On Thu, 11 Dec 2003, The Cunctator wrote:
I have to say that on principle and as a matter of
policy I strongly
disagree with Ray and Anthere. The overall goal *does* need to be that
each wp entry should be the perfect translation of the same entry in any
language.
Well, I do agree with them. Each Wikipedia should on its own try to be
as good as possible. If two Wikipedias have different articles on the
same subject, cross-fertilizing might be one way of improving the articles,
but I see no need whatsoever to wish that they would be the same.
Each language version should *not* have its own
special taste.
I disagree. Dutch Wikipedia will mostly be read in the Netherlands and
Belgium, Spanish in Spain and the Americas. Thus it is very logical to
me that Dutch Wikipedia on its page "province" discusses, apart from
the general definition of what a province is, the Dutch and Belgian
situation in more depth, while referring to a separate page for the
Spanish provinces, and that the Spanish Wikipedia does it the other
way around.
As a matter of course the fact that languages are
intertwined with
ethnicity, nationality, and modes of expression means that the same
content will be discussed differently in different languages.
As a matter of course the fact that Wikipedia is a volunteer project
means that contributions are shaped by the contributors' individual
priorities. As French-speakers have statistically different priorities
than English-speakers or Chinese-speakers, as a matter of course the
language versions will have differently weighted contributions.
But we should not have *as a goal* different priorities, different
discussions of the same content. The goal, as Ruimi said, is to try to
reach universalism.
I disagree. Strongly. If universalism as a goal is made official, I'm
out of here. I find this one of the problems with Wikipedia as it
currently is (although there are other, even greater problems). I do
not think Wikipedia should tell everything about everything. An
encyclopedia should select and summarize information.
This is all we'd have to do, I suspect, to make
sure that we do work
towards the ultimate goal of universalism and consistency.
Your ultimate goal is not mine. Farewell.
Andre Engels