[WikiEN-l] Cultural distinctions are accidental? Consensus among cultures is bad?

Thu Jun 8 12:06:05 UTC 2006

On 6/8/06, Anthony DiPierro <wikilegal at inbox.org> wrote:
> It means that everyone from every culture has an equal voice in
> determining the content of every Wikipedia article.  We don't tell
> someone their opinion is to be disregarded because they come from a
> different culture.  [[Wikipedia:Consensus]] means the consensus of
> everyone, not just the consensus of a certain culture.

That must be a prescriptive statement, rather than a descriptive one.

> In fact, we already do this to some extent.  See [[French personal
> pronouns]].  I don't think [[Personal pronoun]] would be any worse if
> it talked only about concepts that exist across languages, and linked
> to [[English personal pronouns]] for the rest.  In fact, I think it'd
> be better.

Me too, I think I made that comment on that talk page a few months
ago. But I think also that [[Personal pronoun]] would be remiss if it
didn't say "such as 'she' in English" or whatever. You could have
examples from several languages on an equal footing, but no examples
from English would be wrong.

> I think the exercise is rather futile.  The ability to effectively
> communicate among even just the 112 languages of which Wikipedia is
> considered "somewhat active" is a long way off.  That said, I'd say 2,
> 3, and 4 are all true.  And, sadly, the first half of 5 is true too,
> at least on the English Wikipedia.

Right, and a non-notable journalist or minor personality is much more
likely to survive AfD if they're from New York rather than Bangalore
or Tashkent. It's just the way it is.

> My point, however, is that anyone who thinks that such an achievement
> (the ability to effectively communicate among the 112 languages of
> which Wikipedia is considered "somewhat active") would not be useful
> to Wikipedia - they certainly have a completely different idea of the
> project than I do.  I see it as significant that Wikipedia is
> generally referred to as *an* encyclopedia in multiple languages, not
> a collection of encyclopedias in multiple languages.  I thought it was

Hmm. I notice that people in one Wikipedia actually cite other
Wikipedias. "Source: French Wikipedia article". If it's "one
encyclopaedia" that would be like citing page 530.

I like the fact that there are parallel versions, but I wish that
Wikiproject:Echo was a lot stronger in getting good articles
translated into the other WPs.  Speaking for myself, it's a hell of a
lot easier to translate an article from French WP than to write it
from scratch...

Steve