Zoe wrote in part:
>Well, no, I disagree that "*everyone* agrees" the names are incorrect. In
>your example of Confucius, should we use the old-style Chinese transliteration
>or the new version?
This isn't an argument that "Confucius" is incorrect,
but rather that it's not quite clear what *is* correct instead.
If any Chinese version is *more* correct than "Confucius"
(a point that I admit that many here would deny),
then any Chinese version would be an improvement,
even if still not perfect.
>Should we not transliterate at all but force those who
>only know the Latin alphabet to try to figure out his REAL name by only being
>able to look it up in Chinese ideographs?
Nobody will be *forcing* any user to do anything of the sort.
Every article should have all common spellings (English and original)
in boldface in the first paragraph (we do this now if we know enough to),
and they should have redirects from all of these that are in Latin-1
(we do this now too if we know enough to).
Searching will work; linking will work -- no matter who wins.
>decided that his name would ONLY be in Chinese?
Nobody is proposing this, any more than anybody is proposing
that his name should be given ONLY in English.
Rather, the question is which form is to be *preferred*,
in particular which form is to be the article title.
Every form will be (and is currently, when set up correctly) *supported*.
-- Toby
Lir wrote in part:
>Yes, I agree there should be some agreement about what is done on wikipedia.
>This is why I, and others, keep advocating that wikipedia start becoming a
>democracy and voting on stuff.
Democracy is by no means the same thing as voting.
With the exception of Jimbo's rarely used dictatorial powers,
we're a pretty good democracy now -- nobody has much opportunity
to force their view on others. There's room for improvement --
like automatic old hand status instead of sysophood on request --
but some improvement will be possible in any system, however good.
>Atm, wikipedia is pretty totalitarian-basically if mav, larry, vibber, and one
>of a couple others doesn't agree with something, it doesn't happen.
Larry? Larry's one of the people that keeps trying to *change* things.
Personally, I think that his ideas are much more appropriate
for an auxiliary project and that he should leave Wikipedia itself alone
(I mean in the sense of not changing how Wikipedia works,
not in the sense of not participating here!), and that's what he's doing.
He only began the sifter project after several other suggestions
on the mailing list received little support; he has no particular power.
As for mav and Brion, yes, they are more conservative voices.
But they're never close to alone. Only The Cunctator regularly
stands in the way of proposals that almost everybody else wants,
and even then, he doesn't get his way if he's truly alone.
Furthermore, Larry, mav, Brion, and even Cunc have no special powers;
anybody can block (or spur) progress just as much as they can.
>Sadly, one of wikipedias basic premises amounts to, "And we should always
>strive for a anglo-americanized naming schema because this is america and if
>you want foreign names then maybe you should leave the country cuz this is
>america and this is the american wikipedia and we are gonna use american
>names here and thats the end of the discussion"
If you think this, then you don't understand Wikipedia at all.
The English Wikipedia is the *English*language* Wikipedia,
not the *United*States* Wikipedia. That's why, for example,
American spellings have no favoured position WRT British spellings.
America is a red herring; it's English that's at issue here.
>however, as far as I can tell far more people seem to support using native
>spellings of names, and that includes the use of non-western alphabets, an
>ability we have due to the power of #REDIRECT.
Then you should get these people to come onto the mailing list to discuss it.
I hope that they do (and one or two are starting to already),
since I'd like to make this change in policy as well.
But right now, the change is being held up because the voices on the list
are a clear majority of opposition. No vote would help you here.
>It is also noteworthy that most of the people who speak out against using such
>"unamerican and inappropriate" naming generally make an argument stating,
>"Well, I tend to agree that we should use the native names but it's really
>not a big argument"
You're not helping our cause by presenting this sort of strawman.
That's not at all what they're saying; they think that the current system
is *right*. You and I disagree with that, but we won't get anywhere
by implying that they secretly agree with us and are just stubborn.
-- Toby
This is the second time in one week I have said goodbye. It just might be permanent this time.
