[Wikipedia-l] New request for Cantonese Wikipedia: vote at 29-6

[Mark Williamson]

> Consider the folks who were at the meeting part of the "no" votes.

That the summary says it was "unanimous" does not specify how strongly
people felt about it. I still doubt what you said about the meeting.

> If you look at the photo from the meeting, you'll see I am sitting
> right next to Little Alex. But why not ask her yourself?

Umm... yeah, I saw the photo. I know she was there. That's why I
doubted what you said.

> > You are still spreading the silly idea that a Cantonese Wikipedia will
> > take away lots of people and resources from zhwiki. Why not use an
> > example based on experience -- zh-min-nan?? How much did that take
> > away?
>
> Your exaggeration again. I never said it will take away "lots of
> people and resources" away. But every bit put behind zh: would help.
> The exaggerated case helps you try to make your case, but that's your
> error.

I didn't say you SAID it. I said you're spreading that idea. Which you
still are.

I think it's silly to try to prevent a Cantonese Wikipedia's creation
just because "every little bit helps". Why not try to close zh-min-nan
down while you're at it??

> LOL.
>
> The meeting was attended by eight Wikipedians and two guests. The
> summary is sitting on a public wiki that anyone who attended could
> amend. Shek translated it into Chinese, so that's one more check on
> the record. Feel free to leave a message for any and all the folks who
> showed up, and ask for verification of the meeting observations.
>
> But you, sitting in Arizona have a better sense of it, I'm sure.
>
> This is bordering on tinfoil hat territory now.

I did not say that the summary was inaccurate. My point was that I
wouldn't have a hard time believing that you or somebody else said
something rediculous which nobody called.

> > I'd not be surprised if you were the one who brought this up in the
> > first place, trying to make it sound logical when it makes no sense
> > whatsoever.
>
> Wrong. It was Mcy_jerry who brought it up, talking about the generally
> poor article quality of the average zh: article compared to others.

Quality? So, did he bring up quantity? Were you completely silent
during this whole portion of the meetup, or did you just express
agreement without making any points??

> > "splitting the effort" is not going to happen. There will
> > be no mass-exodus.
>
> "Mass exodus" - these are your words, not mine or those of anyone at
> the meetup. It is not a case that was made.

I did not say that you, or anybody else at the meetup, said "mass
exodus". However, you seem to imply it when you talk about a division
of effort.

> > Well, others have testified here to the exact opposite. How are we to
> > sort out which is correct, and which is not?
>
> Again, this shows the whole flaw with the "Sinitic policy" vote,
> because there was no finding of fact laid out or debated to provide
> proper background on the merits of the idea, not to mention the

There were Wikipedia articles and external websites linked. If you
felt it was inadequate, you are and have always been more than welcome
to change the page.

> selective publicity it received.

You mean, advertising it specifically to CANTONESE SPEAKERS only? I
didn't even look for Cantonese speakers who I thought would vote
"support". Just ALL CANTONESE SPEAKERS with a babel template to
indicate it. And I sent a notification e-mail to this list. I wouldn't
call that "selective publicity".

> It became a straight up or down vote
> with the flaw of roping Wu and Yue into one bin, pandering to the
> inclusionist, embrace anything-and-everything-attitude at the expense
> of any subject knowledge or first hand experience with the language,
> culture or issues.

Nobody roped Wu and Cantonese into one bin. This has been explained to
you at least 4 times now, by me and at least two other people.

> The reason why I (and others) have not participated in the vote, is
> because of the major flaws with it. Participating in it would be
> implicitly endorsing the flawed methodology and structure setup by the
> originator of it (ie. you). The hope was that the existing discussion
> would dissipate with folks realizing the invalid "vote". But since it
> keeps being brought up as an indication of the will of the community,
> here's directly why it's not only nonbinding, but flawed and useless.

Uhh... HELLO! It's a WIKI PAGE. Sofixit. If it's flawed, don't whinge
about it. Don't complain about how it's invalid or nonbinding. You had
your chance to edit the page, add or change things. And you had your
chance to vote. YOU STILL DO, because there is no end-date for the
poll. Thus, in my view, the poll is valid: you had an opportunity to
make modifications, but you didn't.

> A properly run vote would have:
>
> - Laid out the issues in an NPOV-like manner using community input,
> with historical background and a preset amount of time for crafting
> the parameters of the vote. A list of liks to generic articles about
> Chinese and Cantonese is not good enough.

Well, I disagree. But you could've added that yourself.

> - Had separate voting sections for Wu, Yue and Hakka, like other
> proper votes in Wikipedia. See how reform of speedy deletion was
> handled: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion/Proposal

It was made very clear in the voting information that one could
specify which they supported. If they didn't, that implied support of
all of the above. If you felt that wasn't good enough, you should've
said it then. Instead, you couldn't wrap your mind around the simple
rules of the vote, even when they were explained to you by 3 separate
people, and so kept whinging.

> - Made an open call for participation in all relevant communities.
> Certainly, not advertising it on wikizh-l until late was problematic.
> Even the after-the-fact advertisement was not adequate, as the yea/nay
> lists had already been influenced by one particular set of
> constituents.

"Relevant" is POV. I do not think zh.wiki is a "relevant". But since
you did, you could've advertised it, as could anyone else.

To advertise it on wikizh-l would result in just as much of an
influence by "one particular set of constituents", namely those whose
only native variety is Mandarin, for example Shizhao.

However, even after it was advertised on wikizh-l, all of the votes
coming in from people who were most likely linked from their followed
approximately a previous pattern.

> - Avoided singling out folks right away as this one did with Shizhao
> and myself as the main opposition. I don't particularly care about
> being singled out, but it's improper to personalize a vote on the
> issues.

Sofixit.

> So we get to this point - you have somehow disregarded your own advice:

Sofixit.

> The fact is with the prevailing mood - the case for creating a
> Wikipedia has to meet a very high threshold with respected members of
> the Wikipedia community, and it's not there now.

I'm pretty sure that the main criteria are:

*Supporters who are native speakers (we have plenty of those, in fact
on the voting page they are in the majority)
*Different from any existing Wikipedia (Shizhao may dispute this, and
you may or may not say it's not "different enough", but it is
nevertheless "different" to such a degree that Milcheflasche claimed
to have difficulties understanding the Test-wp articles, and Jogloran
claimed that he understood the Test-wp articles better than those on
zh-wp.)
*Overwhelming majority in support (ie, not 50-50 or 60-40).

"A very high threshold with respected members of the Wikipedia
community" was not a condition met for most of the Wikipedias
currently in existance.

And your case still seems to always come back to the "every little bit
helps". That's just it -- only one little bit would leave. And to
cling to it so desparately, to the point of attempting to prevent
people from getting a separate Wiki in their native language, seems
extremely selfish to me.

Actually, I highly doubt that anybody will _completely_ leave zhwiki
for a Cantonese Wikipedia. I would suspect that they would instead
share their time, much as many users of Indic language Wikipedias do
with English and the like.

Mark