From: Toby Bartels <toby+wikipedia(a)math.ucr.edu> :-) I am registered to fr, en, main, international, textbook, and tech lists. Because you guys are commonly spilling things at the wrong place and that is the *only way* to know what is going on. Ideally, I should also follow the village pump as well, because more than once I fell upon something all decided there. But I rarely do. And of course, discussions also go on at meta, so that is another place to watch. For an english-only participant, that makes rather few places to follow. Not so for someone working on several wikipedias. Plus, we do not read so quickly as you all do. And sometimes misinderstand entirely things done, such as I did 2 days ago with Mav. I think ultimately, one give up trying to follow. I could not assume more than 100 messages a day in my mail box, so I switched to digests. Now, I am breaking threads, because I can't answer to a comment, just copy the title of the thread. Further impairing the information flow. I know few internationals have the courage to follow everything. ------- Need proof ? Some time ago, the english wikipedia decided to change the software to make it suit better her own needs; that is to make it possible to any sysop to block someone. I followed the discussion. It was a general soft change, intended for the needs of ONE wikipedia only (granted, we could use it as well one day, and that can really help in case of vandalism). It was discussed by english wikipedians only. It was decided by english wikipedians only. When I said that I did not want that on the french wiki (sorry that no one else speak up, but I am not gonna stop giving my opinion just because I am alone talking), the soothing answer was "then we won't make it available on the french wiki". It was not even officially announced to internationals, though imho, it is a *major* change, and could have *very* bad consequences on those wikipedias, where there are few sysops and no Jimbo. Of course, the feature is available on the french wiki. Just as politicians, promises last the time they are written. Similarly, a year ago, I remember fighting against the red links for non articles, saying I would prefer ? to be default. Again, I was finally told that the french wikipedia would have ? as default then. Do I need to say which one is default between ? and red links ? Last week, one french, one that is supposingly following the ML discovered by chance the ability to block user name with one discussion here. He is typically one that should have known, that should have followed the discussion. But clearly did not. Probably because the decision in software change was lost in the discussion threads. When the change over blocking decision was done, french were discussing over a problematic user. I did not want him to be banned, because I thought the issue could be solved through discussion. Unless I am wrong, it was. If the french had known the feature, I foresee he would have been blocked. So, I did not say anything :-) I suppose most french users are still not aware sysops can block them. And it is not written anywhere :-) ------ I know damn well everyone is making efforts, and that in the heat of a war, it is easy to make a mistake and post things at a wrong place. I know also that some people do disperse discussions on purpose. Wikipedia is supposed to be a global project. Language can make whatever policies they see fit. But software is commun asset. As such, any change made to it should be discussed in common. Not at the village pump and not on the english list. And ideally, not in english only. And when english people decide of a software change, please do stop saying the change will be local only if international do not agree with it. The truth is that it is a good way to shut someone else opinion to say so, and force someone to accept something, when they discover that whatever their opinion, the change is there, so better do with it. I hardly dare to remind this, but the internationals are slowly growing up. They may not be underage wikipedias any more. They also have concerns on their own, that are perhaps not those on the english wikipedias. There are also the small ones, not to forget. They should perhaps have a specific mailing list, or a specific place on meta, on their own, because their concerns are differents from the biggest ones. Any change in softwaree should NOT be discussed in english and on english list and pump only. And it should be officially announced somewhere. Perhaps a "technical news" page should be set somewhere, where we would put the upgrades announcements, the software updates, the server status, the purchase announcements, the classical bugs (ugly red missing and visited links). Having all this centralized could help have the information follow. Meta is becoming messy, because we can't distinguish was is one wikipedia relevant, from what is wikipedia wide relevant. English use meta as a repository of all what they like on their main space. It is hard to distinguish what we should read from what is not necessary. Making it even more likely that we miss something. I would like very much to see something like "categories" on meta, with boxes to tick when creating or saving a page "english specific matters only", "general matters". So at least an indicator on the recent change could highlight what we are little likely to be interested in. Or...do I dare say again...even better, separate recent changes ? __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l(a)Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l