from_name: Mark Williamson

subject: [Wikipedia-l] About Cantonese Wikipedia

body:
Hi Mountain,

I think I should respond to a couple of points.

1) This is because of baihua, which is used by Cantonese speakers and
Mandarin speakers alike although it is based firstly on Mandarin. I
think the issue here is "colloquial Cantonese" which has some
different grammar and a lot of different words. (the issue is very
very very complex unfortunately)
2) Exactly, however there is the possibility to use the hanzi for
writing the "colloquial Cantonese", which is difficult to understand
for readers who don't speak Cantonese.

I'm not sure what you mean about Cantonese not being able to finish
the list of articles - if you mean there aren't enough people who use
the romanisation to be able to finish it, then yes, that is true, and
perhaps to use roman letters is a bad idea. But if hanzi (including
Cantonese "fangyanzi", writing colloquial Cantonese instead of
standard written baihua which is shared with Cantonese and Mandarin)
is used, there are surely enough people who can write such a list,
although not all people who can speak Cantonese colloquial know how to
write it (since not all characters are part of Mandarin-based
"baihua", and some have different meanings).

I think that if this isn't just one user who wants to start a separate
Wikipedia, but a small group, even if other Cantonese speakers are
opposed, we should let them start their Wikipedia on a "trial basis"
to see how things work. I think this is usually best strategy in such
a situation, and later if it isn't good it can be closed or moved to
different servers.

Mark

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 03:00:16 +0800, yuanml <yuanml at pku.org.cn> wrote:
> Shizhao post a new thread about Cantonese Wikipedia on Village pump at Chinese Wikipedia.
> I asked many Cantonese to express their opinion, so far most of them showed their opposition.
>
> please visit here for details:
> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E8%81%8A%E5%A4%A9#.E7.B2.A4.E8.AF.AD.E7.BB.B4.E5.9F.BA.E7.99.BE.E7.A7.91
>
> I support setting up Cantonese Wikipedia.
>
> User Toytoy debated with me that:
> (1) The daily writings of Cantonese is almost the same with Mandarin Users.
> (2) Only very few people use romanisation system, they even can't finish the
> list of articles all languages should have
> ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_articles_all_languages_should_have )
>
> User Toytoy doubt the value of some small languages that can't finish the list.
> This point seems to be reasonable for me.
>
> I just want to ask what is the language policy for Mediawiki projects?
>
> --[[User:Mountain]]
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


list: wikien-l

source: pipermail-mbox

from_name: Charles Matthews

body:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Bauder" <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
Sent: Friday, December 24, 2004 12:15 PM
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Complicity in hoaxing - how to proceed?

> It is by no means a necessary conclusion that the user ought to be banned.
> The explanation should be interesting.
>
> Fred

Try this section from [[User:ExplorerCDT]]:

Warnings
  1.. I like to be very bold in editing pages, even to the point of pissing
people off.
  2.. I like to recommend articles for VfD, with my discerning eye.
  3.. It might take me a month to finish a big article or a major edit,
given I usually do this while working on 57 other projects.
  4.. I have a hatred for the Wikipedia:Naming conventions policy dictating
that the second and subsequent words in a title should be lowercase,
uncapitalized.
  5.. I hate civility. No use sugar-coating the hard truth or being nice to
stupid people...no matter what Wikipedia policy pleads

Conveys 'attitude'?

Anyway, I have started things moving on the user talk page, with some
requests.

Charles


list: wikipedia-l

from_name: André Müller

subject: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Propose to set up a Cantonese Wikipedia

body:
Hello List,

I completely agree with Alex Kwan. Having a Wikipedia in both
Mandarin/simplified Chinese and Cantonese/traditional Chinese seems
redundant to me as well. One could perhaps compare it with setting up
extra Wikipedias for British and American English (I doubt that the
differences are much bigger; except for the trad/simp issue).

That was my two yu?n.
- Andr?

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org
[mailto:wikipedia-l-bounces at Wikimedia.org] Im Auftrag von Alex Kwan
Gesendet: Freitag, 24. Dezember 2004 08:48
An: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
Betreff: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Propose to set up a Cantonese Wikipedia

Hello,

Mark Williamson wrote:
> If you have a method you would write it in, then...
>
> I see no problem here, but undoubtedly it will be cast in an extremely
> negative light by some of the users on zh: who will probably oppose it
> on the grounds that it will take oh-so-many valuable users away from
> the oh-so-poor zh.wikipedia.

*cough* I'm a Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong and I don't think we
should. There's the issue that Mark already brought up, what method
should we write it in: romanization has never been standardized and
traditional Chinese but with Cantonese words is, well, redundant...

> Some people might argue that all people who speak Cantonese can read
> baihua, but the same argument applies to other populations as well,
> for example how many Basque monolinguals are there? But they have a
> Wikipedia because they have a right (well, they don't "have a right",

Well, just because we can doesn't mean we should. ;)

little Alex
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l


from_name: Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales

subject: Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Interviews

body:
Jesse the man wrote:
> Yup, he was the guy who asked if I wanted to be interviewed or not.

The reason is that a bunch of us who are huge huge HUGE fans of your
work were going on and on about it in New York.  I think you are
perfectly right to decline the interview if you don't want to do it,
but at the same time, I think your parents would be quite proud --
it's going to be a very favorable writeup of you and your work, I'm
sure.

Could make for a nice thing to slip into a college application, too,
if you care about that sort of thing.

--Jimbo


subject: [WikiEN-l] User:ExplorerCDT

body:
So, in the matter of this admitted bad-faith editor, I have had a reply on
[[User talk:ExplorerCDT]].

Not so satisfactory.  Admits 'occasional tongue-in-cheek' edits
(unspecified). Contrast that with the statement further up the page
(Colonial Colleges) that 'If this was not fact, I would not have written
it.'; and subsequent complaints from others.

The guy has had a chance to be helpful.  There are some anon edits in
September that would be harder to check back on.

Try this excerpt:

''Fifth, since your user page contains a number of comments of an aggressive
and antisocial nature, such as the sneering about 'civility', would you like
to give an account of yourself in relation to the WP project which would
convince anyone that you have some intention of being a better community
member in the future?Charles Matthews 12:54, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  a.. No. Warnings should be taken at face value. Now find something better
to do with your time. -ExplorerCDT 13:24, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC) ''
I am certainly minded to push for a ban of this user.

Charles


subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: User:ExplorerCDT

body:
Following up my own message (if you'll all forgive me), there is an existing
RfC.

Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/ExplorerCDT .

Charles


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Propose to set up a Cantonese Wikipedia

body:
Andr? M?ller wrote:
> I completely agree with Alex Kwan. Having a Wikipedia in both
> Mandarin/simplified Chinese and Cantonese/traditional Chinese seems
> redundant to me as well. One could perhaps compare it with setting up
> extra Wikipedias for British and American English (I doubt that the
> differences are much bigger; except for the trad/simp issue).

I tend to agree.  Node is well known as an activist for forking
Chinese into multiple projects, and so his comments should be
considered in that full context.

--Jimbo


body:
Jiaqing, the thing is I am not talking about formal writing, I am
talking about colloquial speech.

"???,?????????????.???????????,????????." does that readily make sense
to you? (the question mark in the sentence is where I couldn't even
find a character, even after all sorts of search).

I am not the one who has made this Minnan Wikipedia. Do not blame me
for it. I don't see why you are so bitter to it, if it has such little
use as you claim and nobody visits it at all as you say, then how does
it "drain" from normal zh.wikipedia?

I think perhaps you should learn the principle "live and let live".

Mark

On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 22:41:37 +0800, Jiaqing Bao <jbao.itl91g at nctu.edu.tw> wrote:
> Mark Williamson node.ue at gmail.com
> Fri Dec 24 03:03:54 UTC 2004
>  > I see no problem here, but undoubtedly it will be cast in an extremely
>  > negative light by some of the users on zh: who will probably oppose it
>  > on the grounds that it will take oh-so-many valuable users away from
>  > the oh-so-poor zh.wikipedia.
>
> I am a native Chinese speaker. I really don't think this may happen
> before hell freezes over. Believe it or not, written Cantonese is nearly
> indistinguishable from written Mandarin (or any other Chinese dialect).
> There are houndreds of co-existing dialects around. We have been using
> them for thousands of years. But we write in the same way.
>
> So far there are no Jamaican, South African, Philipino or Texan English
> Wikipedias for these English dialect speakers. There is no need to setup
> a Cantonese Wikipedia following the same logic.
>
> I have collected some good examples of formal Cantonese writing on the
> Chinese Wikipedia's talk page:
>
> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E8%81%8A%E5%A4%A9
>
> or
>
> http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E8%81%8A%E5%A4%A9#.E7.B2.A4.E8.AF.AD.E7.BB.B4.E5.9F.BA.E7.99.BE.E7.A7.91
>
> Personally I don't believe that setting up a Cantonese Wiki would drain
> the Chinese Wikipedia in anyway. You have created a nearly
> non-functioning Taiwanese Wikipedia. It has less than 600 articles and
> only 49 contributors. People are not using it.
>
> http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&hideminor=0&hideliu=0&hidebots=1&hidepatrolled=0&limit=500&days=30&limit=500
>
> http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics
>
> As you can see, there are less than five active Taiwanese contributors.
> Sometimes a day's job was totally done by one user (usually A-gi?u, the
> sysop, she has made 4500 edits out of less than 8000 total edits). Why?
> Because every educated person in Taiwan knows how to read and write
> Chinese. It's been used for the past hundreds of years. Very few people
> knows how to write using the system used by the Taiwanese Wikipedia. I
> am living in Taiwan. I can speak Taiwanese. My mother's a native
> speaker. But I cannot read a single sentence without banging my head
> against the wall. Only a handful of books were published using that
> system. Most Taiwanese (or Minnan dialect) speakers decide to use
> Chinese Wikipedia. Most of us simply cannot contribute.
>
> Network bandwidth is cheap. Disk storage is cheap. A useless
> encyclopedia is cheap. I don't mind to see you setup a Cantonese
> project. It will not drain Chinese contributors. because it will not be
> used by anyone. In the end, it will be used by a only few. Possibly, it
> will become another one man band. Next time, start a New York English
> (they don't speak English, do they?) encyclopedia. You'll know what I mean.
>
> Best regards,
> Jiaqing Bao
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Toytoy
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: Sean Barrett

subject: [WikiEN-l] Did you know that we're all lying liars who tell lies?

body:
Anonymous [[User:66.234.65.212]] is on a mission to "expose[] the
constant cover-ups by liars on wikipedia" by adding links to a
idiosyncratic Web site to any article mentioning Francis Bellamy, the US
Pledge of Allegiance, the Roman/Nazi salute, and so on.  [[User:RickK]]
warned him/her/it last August, and I just posted a second warning.  It
is my intention to block that IP address if those links are re-added
without discussion.

