Re: Re: Those domains are also still free

Big thank you for engaing in a discusion.

> > it must be stressed that this will only entangle people and
> >confuse some to feel left out.
> >The argument that .be is there why not me is enough as it is.
> >
> You seem to be confusing the fact that country domain codes and language 
> codes are different.

Another reason why we must stick to the system that is consistent and
while adopting the hugely incosistent domain name system we must
consider the threat to freedoms relating to information more than
anything.
The best reference should be how governments and organisations that 
live off them have in the past gone on to make a mess of language
related matters at global forums. Wikipedia is and should be global.
Dependence on domain names simply give 'hooks' for  these type of
destructive influence on information.

In the case of Tamil I have specific examples to share with you over
possible issues that would be provided such 'hooks'. 

> Thus as a domain code "be" represents Belgium, but as a language code 
> represents Belorussian.

> Also Canada's domain is "ca", but as a language it represents Catalan.

Thanks. I did not think of these. Together with "uk" for ukranian these
are  more reasons for highlighting  the misleading incosistencies. 

wikipedia.be seems to be linking to three major European countries which
have huge (european) organisational strucutres streamlining any issue at
country level.
Canada too has seemingly very 'civilised' mechanism over the English,
French issues. 

But,
> For Tamil it is important to remember that it is a language of two 
> countries.
Yes. 
One of them currently torn apart by a nastiest of wars fueled largely by
*languages*. But in this island Tamil is taught/used upto university
levels and even in some subjects through university. So there are
excellent well defined resources already available for translating the 
LanguageTa.php file for example.
But by far the majority heartland, Tamil Nadu (a state of India) is
where the population lies and by far a place worthy of notice because
due to the immense amount of original information that would be fed into
wikipedia. It is worth noting that there are huge repositories of
electronic information already  assembled by very capable individuals
and organisations. There is much much more I would like to discuss about
free information related to the vigour within my community but let me
close off for now :) and restate my point on domain names.

Tamil has a wide international span and is even the official language of
coutries like Singapore. There might be others I am not sure of. I
appreciate the vigour found in these sub-domains too.

Eric Kow's original suggestion about a portal for Malaysian languages
including Tamil is from where I picked up the worrying possibility that
Tamil *wikipedia* could be *misunderstood* as *another* foreign 
internet thing. It is my biggest concern.

As you should agree the success of wiki is the direct participation of
the very people with the information. With the rough background
specified above please note that there are so many other internet
ventures to capture knowledge and information. 
The high principles of 'free information' could easily go unnoticed if
it gets entangled in the shallow issue of domain names.
Lets not confuse the people. Especially the ones who should come and see
the core.

Best wishes,
Ramanan