[Wikipedia-l] Re: Quenya language request, and Chinese Wikipedia again

Tue Feb 22 01:23:46 UTC 2005

Mark,

**Intentional Top-post**

May I suggest that you calm down a bit, and actually read what people write?

Your quite lengthy response was entirely based upon things that I
never said, or even thought.

Please re-read what I wrote; I'll quote myself here:

Rich Holton wrote:
> I don't think you're thinking clearly here. Any Wikipedia, any
> Wikimedia project, has potential repercussions on the other projects,
> and certainly on those who are involved in coordinating and
> maintaining those projects.
>
> If native speakers want to start a wiki using the MediaWiki software,
> they are of course welcome to. But if it is going to be one of the
> WikiMedia Foundation projects, it's an absolute requirement that there
> be some community discretion involved.

You will note that nowhere did I mention a vote, or a majority. "Some
community discretion" is a long way from "decided by majority vote." I
was very intentionally non-specific, but in no way did I think or
intend "majority vote." Exactly what form the community discretion
would take is an open question. I would think that the developers
should have some input into the decision, and probably the board of
directors. Beyond that I am unsure. Perhaps we could use a petition
model.

To allow anyone to start a new language Wikipedia without any input
from the larger community is an invitation to chaos.

(This is not comparable to those who say that the 'wiki way' is an
invitation to chaos. It's not the same, especially unless there is a
mechanism to delete wikipedias, like VFD is for articles. Anyone can
start a new one, but there can be vote to delete it? That certainly
would be the tyranny of the majority, or even just the vocal
minority.)

We could easily end up with a thousand wikipedias, many of which with
little or no traffic on a daily basis. Even if locked down, these
deserted wikipedias would simply become a headache for maintenance,
and would have no benefit.

Now, it may be that my particular suggestions for community
discernment are terrible. It would not be the first time I made
terrible suggestions. But if my suggestions are terrible,  that does
not mean that the concept is terrible.

-Rich Holton

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:05:15 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Repercussions on the other projects"?
> 
> Why should it be up to the community to decide this?
> 
> In the past when the majority has been allowed to decide the rights of
> the minority, it has always made bad and irresponsible decisions that
> have sometimes been horrific and sometimes just unjust (if a new
> Wikipedia is voted against because the majority is allowed to decide,
> that would be 'unjust')
> 
> In the past there have been no votes over new projects, why should
> this start now?
> 
> Zh-min-nan was created against the will of the zh.wikipedia community,
> and even people such as Tim Starling suggested after its creation
> shutting it down, but it is still growing constantly and I was
> surprised to receive from some Taiwanese people indications of
> support.
> 
> New Wikipedias may effeect other projects but their effect is
> microscopic. PRC is not in the habit of blocking sites in Cantonese or
> Wu just for that reason, so that isn't a worry. People in the past
> worried about ridicule, but most of the ridicule for Zh-min-nan: has
> come from WITHIN the community, and there has been only a minimal
> amount of ridicule for tlh:.
> 
> The main problem with a complete democracy is that there is no
> protection for the minority. The majority can vote in any policy to do
> anything they want to the minority and nothing is said about it. This
> is why direct democracies without protections for the minorities
> always split up along ethnolinguistic lines or have massive civil wars
> and civil unrest.
> 
> We didn't have a vote on en: wehther or not to have de:, fr:, ja:, es
> - they were just created. Controversial Wikipedias such as nds: and
> als: were not voted on, if they were there is a good chance the
> de.wikipedia community would've excluded all possibility of their
> existance as Wikimedia projects.
> 
> The creation of nn.wikipedia was controversial, and it is perhaps the best case.
> 
> There was a VOTE on no: a bit prior to the creation of nn: as to
> whether or not there should be a separate Wikipedia for Nynorsk. By a
> margin of just a couple votes it was decided to keep a unified
> Wikipedia, however most of the voters who voted for that were Bokmål
> users. A bit afterwards Nynorsk users such as Ulf Lunde brought their
> complaint to this list and shortly thereafter nn: was created against
> the will of the no: community and now has over 1k articles.
> 
> It's very naïve of you to assume that in cases of a problem involving
> a minority out of a larger community, the majority should always be
> allowed to make the decision and that they will always decide wisely.
> 
> There is no precedent suggesting that all new Foundation-sponsored
> projects must have community discretion involved in their creation.
> This is simply a suggestion by you which doesn't seem to me like a
> good idea at all. Do you let men decide the future or right of women,
> or let Spaniards decide on whether Chechnya should be independent?
> 
> Mark
> 
> On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 16:42:03 -0600, Richard Holton <richholton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 15:04:41 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I say, all those who are native speakers of the language and are
> > > interested in building a Wikipedia in it should be allowed to vote. It
> > > shouldn't be anybody else's decision if they get a Wikipedia in their
> > > language or not.
> > >
> >
> > Mark,
> >
> > I don't think you're thinking clearly here. Any Wikipedia, any
> > Wikimedia project, has potential repercussions on the other projects,
> > and certainly on those who are involved in coordinating and
> > maintaining those projects.
> >
> > If native speakers want to start a wiki using the MediaWiki software,
> > they are of course welcome to. But if it is going to be one of the
> > WikiMedia Foundation projects, it's an absolute requirement that there
> > be some community discretion involved.
> >
> > -Rich Holton
> >
> > --
> >
> > en.wikipedia:User:Rholton
> >
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