[Wikipedia-l] Re: [Intlwiki-l] Re: "We started in January 2001..."

[Anthere]

--- The Cunctator <cunctator at kband.com> wrote:
> On 10/12/02 1:28 PM, "Anthere" <anthere5 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> <snip>\> 
> > The www.wikipedia.org is a very important address.
> > Must be used accordingly. What is important in
> > wikipedia (for users) is first of all *content*.
> Hence
> > it is maybe not best that this address is used for
> the
> > foundation, which should come far after contents.
> >
> > The actual page as proposed is not containing any
> > content, just info about the concept of Wikipedia
> > (very important I agree nevertheless) and
> redirection
> > to other places.
> 
> Exactly. This is the basic problem with the "portal"
> concept.
> 
> <snip interesting discussion>
> > 
> > The idea is just to
> > * provide content
> > * put current events coverage or background in the
> > front, something other encyc can't offer
> > * made obvious several langages are available
> > * put each of these langages at the same level
> > * generate a little bit more of competition and
> > collaboration between each langage if they want to
> > have at least one page in their langage here
> >
> > (just thinking here, I wrote these articles on
> Maurice
> > Papon and Bertrand Delano? in english but didnot
> > really bothered to translate them in french :-)))
> 
> That is the problem with putting languages on the
> same level. (All the other
> ideas above are just right.) Having multiple
> versions of the same
> information, whether in different languages or in
> multiple entries in one
> language, is detrimental to the progress of the
> project. At the same time,
> only being in one language is detrimental to the
> project.

This implies better definition of the word "version"
maybe. In french, version means basically translation.
We recently changed our welcome text to indicate the
french wikipedia was the equivalent of the
en.wikipedia (instead of it being the version of the
en.wiki)

Though npov states that goal, I believe the majority
of the articles will never be the same. We ain't
machines, and nobody will take care to review over and
over articles in each langage to check they are the
same. This would be 1)no fun 2)limiting creativity.
Picking info is one thing, translating it is another.

After the article on Papon was reedited by several
people, I copied it on the french wiki, and mostly let
other french translate it. I tell you, within 2 weeks,
the en. and the fr. article may look similar but *are
not* the same. Some interested might check our
http://fr.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Jacques-Yves_Cousteau,
much more npov than the en. one.

> multiple entries in one
> language, is detrimental to the progress of the
> project.

And I don't think it being detrimental to the project.
In the long term, I believe each langage could get
maybe more specific about some subjects. Just as some
fields are more covered in one langage than another
for the sake of human knowledge communication. Music
by Germans, Romance by Italians, whatever. Say, it is
possible that en.wiki has a small article about "Le
Festival de Cannes" and we have a very comprehensive
one. Does that make sense for english to have a very
comprehensive one ? Does that not make sense then to
have a long "current event" on www.wikipedia.org in
french and a short in english ?

> An example of how to attempt to compromise between
> those issues for the www
> home page, for example, would be to keep the current
> event links in English
> but:
> 1) at the top of the page list all the languages in
> their native tongue (I
> had added the more complete list, but Mav reverted
> it since some of them
> were rarely used)

Are you proposing just the same page than the current
one here, with just all languages instead of a small
dozen ?
Where is the compromise ?
I see very little difference with the current
situation.
If what worries you is the mis-representation we would
have over the english representation with what I
propose, I need to reassure you. We have very little
"current news" right now, and I don't expect we will
have much more until we are bigger. So it is very
likely we would only have a couple of links on the
page. That should do for a representation proportional
to our size I guess...

> 2) add a section for highlighting entries in other
> languages

Can you explain that more ? Where is the section ? How
to access it ? How do you plan to take into account
further development of say...the german wiki is her
links are relegated somewhere and not very visible ?


> (Note that 2) would be greatly helped if we figure
> out ways to integrate
> Recent Changes.)

I totally agree


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