See http://members.ij.net/rex/wikipedialies.html for the other side of
the story.

--
  Sean Barrett     | It's swell for tearing up
  sean at epoptic.com | fragile ecosystems! Watch!


subject: [WikiEN-l] Admitted sockpuppet making continual abusive comments

references:
<BAY13-F38005F2A42AABB5A601B9AB0A40@phx.gbl>
	<BDEF2C18.9DD3%fredbaud@ctelco.net>
	<1bfe3eb04122213106960dc56@mail.gmail.com>

body:
Theresa Knott wrote:
> Just block the account. The block policy is clear on this matter
>
> "Sockpuppets that were created to violate Wikipedia policy should be
> blocked permanently."

Yes, of course.

There's a pretty clearcut difference between the difficult user who
may be bringing in a valid but uncomfortable perspective on an
article, and someone who is just deliberately trying to undermine the
trust that our system rests upon.

--Jimbo


from_name: Alex Kwan

body:
Hello,

Mark Williamson wrote:
> If you have a method you would write it in, then...
>
> I see no problem here, but undoubtedly it will be cast in an extremely
> negative light by some of the users on zh: who will probably oppose it
> on the grounds that it will take oh-so-many valuable users away from
> the oh-so-poor zh.wikipedia.

*cough* I'm a Cantonese speaker from Hong Kong and I don't think we
should. There's the issue that Mark already brought up, what method
should we write it in: romanization has never been standardized and
traditional Chinese but with Cantonese words is, well, redundant...

> Some people might argue that all people who speak Cantonese can read
> baihua, but the same argument applies to other populations as well,
> for example how many Basque monolinguals are there? But they have a
> Wikipedia because they have a right (well, they don't "have a right",

Well, just because we can doesn't mean we should. ;)

little Alex


subject: [WikiEN-l] Registration system and blocks

body:
Abe Sokolov stated for the record:

> This is worth losing a few contributors who just stop by to fix things.

Will somebody please archive this, the Nth repetition of this particular
debate, so that two weeks from now, when repetition N+1 begins, we can
simply e-mail the archive to the person suggesting that we "pull up the
ladder" and not let any more casual editors into our club?

--
 Sean Barrett     | It's swell for tearing up
 sean at epoptic.com | fragile ecosystems! Watch!


from_name: 苑明理

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Re: Propose to set up a Cantonese Wikipedia

body:
I'm from Chinese Wikipedia, and an administrator of it.
I support to setup Cantonese Wikipedia.

In fact setting up Cantonese Wikipedia is not a new topic
for the Chinese Wikipedia community. some months ago, we had discussed
same topic about foundation of Min-nan Wikipedia.
At that time, some of us opposed to setup Min-nan Wikipedia,
but many of us agreed.

just see: http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E4%BA%92%E5%8A%A9%E5%AE%A2%E6%A0%88%E6%A1%A3%E6%A1%88%E5%AE%A4/2004%E5%B9%B48%E6%9C%88#minnan.wikipedia.org

In fact the mordern Mandarin Chinese have absorbed many vocabulary and usage
from differnent Chinese dialect. I don't want to see Mandarin Chinese
dominate other dialects, they all are equal and can mutually inspiration each other.

Mandarin Chinese was setup only for convenience to people from different area of China,
it dosen't have any priority. That's my opinion.


from_name: Skyring

body:
On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 04:56:29 +0000, Abe Sokolov <abesokolov at hotmail.com> wrote:
> A user keeps on getting blocked but returns with returns with one new
> sockpuppet after another. He wrote on my page:
>
> Hey, it's not my fault wikipedia doesn't have a registration system that
> requires input of an actual email address. Haha.
>
> He's right... Why don't we have one?

I've got several GMail invites - would you like one?

--
Peter in Canberra


subject: AW: AW: [Wikipedia-l] Propose to set up a Cantonese Wikipedia

body:
Oh... I'm sorry, than I have understood you wrong. :(
I also seemed to have a much different impression of Cantonese.

- now even smaller Andr?

Alex Kwan wrote:

> Ack! You've completely mistaken my reasons why I'm opposed to it. I
was
> afraid that we couldn't find a way to truly show the "Cantonese-ness"
of
> the wikipedia and I'm very much an all-or-nothing person.
>
> But the variations between Cantonese and Mandarin is very different
from
> the simplistic picture you've painted and to delve into it right now
is
> beyond my time limit.
>
> little Alex


from_name: Daniel Mayer

subject: [WikiEN-l] Arbitration Committee term lengths

body:
--- blankfaze <blankfaze at gmail.com> wrote:
> I realise that the lengths of ArbCom terms are set by Jimbo, and
> whilst I recognise his authority in such matters, I would like to
> postulate that the length of the terms is perhaps excessive.

Admins, Stewards, and Bureaucrats are elected for indefinite terms. I don't see
what is wrong with ArbCom member terms being 3 years. It is not a political
position, and thus members should not be in near constent re-election mode.

-- mav

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Jazz up your holiday email with celebrity designs. Learn more.
http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com


body:
I believe some *are* written colloquially.

For example, the zh-min-nan Wikipedia uses colloquial Minnan.

I'm not sure, but I'm wondering if perhaps the Alemannic and Low Saxon
and Luxemburgish Wikipedias are written colloquially?

In addition, some languages are without a real established modern
written standard, for example Sicilian, but they set a few rules up
front and worked out something fairly neutral-sounding between
dialects which is easy to use, and it is currently used in over 100
articles (quickly approaching 200).

While some languages are written not exactly as they are spoken,
others are written *exactly* as they are spoken, and some are written
very differently than they are spoken (traditional Javanese writings
cannot be understood by most speakers today because it is so formal
and dissimilar to the colloquial speech)

There are books and webpages (admittedly, no encyclopedias) written in
this "colloquial" Cantonese, some in a mixture of hanzi and
romanization, and some in just hanzi. I think the former is a little
bit ugly and usually unnessecary.

Scots is currently trying to gain recognition as a language separate
from English and people are beginning to recognize it as a separate
language. Written Scots is usually fairly colloquial from what I know.
I'm actually surprised nobody has asked for a Scots Wikipedia yet
(but, contrary to what some might think I am like, I haven't requested
it because I haven't actually talked to any native speakers who want
one).

Mark

On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 23:12:11 +0100, Andr? M?ller <andrew1985 at gmx.de> wrote:
> Correct me if I can't follow you, but... Wikipedia articles aren't
> written in colloquial speech, are they? In dialects (no matter if
> German, English or Chinese) vocabulary and pronunciation always differs
> in a wider range in colloquial speech than in formal one.
> I could write a colloquial message in Saxon (German dialect; I'm doing
> an elaborate study about my own dialect currently) that no Bavarian
> could understand (and I'm not talking about the funny pronunciation
> here); in formal speech this is nearly impossible.
>
> I know that the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is larger than
> that, but as articles are usually in a formal way of writing, both
> parties would be able to read it without too many difficulties. A
> Mandarin speaker might notice if some article is written by a Cantonese,
> and the other way round, but that does not justify its own distinct
> Wikipedia, in my opinion.
>
> The simplified/traditional difference would be the only difficulty in
> understanding, but that's a different topic, as we know.
>
> - Andr?
>
> Mark Williamson wrote:
> > Jiaqing, the thing is I am not talking about formal writing, I am
> > talking about colloquial speech.
> > [etc.]
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
Excuse me? Yes, I want to split up the Chinese Wikipedia into multiple
projects, no matter what lines it's upon! Mwahahahahaha!!!

Actually, no. With the upgrade to 1.4, most previous problems on
zh.wikipedia have been fixed. I did submit a request to Wikicities for
a separate project focused more on anthropology but still an
encyclopedia in Traditional Chinese, but the two are unrelated.

Perhaps you should actually consider that I have /given you some evidence/?

This issue has been discussed in a little bit of depth here, by not
just me but others as well. And you're basically ignoring what I'm
saying and labelling it as activist because I like to fork zh: (again,
wth!?), and you're also ignoring what some other people are saying.

If a new Wikipedia *is* created for Cantonese (remember, this *was*
requested by a Cantonese speaker, not me), I think ultimately it
should be in Chinese characters but it should have the same
Traditional-Simplified solution zh.wikipedia now uses as there are
speakers of Cantonese on the mainland who use the Simplified alphabet
too.

As far as I can tell, you have considered NONE of the evidence I have
presented and simply skipped over it for whatever reason and then
labelled it for others as "activism for forking Chinese into multiple
projects".

Well, I have news for YOU, Jimbo. Check your inbox. Stirling Newberry
agrees with me. And what he said is largely the same as what I said.
So where does that put things?

