[Wikipedia-l] Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian, and Serbo-Croatian

[Ray Saintonge]

Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:

>Austin Hair wrote:
>  
>
>>As for that, some time ago I noticed that we have Bosnian, Serbian,
>>Croatian, and Serbo-Croatian wikis.  I'm sure this topic must have been
>>debated somewhere, but nobody I've asked has been able to illuminate me
>>as to the rationale for this decision.  Can anyone here?
>>    
>>
>
>I do not know the rationale, either.  I think it is something that we
>should discuss.
>
>One of the obvious goals of wikipedia, big picture, is to promote
>intelligent discourse in the interest of world harmony.  We should be
>very careful, of course, to respect that if there are significant
>language differences that require separate wikis, then separate wikis
>are required.
>
>But we should be very skeptical of proposed splits that might be
>driven more by political/ethnic trouble, etc.
>
>I would love to learn more about the current situation, and to reach
>out to these wikipedia communities to find out if they would like to
>change things.
>
IIRC there was no big discussion about it.  It was the one thing what 
the people on all sides there wanted, and they got it, That's the part 
of the world that gave us the term "balkanization".  If the issue were 
to come up now we might try harder to keep them together.  It is 
interesting to note that the last substantive edit on the Serbo-Croation 
wiki on June 27 was at "Anarhizam" :-)

Ec