipedia (as stated int he Dutch image
> > use policy). But the English one shows them just fine. My question is, since
> > wikipedia is hosted and founded in the US, what does it matter that a
> > Dutch-language article wants to have an album cover. Is it forbidden just
> > because the language is different? One click away resides a nice hi-res
> > album cover on the English wikipedia. I'm confused about the legal framework
> > on this one.
>
> A Wikipedia's content must be legal under the laws that apply in the
> U.S. State of Florida.
>
> The full foundation policy on copyright can be found at:
>
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Licensing_policy
>
>
> > One last thing!
> > On the topic of keeping a neutral perspective in any article: If a muslem
> > writes an article about Muhammad, and he adds "Peace be upon him", which he
> > is required to do according to his beliefs, can that article still be
> > (perceived as) neutral?
>
> Not under en policy and such statements are removed.
>
> --
> geni
>
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-- 
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.