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

[Michael Noda]

On 12/22/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> It was suggested that people were given a number. This is imho
> dehumanising and I am dead against it.

May I ask why you think displaying a number next to usernames is
dehumanising?  You have stated this several times now, but I'm very
confused as to why exactly you think this.  I know that, in my life,
I've had an ID number in many contexts, and never saw it as anything
more than an aid to indexing and search for whoever issued me the
number, and never really gave the subject much thought afterwards.  So
I'm struggling to understand where you're coming from when you react
so strongly against assigning numbers, and would appreciate it if you
could help enlighten me.

-Michael Noda