[Wikipedia-l] Moving the English Wikipedia to en.wikipedia.org

[Jimmy Wales]

Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz wrote:
> But policies, in Wikipedias realm, oughtn't be enforced - they
> should be discussed, negotiated and agreed on, with room for minor
> regional differences.

I can agree with this, so long as the differences really are _minor_.

One thing that's true is that people from different cultures are
likely to behave differently, to an extent, in some wiki-relevant
ways.  Americans are more libertarian, with less respect for
authority, than most other cultures.  The Japanese are more
hierarchical, with greater respect for authority, than most other
cultures.  I hesitate to characterize the differences between
Americans and Europeans, but there are differences to be sure.

"Be bold in updating pages" comes naturally to Americans.  To
Japanese, it might seem better to extensively discuss a change on the
/Talk pages first.

There's no reason for detailed policies to be decided on a top-down
basis.  If the Japanese prefer to extensively and politely and slowly
discuss changes before they make them, then that's what they should
do.  I personally (as an American) think that's a slow way of getting
things done, but they might consider our way reckless.  (We're in the
land of stereotypes here, I know, but flow with me to see my general
point.)

As long as NPOV, openness to newcomers, encyclopedic writing are
followed, then lesser social norms will naturally vary to an extent.

--Jimbo