Telling the whole story RE: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Press release : Logoputsch ontheFrenchWikipedia !

Fri Dec 12 19:03:09 UTC 2003

Jake Nelson wrote:
> Which is what this is, and I didn't see until I wrote that last line-
> censorship. What's being suggested in the argument that the different
> languages of Wikipedia should have different content is that some people,
> because they don't think speakers of my language would be interested in a
> topic, block our access to information on it.

Jake, I have to just say bluntly that this bit is just complete
nonsense.  No one is talking about censorship nor about blocking
access to information.  I frankly don't know where you get off
suggesting such a thing.

What we are talking about is whether we should expect that, ideally,
every individual-language article in wikipedia will be essentially a
translation of every other language.  I say no, we shouldn't expect
that, even while we expect the totality of the encyclopedias to
contain essentially the same information.

The reason is that issues of presentation and emphasis to take proper
account of reader backgrounds and interests will naturally lead us to
organize things slightly differently in different languages.

That's not to say that we should keep secret from Jake the political
reasons why France gave the Statue of Liberty to the U.S., but merely
that the way that information is presented may differ significantly
(NOT in terms of bias, I don't mean that) for French readers versus
American readers.

Sorry if I sound grumpy, but after all that we do around here to
preserve openness, I don't like to be accused of advocating censorship
when nothing I'm saying could even remotely plausibly be construed as
an advocacy of censorship.

--Jimbo