Without a useful anti-vandalism policy, it's just no good. I understand the fatigue and heartache of Mav, Julie, Larry and others who have packed up and left. I've got better things to do with my time.
If someone will run Brion's TMC name-change script -- and also remove the "Edd Poor" username (note the double-D) -- I might think of returning.
But if Cunctator gets to veto every hard security suggestion, and Jimbo lets things go on as he has, I just don't see the point.
Wearily,
Ed Poor
Lir wrote:
>we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their Russian name-not
>according to the English name.
As it happens, Lir, I agree with you. English corruptions suck.
(And while we're at it, that's "SSSR", not "the USSR" ^_^.)
But the Wikipedia standard for a rather long time
(as long as *I*'ve been here, at any rate)
has been to use the most common name used in English.
Now, if you want to change that, then this is the place
to make your arguments. But if you just move articles now,
then you're only going to make people mad at you.
You *first* have to convince the rest of them to agree with you,
and *then* you and I (and anybody else that cares about it)
can start moving articles over to their new names.
This might, of course, never happen.
You might never manage to convince the other people.
If I had to guess, I'd guess that it will never happen,
although I might be wrong, so you should present your arguments.
But please don't try to force your opinion on Wikipedia now.
People will just change it back, and they'll start to hate you,
and then they'll ban you (some are trying to do this already),
and then you won't be able to do anything on Wikipedia ever again.
*I* don't think that that would be a very good outcome.
We all need to work *together*, and that means compromises sometimes.
-- Toby
PS: Have you signed up for the new English mailing list <wikiEN-l>?
You can go to <http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l>
if you want to subscribe to it; else you might miss some responses.
Maveric, as always I agree with you -- and you still carry my proxy (i.e., I'll vote with you on this).
We need to craft some written guidelines, a short list of no-no's -- so we can point to it and say, "You've violated this once too many times. Take a day/week/whatever suspension".
We also have to deal with the aftermath of a username ban, should our sponsor, Mr. Wales, agree to such a thing.
A "banned" user might just (a) post anonymously or (b) create a new alias. We would then face the puzzle of correlating the new contributions with the old user; it could get tricky.
Ed Poor
-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Mayer [mailto:maveric149@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, November 18, 2002 4:22 AM
To: wikien-l(a)wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] RE: Lir needs to go
Disregard the user:V statement (it was made in a moment of anger caused by
what looked like another loss of a good contributor).
I still think Lir needs to be told to play nice or leave.
--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l(a)wikipedia.org
http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Disregard the user:V statement (it was made in a moment of anger caused by
what looked like another loss of a good contributor).
I still think Lir needs to be told to play nice or leave.
--Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Lir is still being an uncooperative pest. Every several days I spend a couple
of hours undoing daft moves she makes and arguing about the same arguments
over and over again about naming conventions (hint: we name things in
English). She also has the very rude habit of changing people's messages on
her talk page from critical to supportive - this is beyond rude and IMO
somehow morally repugnant and anti-social.
I for one am sick of having to deal with this pest and I'm sure I'm not alone
in this. If our Wikipetiquette policy means anything at all I suggest we
either re-ban her temporarily or at least take away her move page privileges
as a warning.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Axel Boldt wrote:
>Ed Poor wrote:
>
>> I am willing to moderate any English-language mailing list
>> that Elian wants me to moderate.
>
>I am against Ed administrating one of our mailing lists since he has
>repeatedly shown in the past that he is capable of all sorts of stupid
>actions in the heat of the moment.
>
>Axel
Ouch! I guess that excludes me and many other people too. I don't remember you
ever exhibiting "stupid actions in the heat of the moment" so I nominate you
to do the work.
Of course if you or somebody else who is similarly un-tainted doesn't want to
to do the work then I guess we will have to settle for Ed.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
I set the terse phrase identifying the wikiEN-l list to
"Discussion list for English-language Wikipedia"
You can see this on the http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo page.
P.S. That's the 2nd admin thing I've done to wikiEN-l and either one can be reverted on request.
Ed Poor
WikiEN-l Administrator (de facto and provisional)