In daily editing on Campaigns Wikia I've repreatedly felt as though I was limited by the fact that we weren't simply a "new kind of content" within wikipedia. I see the values of wikis growing as more and more people with diverse interests and knowledge fill in their own pieces of the breadth of everything worth writing about... and breaking into specific wikis prevents that.
<br><br>100 wikis with 5 users each is, to my mind, 100 small wikis of very little value. Get the same 500 people editing content within a common "name space" and something much more interesting and valuable occurs.
<br><br>It's for reasons like this that I'd prefer to have the "sub wikis" subsume as much content as possible. Better to have everyone on the planet who can read and write Traditional (or Simplified) Chinese using the "Traditional Chinese Political Wiki" (or the Simplified one). Breaking things out country by country, region by region, or city by city when the countries, regions, or cities have a common written language will likely lead to a large number of ultimately less valuable wikis.
<br><br>Personally, I don't know if readers and writers of Traditional or Simplified written Chinese can read and write in each other's systems. I've heard that Traditional trained people can generally get the gist of Simplified, but that the reverse isn't always true. And I knew a woman from Singapore that once explained to me some of the unusual innovations Singaporeans made with their nominally Traditional writing system...
<br><br>What I'm trying to say is that, in principle, I much prefer the idea of a few big wikis rather than many small wikis and deviations from this principle seem to me as though they should be motivated by issues of intelligibility, rather than by issues of "political affiliation with some geographic place".
<br><br>-Jennifer<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 8/2/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">YYK H</b> <<a href="mailto:y2keynes@gmail.com">y2keynes@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
I am hoping the HK site will be in both Chinese and English since<br>these are the official/legal language of the city and people there<br>have diverse background (not necessary Chinese), however, I am not<br>certain about the logistic of it yet (both language on one page or
<br>have the switching mechanism mentioned before).<br><br>This localization is not so much a "breaking off" but more of a<br>sub-category to help discussion and representation of issues. It is<br>my understanding that the global guiding principle of Campaigns Wikia
<br>is having intelligent and thoughtful discussion of political issues<br>(beyond election) but not necessary a global one-size fits all<br>consensuses of values (which is what I worry about if all local<br>politics are mix into one main site.) Just to be clear, I am not
<br>trying to "fend off" foreign contribution to local issues. In fact,<br>on issues such as political reform in HK that is suppose to bring more<br>democracy... experiences from citizens of democratic society would be
<br>very beneficial. However, when these experiences are presented, they<br>must be presented in a way that understand or at least respect the<br>differences in culture and context and I believe a clearly distinctive<br>
localization would help in that respect.<br><br>I think it's great that you have interest in politics in so many<br>places and I think this will actually help you find local information<br>much easier. However, in order to engage the people at a personal
<br>level, I do believe that most politics should have local distinction<br>because what's best for everyone in one place may not be practical in<br>another. For instance, political reform in Iran are more on religion<br>
vs secularism, which is a different type of reform than that in HK.<br>Similarly, there's also talk of political reform (Senate reform) in<br>Canada to make the system more responsive to the people and that is<br>also entirely different form the two mentioned before. While I am
<br>interested in politics in many places as well, I don't think many<br>people have the necessary time/energy to do so. And I think it's up<br>to people like us to connect and raise the local discussion to a<br>higher (regional, international, global) level when it is necessary.
<br>An general English page on the topic of "political reform" won't help<br>the local to make better policy decisions.<br><br>Kenny<br><br>On 8/2/06, Chad Lupkes <<a href="mailto:chadlupkes@gmail.com">chadlupkes@gmail.com
</a>> wrote:<br>><br>> The details of the Chinese language diversity I didn't know, so this is good<br>> information.<br>><br>> Would the Hong Kong site be in a different language than Chinese, or are you
<br>> asking for a regional specific version? My understanding is that we're<br>> trying not to create regional sites, only language based. Hong Kong<br>> elections are welcome in English on the main site, and if we need a Chinese
<br>> language Campaigns site then let's get one started. But I'd rather not see<br>> regions break off from the main site. This needs to be a global movement,<br>> and I'm almost as interested in Hong Kong elections as I am in Seattle
<br>> races, which is where I live. We're all in this together.<br>><br>><br>> Chad<br>><br>><br>><br>> On 8/2/06, YYK H <<a href="mailto:y2keynes@gmail.com">y2keynes@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> > I believe wikipedia default the Chinese version to which ever one was<br>> > used on first edit and then give option to convert to all simplified<br>> > or all traditional. At the beginning I thought they are all default
<br>> > to simplified (just because there are a lot of simplified pages and<br>> > Chinese wikipedia main page is defaulted to simplified chinese) but I<br>> > did find a few articles that are default to traditional.
<br>> ><br>> > I think those tabs are useful if a localized campaigns have multiple<br>> > official languages, however, those tabs may get pretty messy if the<br>> > page are on concepts that are more "global"... say if the mission
<br>> > statement is translated into 50 languages then you may have problem<br>> > with too many tabs.<br>> ><br>> > Who can add tabs there anyway? admin? which reminds me... I have<br>> > requested a new wikia for the the Hong Kong-localized version
<br>> > (<a href="http://hk.campaigns.wikia.com">hk.campaigns.wikia.com</a>) of Campaigns Wikia a week ago. How long does<br>> > this process take usually? Is the request queue getting really long<br>> > because of Wikimania?
<br>> ><br>> > Kenny<br>> ><br>> > On 8/2/06, Angela <<a href="mailto:beesley@gmail.com">beesley@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>> > > > It's a Chinese wikia for left wing information, but what caught my
<br>> attention<br>> > > > was the navigation links along the top.<br>> > > ><br>> > > > zh<br>> > > > cn<br>> > > > tw<br>> > > > sg<br>> > > > hk
<br>> > ><br>> > > These are automatic links that perform an automated translation into<br>> > > different versions of Chinese. All simplified Chinese wikis have these<br>> > > options by default.
<br>> > ><br>> > > Angela.<br>> > > _______________________________________________<br>> > > Campaigns-l mailing list<br>> > > <a href="mailto:Campaigns-l@wikia.com">Campaigns-l@wikia.com
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