[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia ethnocentric policy affects other communities

Wed Dec 20 22:35:12 UTC 2006

On 12/20/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 12/20/06, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > George Herbert schreef:
> > > On 12/20/06, Walter van Kalken <walter at vankalken.net> wrote:
> > >
> > >> The Cunctator wrote:
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>> On 12/20/06, Aphaia < aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>> Hello,
> > >>>> today a user on Japanese Wikipedia whose account is in Kana (a
> > >>>> Japanese script) came to our Admins' noticeboard to request for
> > >>>> chaning his username. He said he would have liked to do so because
> > he
> > >>>> had changed his username on English Wikipedia.
> > >>>>
> > >>>> I repeat again the English Wikipedia community should reconsider
> > how
> > >>>> shameful and discriptive policy they has about users' identity and
> > >>>> respect of cultural diversity, and how badly it affects other
> > >>>> communities. I am very sorry to see such a request fullfiled to our
> > >>>> request page.
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>> Although there are strong relationships between language and
> > culture, I
> > >>> believe you are off the mark.
> > >>>
> > >>> It is not unreasonable for the English Wikipedia to have a policy of
> > >>> Latin-alphabet usernames.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >> Then it wouldn't be unreasonable for the Japanese wikipedia to have a
> > >> policy of only Kana usernames. You bloody yanks, limeys and ozzies
> > and
> > >> other anglo saxon idiots are so fucking biased about everybody needs
> > to
> > >> speak your f*******g language and nees to understand your f*****g
> > >> cultures it is disgusting. There are more peopel around speaking non
> > >> english based languages then there are people speaking the lingo.
> > Learn
> > >> to adapt to that. I can only predict the whining of stupid Americans
> > >> about feeling discriminated when they would be requirde to login in
> > >> Chinese on the Chinese wikipedia or Thai on the Thai wikipedia.
> > >>
> > >> Why the f*** should everybody learn your pissant of a language if you
> > >> refuse to learn others.,
> > >>
> > >> Waerth .... extremely pissed off
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > > It is also unacceptable for dedicated vandals to show up, register an
> > > account whose visual depiction is not at all distinguishable from the
> > > accountname of an existing administrator or long-time editor due to
> > the use
> > > of similar ISO characters, and then go on a vandalism rampage which
> > gets
> > > blamed on the normal admin.
> > >
> > > We had this happen a week ago with an omega character substituted for
> > an O.
> > >
> > > I've seen it done with 1/L and 0/o.  Someone tried to impersonate me
> > with
> > > one letter dropped; I'm suprised they didn't do the 1/L thing instead.
> > >
> > > There are some very nasty, creative people out there.  If you start
> > enabling
> > > them to cause more trouble, you are a problem.
> > >
> > > I'm all for multiculturalism, but this issue HAS to get looked at and
> > > thought about.  That does not mean that en.wikipedia may not end up
> > just
> > > having to abandon that policy in the end, but if we do that there's
> > going to
> > > be an opening for vandals to impersonate us.
> > >
> > > We might have to do something like go from (username) to (username,
> > ID#)
> > > tuples to ultimately get around this, which is terribly ugly.
> > Hoi,
> > With Single User Login, this scheme will not be possible anymore .. a
> > user is THAT user and no one else can impersonate him by having the same
> >
> > user. So the basic argument here is incorrect. It will no longer be
> > possible and, this whole ugly affair demonstrates admirably that we need
> > SUL as soon as possible ..
> >
> > PLEASE BRION .. get this over and done with.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >     Gerard
> >
>
> This doesn't address my point.
>
> There is very little difference between "Georgewilliamherbert" and
> "Georgewi11iamherbert" in most character displays.  This is bad enough, but
> we have people aware of it and looking for it.  There are non-latin
> characters which are visually indistinguishable from "o" and others
> available as well.  We *HAVE SEEN* an impersonation of an experienced editor
> where the impersonator used a greek omega that rendered as an "o" character.
>
>
> Refusing to pay attention to this problem rises to the level of a
> show-stopper for en, in my opinion.  We really really should not stomp all
> over one of the en defensive mechanisms against vandals without at least
> looking at the issues raised and alerting people to the impact.
>
> The ultimate answer may well be that en.wikipedia has to remove that
> policy and deal with it.  Has anyone posted any notice of this to wikien-l
> or the Village Pump on en, or do you think it's reasonable and fair to just
> do it without proper and fair notice and time to allow en to talk about it
> and figure out how to handle it?

Ok, my delivery of wikien mail was a bit behind.  There is a separate
discussion going on there.

> <george.herbert at gmail.com>
>

-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com