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

[Sam Korn]

On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Sam Korn schreef:
> > On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> How many users are working at any one time at en.wikipedia? And you can
> >> remember the vandals by name .. I am impressed .. but somehow I doubt
> >> it. I think you use the history views of the contributions of that user,
> >> the talk pages of that user and for that you do not even have to know
> >> what the user name is.
> >>
> >
> > OK, think about this.  I'm looking at Special:Recentchanges.  I see an
> > edit by [[User:David Gerard]].  I ignore this edit.  It's David.  I
> > know he's a good editor.  Now I see an edit by [[User:Fabien1309]],
> > who is a fr admin who has a rarely-used en account.  I don't recognise
> > him, but I see the edit, see it's a good one, and he goes on my mental
> > whitelist.
> >
> > Now I see [[User:ผู้ใช้:ธวัชชัย]], who is an admin on th.  I look at
> > the edit, and it's a good one.  But how am I to whitelist him/her?
> > It's impossible, or near enough.  And the same would go for ja, zh, or
> > el (I can read Greek script, but I'm in the definite minority...)
> >
> > Even a set of numbers is easier to memorise.

Do you want to reply to this?

> > So now, in order to contribute helpfully to vandal-fighting (for
> > instance) in a Wikipedia in someone's own language, they have to
> > install all world fonts.  Yes.  That will really encourage people to
> > join up.
> >
> > Don't we try to aim at a low barrier for entry?
> You do not lower the barrier of entry to Wikipedia by blocking people on
> sight.

No.  We've already managed to work out that I don't agree with that.

> You are talking about people who are admins so we can tell them
> that they have to install fonts.

And users who aren't admins who want to do this kind of work?  I
started anti-vandalism work within a couple of months of joining
en.wikipedia.  I didn't become an admin for seven months.  I would
probably not have bothered if I'd had to search out my XP disk and
install fonts, when I was far less computer savvy than I am now.

> At issue is that people using their standard user are
> treated worse than anonymous users Really that is outrageous..

But to all intents and purposes, they are anonymous, in that few
admins will a) be able to read and b) be able to remember and
understand usernames __even if they install the fonts__.  That is the
issue that you haven't grasped.

-- 
Sam