[Foundation-l] A simple question on languages.

Fri Jan 25 04:21:16 UTC 2008

On Jan 25, 2008 2:12 AM, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Any kind of resources.  The fundraising video would have us expecting
> WMF to be somehow spending money on the native languages of the
> developing world in the future.  How should that money best be spent?
> Part of the answer depends on knowing the impact of languages.
>
> > Volunteer resources?
> > If so, I find the question fairly moot, as we can't really "require" anything.
>
> Common misconception. You know better, think about it for a bit. We
> can exert pressure in all sorts of ways even in our existing volunteer
> systems. Consider commons, "To be featured an image's description must
> be translated into at least three languages, including at least two
> from this list".  That would have a clear impact on common's
> accessibility to people of many languages.
>
> Even without stuffing it in as a requirement having clear information
> about the impact of supporting other languages will allow us to make a
> better argument to the volunteers, and providing that will hopefully
> shift their priorities a little.
>
> Going beyond that, other heavily volunteer organizations are quite
> able to set clear goals and achieve them.  That we are somewhat broken
> in that regard doesn't mean we will never get better, or shouldn't get
> better.

So please be explicit. You want to definitively challenge the mission
set by Jimbo. Worded as:

"an effort to create and distribute a free encyclopedia of the highest
possible quality to every single person on the planet in their own language".

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#Language_editions )

Honestly, I don't get why anyone is wasting time even responding
to this thread. We aren't gonna change here.

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]