Mark

On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 14:17:48 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales
<jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Andr? M?ller wrote:
> > I completely agree with Alex Kwan. Having a Wikipedia in both
> > Mandarin/simplified Chinese and Cantonese/traditional Chinese seems
> > redundant to me as well. One could perhaps compare it with setting up
> > extra Wikipedias for British and American English (I doubt that the
> > differences are much bigger; except for the trad/simp issue).
>
> I tend to agree.  Node is well known as an activist for forking
> Chinese into multiple projects, and so his comments should be
> considered in that full context.
>
> --Jimbo
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


from_name: nas ral

subject: [WikiEN-l] nasrallah block

body:
48hrs are up, yet i am still blocked? could someone unblock me? thanks

nasrallah


from_name: Stirling Newberry

body:
Written colloquial Yue is a distinct written language from written
standard Chinese, it has  a literature, a body of readers who are not
necessarily literate in standard Chinese.  The Guangzhou dialect of Yue
Chinese has literature which includes opera texts, poetry, novels and
historical material dating back to the Ming dynasty. Since World War II
it has increased in usage and popularity, particularly with its use to
join together Chinese communities through out both the Pacific Rim and
in North America, as well as its role in economically open Hong Kong.
It however does not have a standardized form, thought the Hong Kong
government has produced a standardized set of characters. According to
Chan, "it has never been the subject of perscriptive reforms", which is
to say, there is no standardization process towards a single written
language.

There will be strong opposition from those who want to see Chinese
remain a system of languages with a standardized written form, at the
same time, the use of Colloquial Written Yue is a documentable fact,
needing only the desire to create a standardized form which all users
of Cantonese can recognize. However, this is not currently the case -
there is a major dialectical division within Yue itself, which produces
spoken forms which are not mutually intelligible - not uncommon for
languages with large illiterate populations - but which are
grammatically unified. However, the main reason for CWY is to represent
sounds of words.

This is a different case from the Western Colloquial Arabic: there is a
written language for Yue, but one which has several written "dialects",
some of which are confusing to the other users of it. There is, as of
yet, no single "authoritative" source for what "written" Cantonese
looks like. However, it is close - there are classes which require
written fluency in Cantonese taught at Universities, and there has been
an explosion of linguistic research. There are wide areas of common
usage, including pronouns, for example.

This is a pure judgment call, how close to having a standardized
?language? is close enough? Is the growth of CWY an artifact of Hong
Kong being separate from the mainland? Or is it the result of a long
culture centered around an economically vibrant area which has often
been separate from, or at odds with, the central government(s).

A wiktionary and wikipedia would almost certainly be part of the
process of study of the language, and might well be followed by
linguists interested in the process itself.

Chan, Thomas "Orthographic Change: Yue Chinese Dialect Characters in
the 19th and 20th Centuries"
Matthews, Stephen and Yip, Virginia _Cantonese: A Comprehensive
Grammar_, Routledge, 1994
Snow, Donald _Cantonese as Written Language_, Honk Kong University
Press, 2004.
Zheng, Dingou _Jinri Yueyu_ (Today's Cantonese), Jinan University Press


body:
Hello,

Andr? M?ller wrote:
> I completely agree with Alex Kwan. Having a Wikipedia in both
> Mandarin/simplified Chinese and Cantonese/traditional Chinese seems
> redundant to me as well. One could perhaps compare it with setting up
> extra Wikipedias for British and American English (I doubt that the
> differences are much bigger; except for the trad/simp issue).

Ack! You've completely mistaken my reasons why I'm opposed to it. I was
afraid that we couldn't find a way to truly show the "Cantonese-ness" of
the wikipedia and I'm very much an all-or-nothing person.

But the variations between Cantonese and Mandarin is very different from
the simplistic picture you've painted and to delve into it right now is
beyond my time limit.

little Alex


body:
Abe Sokolov stated for the record:

> You and your mailing list
> cabal would know this if you spent more time actually articles on
> Wikipedia.
>
> -172

I can't speak for my fellow Cabal members, but I'll be glad to compare
my new-article count against yours.

--
  Sean Barrett     | It's swell for tearing up
  sean at epoptic.com | fragile ecosystems! Watch!


from_name: Jiaqing Bao

body:
Mark Williamson node.ue at gmail.com
Fri Dec 24 03:03:54 UTC 2004
 > I see no problem here, but undoubtedly it will be cast in an extremely
 > negative light by some of the users on zh: who will probably oppose it
 > on the grounds that it will take oh-so-many valuable users away from
 > the oh-so-poor zh.wikipedia.

I am a native Chinese speaker. I really don't think this may happen
before hell freezes over. Believe it or not, written Cantonese is nearly
indistinguishable from written Mandarin (or any other Chinese dialect).
There are houndreds of co-existing dialects around. We have been using
them for thousands of years. But we write in the same way.

So far there are no Jamaican, South African, Philipino or Texan English
Wikipedias for these English dialect speakers. There is no need to setup
a Cantonese Wikipedia following the same logic.

I have collected some good examples of formal Cantonese writing on the
Chinese Wikipedia's talk page:

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E8%81%8A%E5%A4%A9

or

http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E8%81%8A%E5%A4%A9#.E7.B2.A4.E8.AF.AD.E7.BB.B4.E5.9F.BA.E7.99.BE.E7.A7.91

Personally I don't believe that setting up a Cantonese Wiki would drain
the Chinese Wikipedia in anyway. You have created a nearly
non-functioning Taiwanese Wikipedia. It has less than 600 articles and
only 49 contributors. People are not using it.

http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Recentchanges&hideminor=0&hideliu=0&hidebots=1&hidepatrolled=0&limit=500&days=30&limit=500

http://zh-min-nan.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics

As you can see, there are less than five active Taiwanese contributors.
Sometimes a day's job was totally done by one user (usually A-gi?u, the
sysop, she has made 4500 edits out of less than 8000 total edits). Why?
Because every educated person in Taiwan knows how to read and write
Chinese. It's been used for the past hundreds of years. Very few people
knows how to write using the system used by the Taiwanese Wikipedia. I
am living in Taiwan. I can speak Taiwanese. My mother's a native
speaker. But I cannot read a single sentence without banging my head
against the wall. Only a handful of books were published using that
system. Most Taiwanese (or Minnan dialect) speakers decide to use
Chinese Wikipedia. Most of us simply cannot contribute.

Network bandwidth is cheap. Disk storage is cheap. A useless
encyclopedia is cheap. I don't mind to see you setup a Cantonese
project. It will not drain Chinese contributors. because it will not be
used by anyone. In the end, it will be used by a only few. Possibly, it
will become another one man band. Next time, start a New York English
(they don't speak English, do they?) encyclopedia. You'll know what I mean.

Best regards,
Jiaqing Bao
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Toytoy


from_name: Nicholas Knight

body:
Abe Sokolov wrote:
> To evade a block, all a vandal has to do is log off and log back on with
> a new account. However, going through all the steps required by email
> confirmation (consisting of signing up for a new email account, signing
> up to Wikipedia, checking the new email account for confirmation, and
> then logging on to Wikipedia) will take more time than the time required
> for admins to ban the sockpuppet.

Perhaps you didn't get the point from my previous email. I can create a
new email address in the time it takes me to type it out. I can also
easily whip up a script that would let me automatically catch
confirmation emails and respond appropriately without me ever seeing
them. The entire process of creating an account on Wikipedia can be
automated so that a new user could be created in a few seconds, email
confirmation or not.

To summarize:

EMAIL

CONFIRMATION

DOES

NOT

HELP.

(If your next suggestion is "CAPTCHA", I have a two-word response:
"blind people".)

Are we done now?


body:
Correct me if I can't follow you, but... Wikipedia articles aren't
written in colloquial speech, are they? In dialects (no matter if
German, English or Chinese) vocabulary and pronunciation always differs
in a wider range in colloquial speech than in formal one.
I could write a colloquial message in Saxon (German dialect; I'm doing
an elaborate study about my own dialect currently) that no Bavarian
could understand (and I'm not talking about the funny pronunciation
here); in formal speech this is nearly impossible.

I know that the difference between Cantonese and Mandarin is larger than
that, but as articles are usually in a formal way of writing, both
parties would be able to read it without too many difficulties. A
Mandarin speaker might notice if some article is written by a Cantonese,
and the other way round, but that does not justify its own distinct
Wikipedia, in my opinion.

The simplified/traditional difference would be the only difficulty in
understanding, but that's a different topic, as we know.

- Andr?

Mark Williamson wrote:
> Jiaqing, the thing is I am not talking about formal writing, I am
> talking about colloquial speech.
> [etc.]


from_name: Abe Sokolov

body:
Re: "Because then we'd stop being a wiki, and loose a huge number of
contributors who just stop by to fix things, and then stay, but still not
exclude persistant troublemakers."

Being an inconvenience to legitimate contributors is a valid point. However,
it would have at least some effect on vandals.

To evade a block, all a vandal has to do is log off and log back on with a
new account. However, going through all the steps required by email
confirmation (consisting of signing up for a new email account, signing up
to Wikipedia, checking the new email account for confirmation, and then
logging on to Wikipedia) will take more time than the time required for
admins to ban the sockpuppet.

The vast majority of vandals won't have the patience to bother with going
through all these steps. Most of them are just bothering us because they are
bored and they find it amusing, not because they are determined to sabotage
our work. This'll probably encourage them to find something better to do.

This is worth losing a few contributors who just stop by to fix things. With
its exponential growth, Wikipedia can weather the effect on slowing growth
caused by adopting much needed quality control mechanisms. Growth is
definitely not one of our relative weaknesses next to other encyclopedias
online like Britannica and Encarta. Remember, Wikipedia's legitimacy will
rest on quality and product, not quantity and process.

