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List:       wikien-l
Subject:    Re: [WikiEN-l] Category translation
From:       Ray Saintonge <saintonge () telus ! net>
Date:       2006-06-08 10:51:50
Message-ID: 44880146.5030503 () telus ! net
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Delirium wrote:

>Jimmy Wales wrote:
>  
>
>>For the record, and as I have said many times in the past, I do NOT
>>think that cultural distinctions between difference language Wikipedias
>>are accidental or to be regarded as accidental, and even if it were
>>possible to translate every article using machine translation, I cannot
>>imagine that we would want to do so.  
>>    
>>
>This seems like a strange position to me.
>
>My view of a good encyclopedia article is that *any* reasonable person 
>in the world would find it: 1) informative; and 2) neutral.  This should 
>include non-native speakers of the language, people from outside the 
>typical "culture" of the language, and even people who can't speak the 
>language at all who have the article translated for them.  On en:, we 
>make an explicit effort to have it *not* be biased towards Anglosphere 
>culture, but instead to pull in people who speak English as a second 
>language (whether well or not) and are generally outside of 
>"English-speaking culture".  This isn't of course 100% successful, but 
>the *goal* is definitely to make it a global encyclopedia, not an 
>encyclopedia only for people who are culturally in the English-speaking 
>world.
>
They are probably both right.  At a deep level all the differences are 
accidental, but that's not a reason to be compulsive about harmonizing 
them.  In one sense too Wikipedia can be seen as a lens that converges 
all knowledge at the top of the Tower of Babel, but I doubt if that 
approach has any practical value, except perhaps in the minds of 
techno-geek Vulcans who believe that there is a logical computer 
solution for every possible problem..  So I do believe that the 
differences are accidental, but I see that as a good dynamic.  Viewed 
separately the Wikipedias in different languages are bound to arrive at 
different NPOVs that are each strongly rooted in distinct cultural 
values.  A language with a small concentrated geographical territory is 
more likely to achieve a satisfactory NPOV, without the complicated 
arguments  that may be encountered with a widely dispersed language like 
English.  This broad range of neutralities helps keep things dynamic.

Ec

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