[Foundation-l] 300 Euro for excellent Articles: an experiment

Thu Aug 18 15:03:25 UTC 2005

daniwo59 at aol.com wrote:

> 
>Your comments below have nothing to do with what you said earlier. I  
>appreciate the value of translation, and actually worked as a professional  
>translator for twenty years. This is not about translation. You suggested  companies 
>pay the Foundation or (individuals) to translate articles about them.  Once 
>money changes hands over content, the question becomes whether the  Foundation or 
>the translator has a responsibility to ensure that the content is  
>satisfactory to that client. The exchange of money can be viewed as a  contractual 
>agreement of sorts. Assuming we do that, it is the corporation that  determines the 
>content of the article, not the community. It is clear that this  is a 
>violation of NPOV.
> 
>In general, I am also opposed to people paying for articles. I think that  
>this will be the first step toward a breakdown of a volunteer community. Imagine 
> this scenario. If Danny is getting paid to translate or write articles, 
>maybe I  should too. Maybe I wont even write an article until I get paid for it. 
> 
>In just four and a half years, we have been highly successful because we  are 
>a volunteer organization devoted to creating free content--not a  
>translator's bulletin board. What you and Gerard are proposing will harm the  volunteer 
>spirit of the project by creating unnecessary hierarchies within it of  paid 
>writers and volunteers. This is completely against everything we have  succeeded 
>in doing so far. 
> 
>Danny
>  
>
Hoi,
Your response proves that we do not talk about the same thing. Sabine 
does not suggest that the WMF should pay for content. What she already 
does is offer payment for particular articles that she is interested in. 
Articles where it is important for her to have translations in languages 
like Russian or Japanese or ... What she proposes is that outside of the 
WMF she offers a service where this is organised; people or 
organisations offer money or services for the translations of specific 
articles.

If you are interested in translating an article for money than you can 
but it will be only for the articles that a premium is offered for. In 
this proposal there is no involvement of the WMF, it is something that 
helps Sabine in her activities and it helps Free content as well. The 
quality of the articles have to be good in order for it to make sense to 
pay for but as far as anyone else is concerned this is something between 
the person who wants a translation and a person who is able to provide a 
translation.

Your assertion that this is about the WMF paying for content is wrong. 
However, your assertion that we are doing a great job for all people on 
this planet is very debatable. We have little or no content for many 
languages and I would think it a fallacy to reject paying for content in 
languages like Bambara or Ossetian out of hand just because we can get 
content in languages like English, Dutch or Plattdüütsch. The defenition 
of Wikipedia is: *"Wikipedia* is a project to build free encyclopedias 
in all languages of the world based on a neutral point of view." On 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia it does not say that we will 
always be a volunteer organisation. If anything, we are slowly getting 
more professionals in to make sure that what we do will grow and 
prosper. The discussion on paying for content has been going on for 
quite some time. Many people are really happy that there is some 
movement in getting content in languages like Bambara or Ossetian. In my 
opinion, it makes more sense to spend money on Bambara than on 
Plattdüütsch. Research on languages like Bambara are comparatively so 
underfunded.

It is great to see what we have achieved but there is so much more that 
we need to achieve to make our goals happen. It will take time effort 
and also money before we can truly say that we provide Free information 
to all the people of this world.

Thanks,
    GerardM