-172

_________________________________________________________________
Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/


body:
Abe Sokolov stated for the record:

> I have just as
> much right to post something on this site giving you the perspective of
> the general editors as you people do. And if you don't like it, I'll
> just do it more frequently.

The very fact that you try to make a distinction between "the general
editors" and "you people" makes it clear you have no idea who "the
general editors" are or what they want.

And when presented with the fact that the consensus of the Wikipedia
community doesn't like it, you state your intention to annoy that
community "more frequently."  I personally don't think that's a good way
to persuade people, but please don't let my opinion cause you to
hesitate.  Annoy the community as frequently you want.

--
 Sean Barrett     | Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
 sean at epoptic.com | That alone should encourage the crew.
                  | Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
                  | What I tell you three times is true.


from_name: Bryan Derksen

subject: Fwd: [WikiEN-l] Registration system and blocks

body:
At 04:08 PM 12/25/2004 +0800, John Lee wrote:
>Having spent five or six years interacting with people on the internet,
>I've found that it's the troublemakers who will go to great lengths to
>irritate people while the more useful people don't have the time to register.

I know that I, myself, have passed up contributing to wikis because they
required me to log in - not even email-confirmed, just a username and
password. I was just passing through and didn't want to bother jumping
through any hoops. We get plenty of anonymous edits on Wikipedia and very
few of them are vandals, so I'd be wary of anything that cuts those off.


from_name: Jesse the man

body:
There's a way around bots. - there are "authentication" devices which
present a string of numbers from an image that one has to correctly
type in if he or she wants to register.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nicholas Knight <nknight at runawaynet.com>
Date: Fri, 24 Dec 2004 22:59:18 -0800
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Registration system and blocks
To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at wikipedia.org>

Abe Sokolov wrote:
> To evade a block, all a vandal has to do is log off and log back on with
> a new account. However, going through all the steps required by email
> confirmation (consisting of signing up for a new email account, signing
> up to Wikipedia, checking the new email account for confirmation, and
> then logging on to Wikipedia) will take more time than the time required
> for admins to ban the sockpuppet.

Perhaps you didn't get the point from my previous email. I can create a
new email address in the time it takes me to type it out. I can also
easily whip up a script that would let me automatically catch
confirmation emails and respond appropriately without me ever seeing
them. The entire process of creating an account on Wikipedia can be
automated so that a new user could be created in a few seconds, email
confirmation or not.

To summarize:

EMAIL

CONFIRMATION

DOES

NOT

HELP.

(If your next suggestion is "CAPTCHA", I have a two-word response:
"blind people".)

Are we done now?
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l


from_name: yuanml

subject: [Wikipedia-l] About Cantonese Wikipedia

body:
Shizhao post a new thread about Cantonese Wikipedia on Village pump at Chinese Wikipedia.
I asked many Cantonese to express their opinion, so far most of them showed their opposition.

please visit here for details:
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:%E8%81%8A%E5%A4%A9#.E7.B2.A4.E8.AF.AD.E7.BB.B4.E5.9F.BA.E7.99.BE.E7.A7.91

I support setting up Cantonese Wikipedia.

User Toytoy debated with me that:
(1) The daily writings of Cantonese is almost the same with Mandarin Users.
(2) Only very few people use romanisation system, they even can't finish the
list of articles all languages should have
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_articles_all_languages_should_have )

User Toytoy doubt the value of some small languages that can't finish the list.
This point seems to be reasonable for me.

I just want to ask what is the language policy for Mediawiki projects?

--[[User:Mountain]]


body:
Sean Barrett stated for the record:

Will somebody please archive this, the Nth repetition of this particular
debate, so that two weeks from now, when repetition N+1 begins, we can
simply e-mail the archive to the person suggesting that we "pull up the
ladder" and not let any more casual editors into our club?

Well, given your rude response, I can see that you don't want casual readers
of the listserve into your club on the mailing list. What gives me the right
to disturb your elite palace court, right?

No one wants to dissuade casual editors from editing on Wikipedia. However,
vandals exist and they are problems. You and your mailing list cabal would
know this if you spent more time actually articles on Wikipedia.

-172

_________________________________________________________________
On the road to retirement? Check out MSN Life Events for advice on how to
get there! http://lifeevents.msn.com/category.aspx?cid=Retirement


from_name: Fred Bauder

body:
Your suggestion was appropriate and appreciated. I suspect our more
technically inclined mailing list posters greatly exaggerate the ease with
which the average vandal (after all, their average age must be about 8)
could create numerous accounts. Our experience at Wikinfo since requiring
that they at least create an account has resulted in a number of dead
accounts, but still a major reduction in drop-in vandalism. (But perhaps we
have lost some helpful edits too).

Fred

> From: "Abe Sokolov" <abesokolov at hotmail.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 05:01:13 +0000
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Registration system and blocks
>
> No one wants to dissuade casual editors from editing on Wikipedia. However,
> vandals exist and they are problems. You and your mailing list cabal would
> know this if you spent more time actually editing articles on Wikipedia.
>
> -172


body:
Sean Barrett wrote: "I can't speak for my fellow Cabal members, but I'll be
glad to compare my new-article count against yours."

Well, you'll probably beat me. I have not been as active over the past few
months as in the past. Plus, my articles tend to be relatively long, such as
the two that were mentioned in this article http://p2pnet.net/story/3202
(Origins of the American Civil War and Russian constitutional crisis of
1993).

Nevetheless, I am among the 100 most active users in this site's history;
and although I am not a member of your cabal, I have just as much right to
post something on this site giving you the perspective of the general
editors as you people do. And if you don't like it, I'll just do it more
frequently.

-User:172

_________________________________________________________________
FREE pop-up blocking with the new MSN Toolbar ? get it now!
http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200415ave/direct/01/


body:
You change the subject. Most of the folks you mention, after being
eventually banned, do go away, at least for the term of their ban. Which
goes to show that they are not here to vandalize but to set their particular
stamp on the information we present. Thus they leave an identifiable
footprint no matter whether they edit anonymously or using sockpuppets.
Perhaps the vandal Abe was referring to falls in this category also, but we
have no details other than "vandal".

Fred

> From: John Lee <johnleemk at gawab.com>
> Reply-To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 21:27:13 +0800
> To: English Wikipedia <wikien-l at Wikipedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Registration system and blocks
>
> Indeed. The problem isn't those vandals who blank a few pages and then
> leave. The problem is people like Irismeister and POV pushers/trolls.
> These people have nothing better to do than waste their own and others'
> time persistently.
>
> John Lee
> ([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
Yet, we offer a great opportunity for them to develop SOMETHING and through
that become linked with the larger project and the vast world of knowledge.
It is almost a defining characteristic of small tribal groups that they are
out of touch with outside perspectives. A Wikipedia project offers an
opportunity to both focus on their particular culture and make connections
with the larger cultures. For example, the Ute were once part of the larger
Colorado community. They are now segregated in small reservations in
southwestern Colorado and northwestern Utah and except for tribal leaders
and occasional visitors to their rather limited tourist facilities there is
almost no day to day contact with the general population. So while gradually
losing their own language and culture, they are also out of touch with the
surrounding culture too.

Whether any group picked at random, as I have here, will rise to the
occasion and actually make something of the opportunity of having their own
Wikipedia remains to be seen, but I don't think it hurts to keep the door
open.

Fred

> From: Jiaqing Bao <jbao.itl91g at nctu.edu.tw>
> Reply-To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Date: Sat, 25 Dec 2004 16:37:49 +0800
> To: wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Wikipedia-l] Setting up a Wikipedia in _______ (what ever language)
>
> To many minor languages, they have very few books
> other than a language textbook, the Bible or an out-of-print dictionary.
> It is really not a very good idea that they start an encyclopedia
> project at this moment.
>
>
> Jiaqing Bao


body:
Nicholas Knight wrote:

"Perhaps you didn't get the point from my previous email. I can create a
new email address in the time it takes me to type it out. I can also
easily whip up a script that would let me automatically catch
confirmation emails and respond appropriately without me ever seeing
them. The entire process of creating an account on Wikipedia can be
automated so that a new user could be created in a few seconds, email
confirmation or not."

Thank you for the explanation. My field's history, definitely not computers.
I've only been using the internet for a few years. Writing scripts is way
above my pay grade. So I'll take your word for it; but I wonder if the
typical trouble-maker we encounter is sophisticated enough to realize what
you are bringing up above.

-172

_________________________________________________________________
Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/


body:
--- Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen at shaw.ca> wrote:
> I know that I, myself, have passed up contributing to wikis because they
> required me to log in - not even email-confirmed, just a username and
> password. I was just passing through and didn't want to bother jumping
> through any hoops. We get plenty of anonymous edits on Wikipedia and very
> few of them are vandals, so I'd be wary of anything that cuts those off.

I agree completely. What we need are more and better tools to cooperatively
review edits and fix bad ones (such as a working RC patrol feature and some
type of trust network). Giving admins more authority to use the tools they
already have would also help, but is something that needs to be done with a
good deal of thought and with built-in safeguards against abuse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Trust_network

However, I also want to mention that wiki is a means to an end and that our
goal is the creation of a product - the world's biggest and best encyclopedia.
Some people have lost sight of that and think our main goal is the creation and
nurturing of the community that creates that product when that is just a
secondary goal we need to fulfill in order to attain the first.

So if and when some aspects of wiki (itself a set of tools and a philosophy),
get in the way of our primary goal, then we need to think of ways to minimize
any damage that may cause. Only *if* that fails would we consider dropping some
aspects of our open wiki model. I don't think we are at that point yet but I
imagine that sad day may come and we need to know when it has arrived.
Otherwise we risk loosing sight of our main mission.

