2008/12/3 Yaroslav M. Blanter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: >> Only after a while did it become apparent that he was talking of >> the English Wikipedia. Some surprised librarian asked "are you >> now talking of the English Wikipedia?" His answer was something >> like "yes, the Swedish is almost completely useless" (for advanced >> astronomy). In the undergraduate astronomy classes he was >> teaching, all literature is in English. This seemed like an >> unknown planet to the Swedish librarians. And I guess that their >> surprise came as an equal surprise to the astronomer.
> After eight years of teaching physics at a Dutch university and active > participation in scientific activities all over the country, I am still to > see a scientific talk given in Dutch. en:wp is very much an international Wikipedia, not just for English native speakers at all. This leads to some difficulties (apparently infinite supplies of nationalist POV-pushers in some conflicts, for example), but is almost certainly good for NPOV. This is no reason to neglect the other Wikipedias - English just happens to be the current lingua franca and may not be in 100 years. - d. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l