[Wikipedia-l] anglicization is stupid

Wed Nov 20 19:17:07 UTC 2002

Magnus Manske wrote:

> Bridget [name omitted for privacy reasons] wrote:
>
>> we should refer to spacecraft from the USSR according to their 
>> Russian name-not according to the English name.
>
> But the English wikipedia has agreed on using English names. For the 
> title of the article, that is. The "native" name can be prominently 
> mentioned in the opening paragraph. 

I've only been on Wikipedia since February, but these "rules" were in 
place before I got here.  Nevertheless I share the concerns which Oliver 
and Bridget have raised, but I've not had the energy for a lonely fight 
against the forces of anglocentrism.  I'll save my comments about this 
particular rule for another posting; this one is about the rule making 
procedures, with that rule being only one example.

People become comfortable with their rules, even wrong rules.  The fact 
is that it is likely that a majority of today's Wikipedians were not 
around when these rules were established.  If today's Wikipedian 
perceives that he can have no influence on rules that were established 
before he came on board, he will soon develop the impression that there 
is a class structure based on seniority.

One highly respected Wikipedian replied to my suggestion of giving 
letter codes to each article with a comment to the effect that with 
nearly 100,000 articles in our encyclopedia it was too big to effect 
those changes.  A similar argument can be made about "correct" names; we 
have so many articles that changing a rule is impossible.  It doesn't 
matter if the old rule was seriously flawed, or the new rule would 
provide a useful tool for coping with an ever larger corpus of knowledge.

A broadly applicable new or revised rule must deal with transitional 
compatibility problems.  That is easy to understand.  Colour television 
was an obvious technical improvement over the old black-and-white 
system, but its introduction had to take into account the fact that 
there were a lot of black-and-white TVs out there, and that people could 
not be expected to throw out their old sets just because they had 
suddenly become obsolete.

My conclusion:  most of our "rules" should be subject to periodic 
review.  If an old rule, including a well established rule, can be 
improved or no longer seves its original purpose, or fails to cope with 
newer needs it should be changed.  Of course, in making changes, 
compatibility issues must be considered.

Eclecticology