[Wikipedia-l] Re: A portal page for www.wikipedia.org

Sun Jan 9 22:58:08 UTC 2005

Hello Andy R.,

You wrote:
 >I have read the discussion here on the con's, and have not seen any of 
the pro's.
 >
 >I like it. We should get past the supposed political incorrectness and 
see it as /easy/, /visual/, and /obvious/.

I am not as worried about the degree of "political correctness" as the 
actual practicalities involved. My problem with it is that while it 
certainly would be "visual", it would not be "easy" -- let alone 
"obvious"...! Please feel free to convince me through showing what flags 
would be easy and obvious for Anglo-Saxon, Arabic, Ladino, Sanskrit and 
Yiddish -- to name a few...

Only some of the languages have ONE flag "attached" to them and not all 
that many flags have only one language "attached" to them. Examples in 
addition to the ones mentioned above, include:
Alemannish, English (UK, Eire, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.), 
Dutch (mainly Netherlands and Belgium), Esperanto, French (France, Quebec, 
Belgium, etc.), German (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, etc.), Latin, 
Portuguese, Sanskrit... Even flags of ethnicities rather than political 
entities, such as the Roma and Sámi flags, often represent groups of 
languages rather than a single language each.

I do support the notion of having some kind of graphic representation for 
spiffing up the www.wikipedia.org portal -- I'm just concerned that flags 
will run us into unnecessary difficulties.

-Olve

___________________

Olve Utne
http://utne.nvg.org