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Jazz up your holiday email with celebrity designs. Learn more.
http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com


from_name: Andrew Lih

body:
Node, Jimbo simply said, "your comments should be considered in that
full context."

I tend to agree with Jiaqing Bao, that a Cantonese Wikipedia would be
an interesting curiosity, but as with Min-nan, it seems destined to
whither on the vine. The norm in Guangdong and Hong Kong is to use
baihua for formal writing. It's better to have their efforts poured
into the "traditional Chinese" content of ZH. It works both ways too -
as HK and others learn to adapt to simplified and doing business in
the mainland, folks in the PRC are rekindling interest in traditional
Chinese characters too.

The Cantonese dialect does have unique colorful phrases and a
different linguistic culture that manifests itself in Cantopop, film
and cartoons. Some would seem foreign to "Mandarin" speakers. It would
be great to have these Cantonese-isms captured in some way that could
be done in a combined ZH Wikipedia.

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 18:53:06 -0700, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Excuse me? Yes, I want to split up the Chinese Wikipedia into multiple
> projects, no matter what lines it's upon! Mwahahahahaha!!!
>
> Actually, no. With the upgrade to 1.4, most previous problems on
> zh.wikipedia have been fixed. I did submit a request to Wikicities for
> a separate project focused more on anthropology but still an
> encyclopedia in Traditional Chinese, but the two are unrelated.
>
> Perhaps you should actually consider that I have /given you some evidence/?
>
> This issue has been discussed in a little bit of depth here, by not
> just me but others as well. And you're basically ignoring what I'm
> saying and labelling it as activist because I like to fork zh: (again,
> wth!?), and you're also ignoring what some other people are saying.
>
> If a new Wikipedia *is* created for Cantonese (remember, this *was*
> requested by a Cantonese speaker, not me), I think ultimately it
> should be in Chinese characters but it should have the same
> Traditional-Simplified solution zh.wikipedia now uses as there are
> speakers of Cantonese on the mainland who use the Simplified alphabet
> too.
>
> As far as I can tell, you have considered NONE of the evidence I have
> presented and simply skipped over it for whatever reason and then
> labelled it for others as "activism for forking Chinese into multiple
> projects".
>
> Well, I have news for YOU, Jimbo. Check your inbox. Stirling Newberry
> agrees with me. And what he said is largely the same as what I said.
> So where does that put things?
>
> Mark
>
> On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 14:17:48 -0800, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales
> <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > Andr? M?ller wrote:
> > > I completely agree with Alex Kwan. Having a Wikipedia in both
> > > Mandarin/simplified Chinese and Cantonese/traditional Chinese seems
> > > redundant to me as well. One could perhaps compare it with setting up
> > > extra Wikipedias for British and American English (I doubt that the
> > > differences are much bigger; except for the trad/simp issue).
> >
> > I tend to agree.  Node is well known as an activist for forking
> > Chinese into multiple projects, and so his comments should be
> > considered in that full context.
> >
> > --Jimbo
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikipedia-l mailing list
> > Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> > http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>

--
Andrew Lih
andrew.lih at gmail.com


body:
>
> The Cantonese dialect does have unique colorful phrases and a
> different linguistic culture that manifests itself in Cantopop, film
> and cartoons. Some would seem foreign to "Mandarin" speakers. It would
> be great to have these Cantonese-isms captured in some way that could
> be done in a combined ZH Wikipedia.
>
> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
>

I'm again going to suggest that some sort of "dialectical bracketting"
be implemented, which would allow for phrases to be marked as being in
a dialect of the language. Syntax would be something like [[dialect:
base phrase | dialect: dialect phrase | dialect: dialect phrase]] and
then allow users to pick the dialect of the language they are using.
This would allow for everything from the differences between British
and American English, to far more distant written dialects.


body:
On Dec 25, 2004, at 10:31 AM, John Lee wrote:

> Stirling Newberry wrote:
>
>>
>>>
>>> The Cantonese dialect does have unique colorful phrases and a
>>> different linguistic culture that manifests itself in Cantopop, film
>>> and cartoons. Some would seem foreign to "Mandarin" speakers. It
>>> would
>>> be great to have these Cantonese-isms captured in some way that could
>>> be done in a combined ZH Wikipedia.
>>>
>>> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
>>>
>>
>> I'm again going to suggest that some sort of "dialectical
>> bracketting" be implemented, which would allow for phrases to be
>> marked as being in a dialect of the language. Syntax would be
>> something like [[dialect: base phrase | dialect: dialect phrase |
>> dialect: dialect phrase]] and then allow users to pick the dialect of
>> the language they are using. This would allow for everything from the
>> differences between British and American English, to far more distant
>> written dialects.
>
> IIRC there was stiff opposition for this last time because it'd
> confuse newcomers too much.
>
> John Lee
> ([[en:User:Johnleemk]])
> __

It's a trade off between reader confusiong, from dialectical
inconsistencies, and editor confusion. Of these two, the latter is
easier to solve, because educating editors is within the reach of
Wikimedia, where as changing readers is not. This syntax is no more
difficult than the use of macros, image links and considerably less
complex than tables.


body:
But do we have a major problem with anon vandals, as opposed to
trolls?  That's the real question, isn't it?  If we were being overrun
by anon vandals, I'd say absolutely, we shut off anon logins.  But
those "on the frontlines" tell me that this anon vandals isn't the
problem -- it's that complete trolls can't be blocked due to our
(excessive?) due process.

--Jimbo

Abe Sokolov wrote:

> Re: "Because then we'd stop being a wiki, and loose a huge number of
> contributors who just stop by to fix things, and then stay, but still not
> exclude persistant troublemakers."
>
> Being an inconvenience to legitimate contributors is a valid point.
> However, it would have at least some effect on vandals.
>
> To evade a block, all a vandal has to do is log off and log back on with a
> new account. However, going through all the steps required by email
> confirmation (consisting of signing up for a new email account, signing up
> to Wikipedia, checking the new email account for confirmation, and then
> logging on to Wikipedia) will take more time than the time required for
> admins to ban the sockpuppet.
>
> The vast majority of vandals won't have the patience to bother with going
> through all these steps. Most of them are just bothering us because they
> are bored and they find it amusing, not because they are determined to
> sabotage our work. This'll probably encourage them to find something better
> to do.
>
> This is worth losing a few contributors who just stop by to fix things.
> With its exponential growth, Wikipedia can weather the effect on slowing
> growth caused by adopting much needed quality control mechanisms. Growth is
> definitely not one of our relative weaknesses next to other encyclopedias
> online like Britannica and Encarta. Remember, Wikipedia's legitimacy will
> rest on quality and product, not quantity and process.
>
> -172
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Don?t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
> http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at Wikipedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>

--
"La n?fle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on fr.wikipedia.org


body:
On Dec 25, 2004, at 11:01 AM, John Lee wrote:

> Stirling Newberry wrote:
>
>> It's a trade off between reader confusiong, from dialectical
>> inconsistencies, and editor confusion. Of these two, the latter is
>> easier to solve, because educating editors is within the reach of
>> Wikimedia, where as changing readers is not. This syntax is no more
>> difficult than the use of macros, image links and considerably less
>> complex than tables.
>>
> The problem is that in English it will be greatly confusing and
> irritatingly convoluted. Even simple words will have to be written
> using the syntax (i.e. centre or center? Billion or millard? Flavour
> or flavor?). Imagine editing an article with this sort of thing. I
> don't think the trade-off is worth it, at least for different English
> "dialects".
>

Less work than editting mathematical equations or tables by far. And
less work that reorganizing and moving pages.

As for othographic dialect changes this is not an objection: there is
already a tradition:simplified substitution that does a similar level
of translation. The process would be to have a "reverse bot" which
would find where users have made orthological dialect differences,
substitute them for the base dialect word, and then put them in machine
translation.

It's not conceptually difficult, whether it is what people want to do
is another, but it is certain "worth it" for readability and
consistency.


from_name: Gerard Meijssen

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Christmas day in the morning,
 the "Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!" project

body:
Hoi,
A merry Christmas from Almere in the Netherlands :).

On the Italian wiktionary we have a project to collect as many
translations and soundfiles as possible for the phrase "Buon Natale e
felice Anno Nuovo!" or "Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!". We have
already many translations but many are sadly missing. For this project I
have had people originally from Armenia and Iran at home to add their
contributions. I had twice a nice evening drinking tea :) and talking
about languages and culture. Christmas in Armenia for instance is on the
6th of Januari not on the 7th or the 25th of December :) this results in
the phrase needing to be turned around; Happy New Year and a Merry
Christmas.

The project aims to promote Commons, sound files, .ogg, wiktionary and
yes, we wish everyone a merry christmas in the spirit of friendship.

Today, we have had several peoplecontribute to the Italian project and
the Dutch sister page. I am happy to say that we now have the first
Bengalese in the Italian wiktionary as a result. There were also
corrections in the spelling and phrasing of Icelandic and Slavic
languages. Really, to me this is the Christmas spirit in action :) The
cool thing of the wikimedia projects is that this cooperation, this
working together is not restricted to the christmas perios and, that is
the good news. If we can extend this cooperation far and wide, who knows
what the world will be like in ten years of wikimedia..

So have a merry day and, I am thankfull for all the good things that we
do together.

Gerard
<http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Merry_Christmas_and_a_happy_New_Year%21>


list: wiktionary-l

subject:
[Wiktionary-l] Christmas day in the morning,
 the "Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!" project


from_name: Mark Williamson

subject:
[Wikipedia-l] Setting up a Wikipedia in _______ (what ever
	language)

body:
Well, if 10 people can write, but only 5 people write for the
Wikipedia, then there are 5 more potential contributors.

If you can already read a language, being able to write it is a little
easier to learn than if you have no literacy in it at all.

