[Wikipedia-l] The "One Chinese Wikipedia" and the "One Chinese Wiktionary"

Fri Sep 17 05:43:17 UTC 2004

It seems to be that there is a heated debate on whether to keep zh as 
one or split.  Being from Hong Kong, which uses traditional, and having 
the large majority of my Chinese education in Simplified (plus the fact 
that I now reside in Canada, which does not use Chinese as an official 
language), I'd say that I'd prefer a conversion script/program over 
keeping things separate, due to the difficulties in even keeping the 
information in two different Wikipedias synchronized.

Has anyone dealt with the article titles?  Obviously, if an SC version 
redirects to a TC version or vice-versa, given the NPOV policy on 
Wikipedia and the political overtones, the article title may be showing 
POV (or is it the intention that the conversion script also covers the 
article title?).

Having said that, has anyone also discussed this issue with regards 
to...

Wiktionary - SC/TC differences are generally that much more of a 
problem with a dictionary than an encyclopedia (not to mention if 
ci2dian, ci3dian, or zidian is the correct words to use).  For example, 
a predominantly SC dictionary has the SC character, followed by the 
traditional equivalent in brackets, while a TC dictionary has the SC 
character in brackets (whether to bracket a character is another story 
- TC dictionaries bracket everything, while SC dictionaries only 
bracket if their TC version is not readily apparent).  Would a 
conversion script deal with this?  What about codes that are dependant 
on how the character is written (such as four-corner or Q-9)?  In those 
indices, characters in one type but not another is bracketed if they do 
not belong to the inherent type of dictionary.  I doubt that a 
conversion script would bother to make the necessary changes to make it 
look aesthetically pleasing (not to mention that it would be stupid for 
a TC user to be denied access to an SC dictionary).

Articles about Chinese stuff in a non-Chinese Wiki - Do we need this 
automatic conversion process in a non-Chinese Wiki?  For example, does 
en.wikt need this conversion process for its entries on Chinese 
characters, phrases, and sayings?

Regional differences with regards to SC and TC - Consider "luo-bo" 
(carrot).  On the mainland, the second character is valid SC and TC.  
In Hong Kong, it's valid SC, but not valid TC (as it has another form). 
  Other characters may be treated similarly: in one region a character 
is both SC and TC, but in another, it could be SC only or TC only.  An 
automatic conversion script would, IMO, be really picky about what is 
SC and what is TC.