[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects other communities

Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
Wed Dec 20 22:11:27 UTC 2006


Hoi,
There is no such thing as a "primary character set of the Wikipedia" all 
Wikipedia projects are equal. I do not think that Walter's phraseology 
is helpful but it does demonstrate quite eloquently how strong the 
sentiments are against this policy.
Thanks,
     GerardM

The Cunctator schreef:
> Um. I think a policy of expecting people to have usernames readable in the
> primary character set of the Wikipedia is perfectly reasonable, whatever the
> language, and nothing to flip out about.
>
> Maybe you should reconsider your outrage.
>
> On 12/20/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
>   
>> The Cunctator wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> On 12/20/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Hello,
>>>> today a user on Japanese Wikipedia whose account is in Kana (a
>>>> Japanese script) came to our Admins' noticeboard to request for
>>>> chaning his username. He said he would have liked to do so because he
>>>> had changed his username on English Wikipedia.
>>>>
>>>> I repeat again the English Wikipedia community should reconsider how
>>>> shameful and discriptive policy they has about users' identity and
>>>> respect of cultural diversity, and how badly it affects other
>>>> communities. I am very sorry to see such a request fullfiled to our
>>>> request page.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>         
>>> Although there are strong relationships between language and culture, I
>>> believe you are off the mark.
>>>
>>> It is not unreasonable for the English Wikipedia to have a policy of
>>> Latin-alphabet usernames.
>>>
>>>       
>> Then it wouldn't be unreasonable for the Japanese wikipedia to have a
>> policy of only Kana usernames. You bloody yanks, limeys and ozzies and
>> other anglo saxon idiots are so fucking biased about everybody needs to
>> speak your f*******g language and nees to understand your f*****g
>> cultures it is disgusting. There are more peopel around speaking non
>> english based languages then there are people speaking the lingo. Learn
>> to adapt to that. I can only predict the whining of stupid Americans
>> about feeling discriminated when they would be requirde to login in
>> Chinese on the Chinese wikipedia or Thai on the Thai wikipedia.
>>
>> Why the f*** should everybody learn your pissant of a language if you
>> refuse to learn others.,
>>
>> Waerth .... extremely pissed off




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