3 ms·

Bear with me -- I often wonder whether, for subjects which transcend cultural differences, Wikipedia should only allow non-English pages where English-native pa

Bear with me -- I often wonder whether, for subjects which transcend cultural differences, Wikipedia should only allow non-English pages where English-native pages do not exist. My reason is that I suspect that the English-native versions of pages will tend to be the highest quality due to editor volume/attention, etc, and I do not want non-English speaking communities to be disadvantaged by lower quality Wikipedia content. So, the suggestion would be intense focus on automatic translation of English pages, rather than creation of parallel pages in n languages.

_nalply 7y ago
I am afraid there's a deal breaker to this interesting idea. Some languages are in some areas a lot more expressive than English. (Beware of the Blub paradoxon where in programming languages someone doesn't understand concepts not present in the programming language he uses: for natural languages this means that speaker of one language might have some difficulty to grasp the expressiveness of another language.) This means if there is a language which could describe something more easily than English then you shouldn't deny the possibility of a non-English page.
- Myrmornis 7y ago
  Sure. Fairly rare though? I think English will be as adequate as any natural language to describe most core phenomena of our physical universe and human culture.
  - _nalply 7y ago
    Signed Languages of the Deaf are more expressive describing form, motion and dynamics in the 3D-space and also subtle differences in emotion than English and German. Bernese German also seems to be more expressive expressing emotions related to the body, working and being at ease compared to High German. These are the examples I have encountered myself so I don't believe this to be really rare. There's a thing where English really excels. It has a gigantic lexicon with many words differing in subtle aspects, so you can be very precise. This also makes it easy to create puns.
gattilorenz 7y ago
Wait, how's this helpful? People who use localized Wikipedia are, in my experience, either a) looking for something not present in en.wiki or b) not proficient in English. I don't see how it would help, if this is the case. Plus, also in the English Wikipedia, is not that pages are born complete. It's a refinement process. If you remove the stubs, wouldn't it become a self-fulfilling prophecy?
- Myrmornis 7y ago
  > a) looking for something not present in en.wiki That's what I was getting at with "for subjects which transcend cultural differences". It's hard to name something which transcends cultural differences and doesn't have an English-language wikipedia page. > b) not proficient in English. Yes, my suggestion was that Wikipedia should focus on excellent translations of content that is originally generated in English. Perhaps the software would highlight passages needing translation help from the non-English-language editors would who today be working on parallel/redundant pages in non-English languages. ("the suggestion would be intense focus on automatic translation of English pages, rather than creation of parallel pages in n languages.")

_nalply 7y ago

I am afraid there's a deal breaker to this interesting idea. Some languages are in some areas a lot more expressive than English. (Beware of the Blub paradoxon where in programming languages someone doesn't understand concepts not present in the programming language he uses: for natural languages this means that speaker of one language might have some difficulty to grasp the expressiveness of another language.) This means if there is a language which could describe something more easily than English then you shouldn't deny the possibility of a non-English page.

Myrmornis 7y ago
Sure. Fairly rare though? I think English will be as adequate as any natural language to describe most core phenomena of our physical universe and human culture.
- _nalply 7y ago
  Signed Languages of the Deaf are more expressive describing form, motion and dynamics in the 3D-space and also subtle differences in emotion than English and German. Bernese German also seems to be more expressive expressing emotions related to the body, working and being at ease compared to High German. These are the examples I have encountered myself so I don't believe this to be really rare. There's a thing where English really excels. It has a gigantic lexicon with many words differing in subtle aspects, so you can be very precise. This also makes it easy to create puns.

gattilorenz 7y ago

Wait, how's this helpful? People who use localized Wikipedia are, in my experience, either a) looking for something not present in en.wiki or b) not proficient in English. I don't see how it would help, if this is the case. Plus, also in the English Wikipedia, is not that pages are born complete. It's a refinement process. If you remove the stubs, wouldn't it become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

Myrmornis 7y ago
> a) looking for something not present in en.wiki That's what I was getting at with "for subjects which transcend cultural differences". It's hard to name something which transcends cultural differences and doesn't have an English-language wikipedia page. > b) not proficient in English. Yes, my suggestion was that Wikipedia should focus on excellent translations of content that is originally generated in English. Perhaps the software would highlight passages needing translation help from the non-English-language editors would who today be working on parallel/redundant pages in non-English languages. ("the suggestion would be intense focus on automatic translation of English pages, rather than creation of parallel pages in n languages.")