But basically, most of the minor languages people propose Wikipedias
in have at least a few monolingual speakers or people who speak that
language to a much better degree than the LWC ("language of wider
communication"). These people should not have their access to
information limited by the language they use, especially if there are
people ready and willing to build articles.

There are very few languages with 10 or 20 speakers that have been
that way for centuries or will be that way for centuries to come, and
they are limited usually to specific regions of the world, such as the
Amazon or the highlands of New Guinea, where such tiny populations can
maintain linguistic independence from the larger society because of
geographic obstacles.

Most languages with such small numbers of speakers are either going to
die very soon, and very likely they will die before anybody proposes a
Wikipedia in them, or they are going to undergo a revival and there
will be a larger population to use the Wikipedia than when it was
started (for example, some Copts in Egypt have recently been raising
their children speaking Coptic. so while in the past it may have been
a fun excercise, now it is a real access to knowledge for people who
have that as their first language. the same is true with Sanskrit).

If a language dies but it already has a Wikipedia, most likely there
would be other organisations willing to host it, and it wouldn't
require the same sort of maintenance.

I think that if there are people willing to build a Wikipedia, and
they want to, and there's not a technical solution to the problem (for
example, tc/sc can be converted to a satisfactory degree with some
work, but we cannot convert English to Assiniboine satisfactorily), we
should just let them. If other speakers of the language don't want
one, they don't have to work on it.

As for you mentioning earlier that it is extremely difficult for you
to read Peh-oe-ji, this is something you could easily fix if you
wanted to. There are websites to teach you how to read Peh-oe-ji
(zh-min-nan itself should probably have one...), and it's a clear and
fairly simple system.

If you have no motivation but rather are content to sit and despise
this Wikipedia from your padded armchair, then that is not a problem
to go complaining about. If you think there are problems with
zh-min-nan, you should bring that up with people involved in that
project.

Illiterracy is the issue here (you mentioned only 10 people being able
to write a language). Even scripts perceived as "difficult" can be
learnt by millions of people (many Westerners see Chinese characters
are difficult, but many millions of Chinese learn them and can read
them).

Illiteracy is an obstacle to having an audience for the Wikipedia,
yes, but it isn't our personal problem. If the board wants to team
with some literacy organization, that's fine, but especially in cases
like this where literacy is relatively easy to acquire (from what I
know, if you can already read the baihua and speak cantonese natively,
you might stumble at first with the colloquial written cantonese, but
after enough reading you can read it fluently), literacy should not be
our main issue.

How many people speak Cantonese? These people are all a possible audience.

For people who don't want to become literate, or can't because of a
disability, a text-to-speech technology can be used. If there is a TTS
technology to read out the Peh-oe-ji, I am sure you will be able to
readily and easily understand what it says. But the development of
this software is not our worry.

Even "mainstream language" (in sociolinguistics this is known as the
LWC or language of wider communication) Wikipedias are subject to such
problems as bias, outdated information, etc. The idea is that they
will get improved gradually as time goes on because there are
dedicated contributors.

Mark

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 16:37:49 +0800, Jiaqing Bao <jbao.itl91g at nctu.edu.tw> wrote:
> I believe there has to be some principles in minor language Wikipedias.
> Setting up an encyclopedia is not just about self expression, it has to
> serve public good. Moreover, proposals and actual performances have to
> stand some very basic prima facie scrutiny.
>
> If a language has 1000 speakers. Only 100 can read (most of them use
> another mainstream language). And only 10 of them can write (the writing
> system could be difficult, e.g. Egyptian hieroglyph). And only 5 of them
> sre active contributors. The five of them would become the de facto
> knowledge controllers.
>
> If each user of that language uses a mainstream language Wikipedia, it
> will be good. However, to those who consult that minor Wikipedia, he or
> she could be mislead by inaccurate information (e.g. bias, mistake,
> outdated materials ...). Because that minor Wikipedia is written most by
> a handful of people (possibly friends of similar backgrounds), it
> becomes much more unlikely that a mistake could be corrected.
>
> Even if that user knows there's a mistake, he or she may not be able to
> correct it. Many minor languages users are not fluent speakers. Some may
> not know how to type that particular script.
>
> And the limited active contributors also may have a very restricted
> knowledge base. The five of them may not know much about astronomy for
> example. They may translate. They could make mistakes. They could also
> selectively translate less important parts of an article because they
> may not know much about the mathematics, physics, chemistry, history ...
> about that subject. Unless they can ask others to join, their works may
> not be trusted.
>
> In case the user knows how to double check, it may not be a problem.
> However, if a user still has to consult a mainstream language source, it
> makes that minor Wikipedia less relevant. And if the user cannot read
> another language and failed to find another minor language source, the
> bug-ridden Wikipedia could do more harm than good. An encyclopedia has
> to serve a public good to justify its existence.
>
> It is a bad idea to setup encyclopedias in so many languages. I don't
> mind if anyone wants to start a Wiki in Pig Latin or Nadsat. You can
> easily auto translate English into these two artificial languages. But
> for many minor languages, it may be not feasible. The few articles could
> be untrustworthy. Wikipedia is not a language conservation project. The
> reason why people trust English Wikipedia is because of the number of
> contributors and fact checkers. We don't want this site to become the
> largest source of rumor.
>
> I think it will be good if they contribute to the Wiktionary.
>
> Besides the number of active regular contributors, they may need sources
> of reference materials and public domain sources. In English, you have
> the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, Project Gutenberg, CIA Fact Book and
> many other online materials. It is easy to build many pages without much
> efforts and mistakes in most major languages. They have so many printed
> reference materials. To many minor languages, they have very few books
> other than a language textbook, the Bible or an out-of-print dictionary.
> It is really not a very good idea that they start an encyclopedia
> project at this moment.
>
>
> Jiaqing Bao
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
What I think is this: if there are people who want to write it, and
people who want to read it, no matter the number on either side (as
long as it's more than 2 or 3 people total), it's rediculous to send
down an iron fence in front of them and say "Andrew Lih and Jiaqing
Bao do not believe you should be able to build a separate Wikipedia
for this language. Your request is denied."

Similar things to what you said can be said for many minority
languages, including for example Sicilian: Formal writing is usually
done in Italian, but that doesn't mean Sicilian doesn't exist. Basque
speakers often write in Spanish, and Luxembourgish speakers often
write in German or French, but that doesn't mean their languages don't
exist or that there will be no audience for these Wikipedias.

The problem of audience and readership is a problem for the individual
Wikipedias and not the Wikimedia organization, as long as there is the
"potential audience" of people who can understand the language when
spoken or written (again, there are technologies so illiterates can
take advantage of this technology).

You may see zh-min-nan as having "withered", but it's still growing.
It would probably help if it had some instructions for the
non-initiated on how to read peh-oe-ji, but nonetheless it is still
growing, even if it's very slowly.

If some people say "we want a separate Wikipedia for our mother
language" and another group says "we don't need a separate Wikipedia,
let's use the old one" but the first group says again "we still want
this separate Wikipedia, the current solution is not sufficient!", it
is inappropriate for the first group to be quashed by the second
simply because of a majority or minority.

We have some separate Wikipedias where we'd undoubtedly be able to get
by with a unified Wikipedia, but due to issues of nationalism, and
since it's never been done before, we haven't tried. But in the
opposite direction we have had a couple of similar issues. The
traditional vs simplified issue is thankfully now resolved (with the
exception of relatively minor outstanding issues), we have a separate
Wikipedia for Nynorsk, etc etc.

You talk about people adapting both ways. We aren't talking about
traditional vs simplified anymore.

For some time now, Mandarin has totally dominated other Sinitic
varieties and in some places there is the stereotype that a Mandarin
speaker expects everybody to speak Mandarin, and if they don't, they
must be daft (not that everybody fits this stereotype). Accommodations
for Cantonese, Minnan, Hakka, Wu, Minbei, Gan, etc. are rarely made,
and when they are it's usually in minor local issues, and nowadays it
seems it mostly happens in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan.

If I write a section of an article in colloquial Cantonese, and place
it on zh:, what will you do? I think there is a good chance you will
either remove it as "nonsense" or change it to baihua saying that you
are "fixing it" - if this weren't the case, zh: would be a very
muddled Wikipedia compared to what it is today.

As Stirling Newberry noted, there is a fairly recent phenomenon of
material emerging in "CWY" (colloquial cantonese). Similar signs have
been seen from other Sinitic languages (Haishanghua was published in
colloquial Wu an eternity ago, but other than that Wu hasn't exactly
had a blossoming separate literature; Hakka is starting to emerge as a
separate and acceptable variety in Taiwan), but right now I think that
by far the most pronounced "linguistic rebellion" (ie, assertion of
linguistic independence) is for Cantonese.

Also, a Cantonese Wikipedia would presumably use hanzi rather than
romanization, and thus would probably attract a larger crowd than
zh-min-nan does (as Bao noted earlier, the fact that it's written in
romanization is a turn-off for a lot of people).

> The Cantonese dialect does have unique colorful phrases and a
> different linguistic culture that manifests itself in Cantopop, film
> and cartoons. Some would seem foreign to "Mandarin" speakers. It would
> be great to have these Cantonese-isms captured in some way that could
> be done in a combined ZH Wikipedia.

There is an emerging Cantonese literature, as Stirling Newberry noted.

Mark


body:
Stirling, I have a minor question here,

With this "conversion", do you mean conversion of terms between
different dialects of Cantonese? Or do you mean conversion between
Cantonese and Mandarin? The former is certainly technically possible
and definitely a good idea (although a written standard based on the
speech of a large population center might be a simpler idea), but the
later is not going to work in the forseeable future because in
addition to terminology, there are also differences of grammar in
Cantonese and Mandarin, which in some cases includes word-order.

