[Wikipedia-l] Re: Rethinking Meta (was- Wikiquote now has subdomains)

Mon Jul 19 04:59:24 UTC 2004

Erik Moeller wrote:
> Daniel-
> 
>>>How about a setup like this:
>>>de.wikimedia.org
>>>en.wikimedia.org
>>>fr.wikimedia.org

I am *very* strongly opposed to doing that.

Meta is the only place where we can really meet, and find information 
that someone else left. Yes, there is work to do to make it easier to 
navigate between languages, but separating us is not the solution. That 
is the "easy" solution, but will be very bad in the long term. 
Currently, meta is slowly becomming more multilingual, in particular 
thanks to german speaking people. We must keep that this way, and rather 
try to go toward a solution to navigate (with a sort of internal 
language linking) and language interface to be changed in preferences.

> Having multiple languages in one wiki doesn't help people to come  
> together.

Yes, it does. Much more than any "supposingly" multilingual mailing list.

> In fact, in my experience, it does the exact opposite.  

In my experience, it does bring people together, provided that you 
welcome the interaction.

> Parcipation on Meta by people from languages like Chinese or Japanese is  
> minimal.

It was also minimal a few months ago by Germans. It is becoming less.
Plus, there are japanese and chinese people currently over there. We 
have Tomos, Suisui, Britty etc...

> I'm afraid Meta is perceived as an extension of the English  
> language Wikipedia.

Perhaps if you were editing over there in German, it would lessen that 
feeling ?

> You can't eliminate the language barrier by throwing all languages into  
> one big pot. That only means that the most popular common one - English -  
> will dominate and small pockets of non-English discussions will form. This  
> is what has happened on the multilingual mailing lists and it is what will  
> continue to happen on Meta if we stay on the current path.

This is what is happening on the multinlingual mailing lists, because 
each time someone DARE putting a word in a language different than 
english, he is severely told that "of course, he could write in english, 
because really, no one can understand him".

I regularly write in french on purpose on wikipedia-l, and it never 
failed. Each time, I am told it is bad and if I want to be understood, I 
should really avoid writing in french.

This is a comment I never get on meta. The argument what does happen on 
mailing list will necessarily happen on meta is moot.

> The reality is that because of the language barrier, there *are* different  
> communities. Because of national barriers, there *are* different Wikimedia  
> interests. And there's no reason why an interesting global policy  
> discussion shouldn't be started by people who speak no English whatsoever,  
> and then be translated into the main languages if there is a vote.

There is no reason... but this is just too heavy, so it won't happen.

> While I would prefer it if all languages of a project were handled with a  
> single database and codebase, this requires quite substantial changes to  
> the current code, and is unlikely to happen anytime soon. And if it  
> happens, we can port all the existing wikis over to that new system.

No, thank you.

But I
> think we should strive for a consistent approach.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Erik