[Wikipedia-l] en.wikipedia.org vs www.wikipedia.org and the Wikipedia family

[Daniel Mayer]

I would just like to point out that part of the
frustration that the current non-English Wikipedians
seem to feel is that there appears to be a hierarchy
where the English Wikipedia is considered to be far
more important than the non-English Wikipedias in
some. This is also one of the reasons why we had a
Spanish fork to begin with. Part of the reason why we
were getting good vibes from them on reunification is
due to our then tentative plans to move the English
Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org. So without this small
concession by us, I don't think there is a good chance
for them rejoining our project. The English Wikipedia
won't be harmed by being placed at en.wikipedia.org --
this is the only fair and neutral thing to do. If the
English Wikipedia continues to push its weight around
over these types of issues then there will be other
forks. How is that for Balkanizaiton?

As I stated before, the URL thing is symbolic and each
Wikipedia encyclopedia in my view should be treated as
siblings. Granted the English Wikipedia is the oldest
and largest but it shouldn't be vaulted as /The Main/
Wikipedia with the other languages relegated to second
class status in The Main WIkipedia's shadow. The Main
Wikipedia is the /whole/ project which includes all
languages not just one, no? I furthermore don't see a
move as Balkanization when we will soon all be on the
same software, all use the same Metapedia and all have
interlanguage links going back and forth from all the
different languages. I now will often take info from
articles in other languages to update their English
counterparts and I also see the reverse being done by
non-English Wikipedias. www.wikipedia.org should be
home for the Foundation and a portal to each of the
different language sub-projects as I stated in my
previous post. The English Wikipedia would be just one
click away from the portal and so would all the other
wikipedias. This is only fair.

--- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

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