I think it's very important to make this distinction in this
discussion because it is potentially very confusing to the
uninitiated.

Mark

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 11:14:49 -0500, Stirling Newberry
<stirling.newberry at xigenics.net> wrote:
>
> On Dec 25, 2004, at 11:01 AM, John Lee wrote:
>
> > Stirling Newberry wrote:
> >
> >> It's a trade off between reader confusiong, from dialectical
> >> inconsistencies, and editor confusion. Of these two, the latter is
> >> easier to solve, because educating editors is within the reach of
> >> Wikimedia, where as changing readers is not. This syntax is no more
> >> difficult than the use of macros, image links and considerably less
> >> complex than tables.
> >>
> > The problem is that in English it will be greatly confusing and
> > irritatingly convoluted. Even simple words will have to be written
> > using the syntax (i.e. centre or center? Billion or millard? Flavour
> > or flavor?). Imagine editing an article with this sort of thing. I
> > don't think the trade-off is worth it, at least for different English
> > "dialects".
> >
>
> Less work than editting mathematical equations or tables by far. And
> less work that reorganizing and moving pages.
>
> As for othographic dialect changes this is not an objection: there is
> already a tradition:simplified substitution that does a similar level
> of translation. The process would be to have a "reverse bot" which
> would find where users have made orthological dialect differences,
> substitute them for the base dialect word, and then put them in machine
> translation.
>
> It's not conceptually difficult, whether it is what people want to do
> is another, but it is certain "worth it" for readability and
> consistency.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Perhaps there needs to be a separate intlwiki-l again?

body:
Hi all,

I remember earlier somebody brought up the issue of bringing back intlwiki-l.

Currently, language discussions seem to dominate here, and I think
that frankly there are some people here who don't want to get those
discussions in their inbox.

This is just an idea I'm floating to see how people feel, I have no
strong feelings either way.

Mark


from_name: John Lee

body:
Jesse the man wrote:

>There's a way around bots. - there are "authentication" devices which
>present a string of numbers from an image that one has to correctly
>type in if he or she wants to register.
>
That's called CAPTCHA, which Nicholas referred to:

>(If your next suggestion is "CAPTCHA", I have a two-word response:
>"blind people".)
>
>
We only recently had a poll on Abe's suggestion (albeit suggested by
someone else), and I think it's clear that the community doesn't want
such a system implemented.

Having spent five or six years interacting with people on the internet,
I've found that it's the troublemakers who will go to great lengths to
irritate people while the more useful people don't have the time to
register.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


from_name: Ray Saintonge

body:
Jiaqing Bao wrote:

> I believe there has to be some principles in minor language
> Wikipedias. Setting up an encyclopedia is not just about self
> expression, it has to serve public good. Moreover, proposals and
> actual performances have to stand some very basic prima facie scrutiny.
>
> If a language has 1000 speakers. Only 100 can read (most of them use
> another mainstream language). And only 10 of them can write (the
> writing system could be difficult, e.g. Egyptian hieroglyph). And only
> 5 of them sre active contributors. The five of them would become the
> de facto knowledge controllers.

In that case having a wikipedia in that living language becomes more
important.  Egyptian relates to a dead language which is probably not in
trouble.  The writing systems are not an issue.  Many of these languages
were pre-literate, and the writing that they adopted was based on that
of a more dominant language, or was imposed on them by visiting priests
and anthropologists.

> If each user of that language uses a mainstream language Wikipedia, it
> will be good. However, to those who consult that minor Wikipedia, he
> or she could be mislead by inaccurate information (e.g. bias, mistake,
> outdated materials ...). Because that minor Wikipedia is written most
> by a handful of people (possibly friends of similar backgrounds), it
> becomes much more unlikely that a mistake could be corrected.

An isolated language like Kutenai with only 222 speakers world-wide
would likely benefit from having a Wikipedia.  We need to avoid the urge
to become cultural imperialists.

> Even if that user knows there's a mistake, he or she may not be able
> to correct it. Many minor languages users are not fluent speakers.
> Some may not know how to type that particular script.
>
> And the limited active contributors also may have a very restricted
> knowledge base. The five of them may not know much about astronomy for
> example. They may translate. They could make mistakes. They could also
> selectively translate less important parts of an article because they
> may not know much about the mathematics, physics, chemistry, history
> ... about that subject. Unless they can ask others to join, their
> works may not be trusted.

Minor language Wikipedias should not feel the need to do everything.
Developing articles that are of cultural importance to the speakers
would be the most important task.  An important part of First Nations'
claims to aboriginal rights have been based on the unwritten record of
their history that has been passed on by word of mouth.

> In case the user knows how to double check, it may not be a problem.
> However, if a user still has to consult a mainstream language source,
> it makes that minor Wikipedia less relevant. And if the user cannot
> read another language and failed to find another minor language
> source, the bug-ridden Wikipedia could do more harm than good. An
> encyclopedia has to serve a public good to justify its existence.

Verification is much less important in cases where cultural preservation
is at issue.  There will be inaccurate information provided, but it is
up to the members of that culture to p[olice themselves.

> It is a bad idea to setup encyclopedias in so many languages. I don't
> mind if anyone wants to start a Wiki in Pig Latin or Nadsat. You can
> easily auto translate English into these two artificial languages. But
> for many minor languages, it may be not feasible. The few articles
> could be untrustworthy. Wikipedia is not a language conservation
> project. The reason why people trust English Wikipedia is because of
> the number of contributors and fact checkers. We don't want this site
> to become the largest source of rumor.

I'm not familiar with Nadsat, but I would oppose a Pig Latin Wiki.
Artificial or constructed languages are a different issue than minor
languages.

> Besides the number of active regular contributors, they may need
> sources of reference materials and public domain sources. In English,
> you have the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, Project Gutenberg, CIA Fact
> Book and many other online materials. It is easy to build many pages
> without much efforts and mistakes in most major languages. They have
> so many printed reference materials. To many minor languages, they
> have very few books other than a language textbook, the Bible or an
> out-of-print dictionary. It is really not a very good idea that they
> start an encyclopedia project at this moment.

Quite the contrary.  These scanty resouces need to be treasured and
preserved.  I am a non-believer but I think that the Bible translators
did a tremendous service for many of these languages, even if it was for
the wrong reasons.

All that being said, a wiki in any of these minor languages still needs
someone who understands the language to start it, manage it and do the
work.

Ec


subject: [Wikipedia-l] Setting up a Wikipedia in _______ (what ever language)

body:
I believe there has to be some principles in minor language Wikipedias.
Setting up an encyclopedia is not just about self expression, it has to
serve public good. Moreover, proposals and actual performances have to
stand some very basic prima facie scrutiny.

If a language has 1000 speakers. Only 100 can read (most of them use
another mainstream language). And only 10 of them can write (the writing
system could be difficult, e.g. Egyptian hieroglyph). And only 5 of them
sre active contributors. The five of them would become the de facto
knowledge controllers.

If each user of that language uses a mainstream language Wikipedia, it
will be good. However, to those who consult that minor Wikipedia, he or
she could be mislead by inaccurate information (e.g. bias, mistake,
outdated materials ...). Because that minor Wikipedia is written most by
a handful of people (possibly friends of similar backgrounds), it
becomes much more unlikely that a mistake could be corrected.

Even if that user knows there's a mistake, he or she may not be able to
correct it. Many minor languages users are not fluent speakers. Some may
not know how to type that particular script.

And the limited active contributors also may have a very restricted
knowledge base. The five of them may not know much about astronomy for
example. They may translate. They could make mistakes. They could also
selectively translate less important parts of an article because they
may not know much about the mathematics, physics, chemistry, history ...
about that subject. Unless they can ask others to join, their works may
not be trusted.

In case the user knows how to double check, it may not be a problem.
However, if a user still has to consult a mainstream language source, it
makes that minor Wikipedia less relevant. And if the user cannot read
another language and failed to find another minor language source, the
bug-ridden Wikipedia could do more harm than good. An encyclopedia has
to serve a public good to justify its existence.

It is a bad idea to setup encyclopedias in so many languages. I don't
mind if anyone wants to start a Wiki in Pig Latin or Nadsat. You can
easily auto translate English into these two artificial languages. But
for many minor languages, it may be not feasible. The few articles could
be untrustworthy. Wikipedia is not a language conservation project. The
reason why people trust English Wikipedia is because of the number of
contributors and fact checkers. We don't want this site to become the
largest source of rumor.

I think it will be good if they contribute to the Wiktionary.

Besides the number of active regular contributors, they may need sources
of reference materials and public domain sources. In English, you have
the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, Project Gutenberg, CIA Fact Book and
many other online materials. It is easy to build many pages without much
efforts and mistakes in most major languages. They have so many printed
reference materials. To many minor languages, they have very few books
other than a language textbook, the Bible or an out-of-print dictionary.
It is really not a very good idea that they start an encyclopedia
project at this moment.

Jiaqing Bao


subject: [WikiEN-l] Edit warring on [[Autobiography (album)]]

body:
For the past months, [[Autobiography (album)]] has been the subject of
heated debate. I doubt whether any policies and guidelines have been
broken, but what is clear is that Everyking refuses to allow others to
edit the article, arguing they are removing "essential information".
Here is a quote from the talk showing the information he considers
essential:

---Begin quote---

Which seems more informative? Compare another of Zen's paragraphs:

    "In Canada <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada>, the album debuted
    at number 37 on the Jam Music charts in late July [3]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_072904_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_072904_ALBUMS.html/), and
    peaked at 11."

