[Foundation-l] Preservation of cultural diversity and minority languages

Fri Feb 8 22:40:49 UTC 2008

On Feb 8, 2008 11:49 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod at mccme.ru> wrote:
> I would like to ask the community: Are
> the preservation of cultural diversity and minority languages (secondary)
> Wikimedia goals?

The WMF really shouldn't get into this kind of thing because it's too
much. As Pathoschild mentioned, the WMF cannot pursue every noble
goal. However, if people are truly interested in preservation of
language, a separate foundation could be set up for that purpose.
Something like "Wiki Language Preservation Society". Likely, a deal
could be brokered between such an organization and the WMF to share
server resources, although the later group would be responsible for
maintaining the preservation projects, the associated domain names,
pay for the bandwidth, contribute to operating the servers, contribute
to paying the technical staff, etc. Such a group could probably
actively pursue grants to capture and preserve dieing languages, which
means there wouldnt be a competition between WLPS and WMF for
donations.

forgive me for brainstorming out loud. But, if people want to pursue
goals which are tangent to the WMF's goals, they should really
consider creating a new organization to pursue them, instead of trying
to tack them on to the WMF's mission statement.

--Andrew Whitworth