With mine:

    "In Canada <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada>, the album debuted
    at number 37 in late July [4]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_072904_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_072904_ALBUMS.html/),
    rising to number 36 in its second week [5]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_080504_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_080504_ALBUMS.html/) and
    then to number 30 in its third week. [6]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_081204_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_081204_ALBUMS.html/) In
    its fourth week, it rose greatly, to number 11 (its peak), [7]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_081904_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_081904_ALBUMS.html/) but
    fell to number 14 in its fifth week, [8]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_082604_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_082604_ALBUMS.html/) where
    it remained in its sixth week. [9]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_090204_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_090204_ALBUMS.html/) In
    its seventh week, it fell slightly to number 15, [10]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_090904_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_090904_ALBUMS.html/) and
    then slightly more in the next two weeks: first to number 16 (week
    eight) [11]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_091604_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_091604_ALBUMS.html/), and
    then to number 17 (week nine). [12]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_092304_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_092304_ALBUMS.html/) It
    remained at number 17 in its tenth week, [13]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_093004_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_093004_ALBUMS.html/)
    before falling to number 24 in its 11th week [14]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_100704_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_100704_ALBUMS.html/) and
    then to number 29 in its 12th week. [15]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_101404_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_101404_ALBUMS.html/) It
    rose again in its 13th week, however, to number 23, [16]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_102104_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_102104_ALBUMS.html/) and
    rose further still in its 14th week, to number 20. [17]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_102804_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_102804_ALBUMS.html/) It
    then fell to number 30 in its 15th week [18]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_110404_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_110404_ALBUMS.html/), to
    number 33 in its 16th week [19]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_111104_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_111104_ALBUMS.html/), to
    number 41 in its 17th week, [20]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_111804_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_111804_ALBUMS.html/) and
    to number 46 in its 18th week. [21]
    <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_112504_ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/prev_112504_ALBUMS.html/) In
    week 19 it fell slightly more to number 47, before rising to number
    38 in week 20. [22] <http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/ALBUMS.html>
    (/http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/ALBUMS.html/)"

---End quote---

[[User:Calton]] has also compiled some statistics on the scale and
breadth of this dispute, albeit before it reheated itself again after
Everyking placed the article on FAC:

---Begin quote---

Some statistics:

As of 03:08, 13 Dec 2004, there have been *554 edits* (counting the
original creation of the article), inflating the article to 38K in size.
The article was created on 26 Jul 2004, 140 days ago, giving an average
of just under 4 edits per day, though that was not spread out evenly:

    * July: 3
    * August: 16
    * September: 13
    * October: 40
    * November: 356
    * December: 125

Of the 554 edits, *496 (or 89.5%) have been by Everyking
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Everyking>*.

Thirty-two users performed the remaining 58 edits -- although since two
of each were the leveling and then lifting of protection, I'll discount
those, making 30 users performing 56 edits. Reene had the highest single
number at 13 edits.

Of those 56 other edits, *29 were reverted by Everyking* (25 completely
and 4 partially) -- over half of non-Everyking edits. This includes the
removal of at least 4 tags (peerreview and clean-up), and involved at
least *four violations of the 3-revert rule* (including an astonishing 8
reversions in 2 hours on 26 November).

---End quote---

Two of my rewrites have been reverted by Everyking, who has refused to
stand down on the importance of useless chart information. I am at my
wits' end as to how to resolve this; I cannot think of any policies
violated, and I believe Everyking is editing in good faith, but it's
clear this article is stagnating, as Everyking refuses to allow anyone
to edit the article unless they agree to avoid removing his precious
promotional and charting information.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])


body:
I agree that this is a good idea, and in certain cases it could be
done automatically for all occurances of a word (that's how it works
on zh.wikipedia right now; you can do exclusions though if you want).

However, conversion into Cantonese from BH ("Baihua", the current
written standard used for Chinese based on the Mandarin speech of the
Beijing area) has a few more difficulties than just that.

For example:

K'?i4 pei3 sa:m1-pun3 s?1 ngo4. = Ta1 gei3 wo3 san1ben3 shu1. ("He
gave me three books.")

The Cantonese is "he give three-COUNTER book me". The Mandarin is "he
give me three-COUNTER book." A basic difference in word order.

Ngo4 h?i5 ka:i1 ma:i4 ye4 sin1. -> Wo3 xian1 shang4 jie1 mai3 dong1xi.
("I'm going to the market to buy some things beforehand.")

The Cantonese is "I go market buy things before". The Mandarin is "I
before go market buy things." (again, the different word order)

K'?i4 kou1-kwo5 ngo4. -> Ta1 bi3 wo3 gao1. ("He's taller than am I.")

The Cantonese is "he tall pass me". The Mandarin is "he compare me tall".

Kiu5 k'?i4 loi2. -> Ba3 ta1 jiao4 lai2. ("Ask him to come.")

The Cantonese is "call him come". The Mandarin is "take him call come".

Ngo4 h?i5 Pak7king1. -> Wo3 shang4 Bei3jing1 qu4. ("I'm going to Beijing.")

The Cantonese is "I go Beijing". The Mandarin is "I up Beijing go."

M2 t'ai3-tak7-kin5 -> kan4-bu2-jian4 ("Can't see!")

The Cantonese is "not look can see". The Mandarin is "look not see".

Nei4 sik8 fa:n6 m2 sik8? -> Ni3 chi1 bu4 chi1 fan4? ("Do you eat rice?")

The Cantonese is "you eat rice not eat". The Mandarin is "you eat not eat rice".

----

As you can see these fundamental differences in the very base of the
language make it impossible with present technology to automatically
translate accurately between Cantonese and Mandarin.

Mark

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 18:12:44 -0500, Stirling Newberry
<stirling.newberry at xigenics.net> wrote:
>
> On Dec 25, 2004, at 5:57 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> > Stirling, I have a minor question here,
> >
> > With this "conversion", do you mean conversion of terms between
> > different dialects of Cantonese?
>
> I believe that wikimedia should make this capability available, and
> then let the communities decide how it is to be used within their own
> context. It would allow editors in Cantonese to decide to edit in the
> standard written Chinese wikipedia, but include Cantonese as an
> enrichment, it would also allow dialectical differences within a
> Cantonese wikipedia should one be established. It doesn't mandate
> either solution.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia-l mailing list
> Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
>


body:
The problem is is that language isn't 100% predictable.

If it were, people would've used your solution before to translate
even between languages that aren't related, for example English and
Guarani.

The thing here is that when written in Chinese characters, wo3 and
ngo4 use the same character. The issue isn't meant to be the different
sounds, it's the different grammars.

A potential problem with manual tagging is that Mandarin monolinguals
would not know where to put these in their articles, and to have a
squad of people go around and tag all their text for them is
rediculous. Also, articles would look rediculous when edited because
there is the same issue for other Sinitic languages (although at the
moment, it's my opinion they don't really need separate Wikipedias
except perhaps Hakka and probably Dungan), and there would be spare
tags hanging out all over the place.

When there is a simple difference of terminology and perhaps spelling
(ie International vs American English), your idea is very practical,
but when there are huge syntactical differences as there are between
Mandarin and Cantonese, it's not practical at all unfortunately.

Mark

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 18:56:29 -0500, Stirling Newberry
<stirling.newberry at xigenics.net> wrote:
>
> On Dec 25, 2004, at 6:47 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
>
> > I agree that this is a good idea, and in certain cases it could be
> > done automatically for all occurances of a word (that's how it works
> > on zh.wikipedia right now; you can do exclusions though if you want).
> >
> > For example:
> >
> > K'?i4 pei3 sa:m1-pun3 s?1 ngo4. = Ta1 gei3 wo3 san1ben3 shu1. ("He
> > gave me three books.")
> >
>
> Which could be handled by bracketing: Ta1 gei3 [[dialect: wo3 | gd: ]]
> san1ben3 shu1 [[dialect: | gd: ngo4]].
>
> Which would probably be macro'd since it is common. {{wo3}} and
> {{ngo4}} would do it as a pair.
>
>


from_name: Sabine Cretella

subject: [Wikipedia-l] Merry Christmas - Buon Natale!!!!

body:
First of all: thank you for all your help and contributions. As Gerard already said: the Christmas project on the Italian wiktionary had quite a lot of response - and even today I am receiving some contributions by members from other mailing lists who whould like to contribute but are worrying to mix up things if they insert contents themselves. So today is quite busy between family and adding Christmas wishes as they arrive.

Just to pass you again the list of relevant links:

Everything started with this sentence:
http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Buon_Natale_e_felice_Anno_Nuovo%21
As for the Christmas wishes: we still would like to be sure about the spelling, need writings in proper alphabets (as for example for Arabic),  and of course we need the recordings !!!!! If you don't want to upload them or if you have problems in creating .ogg-files - just send them to me and I'll convert and upload them (this would really be a great Christmas present!)

Than out of this a Terminology-category was created:
http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Categoria:Terminologia_natalizia

And the next step (just started) is linking all projects
http://it.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wikizionario:Buon_Natale
I am inserting all links I find and know here - there are quite many others around - maybe you could help with links to wikisource in your language, wikipedia, wikiquote etc.

Please don't forget about the photos you take - they might be somewhat normal for you, but very interesting to many people - just to see how Christmas is alike in many countries - upload them to commons and please, let me know about this - I'll create a special "Christmas around the World" ... really this would be a theme for a complete wiki ... the Christmasedia ;-)

Christmas is a wonderful period - may it be that it is considered from a religious point of view, may it be seen as a "feast of friendship" or may it be seen as an occasion full of wonderful traditions ... have a great Christmas period and see you soon on it.wiktionary!

Again: Buon Natale e felice Anno Nuovo!!!!!

Sabine

--
Sabine Cretella
s.cretella at wordsandmore.it
Phone: +39-340-1809828
Skype: callto://sabinecretella

Meetingplace for translators
www.wesolveitnet.com


subject: [Wiktionary-l] Merry Christmas - Buon Natale!!!!