On Apr 4, 2004, at 21:26, Erik Moeller wrote:
[snip]
I realize that Brion is a fan of languages, and since
he sets up those
wikis he pretty much decides what is acceptable. Shouldn't those
languages
undergo some basic public approval process first, though, so that we
can
determine whether there is really any value in creating them? In my
opinion, Wikipedia should not be a promotional vehicle for other
people's
pet projects.
The value of a Wikipedia project wiki comes in several ways:
First, there's the long-term goal of being a useful informational
resource for the public.
Second, there's the short-term enjoyment we Wikipedians get from
working on the project.
Third, there's spill-over in getting people involved. Grabbing people's
interest for one project can get them interested in another one, or
more generally in the Free/Open Source ideals.
Certainly there are people who have derided the existence of the
Esperanto-language Wikipedia, but having it has brought a number of
people to Wikipedia in general, such as myself, who might not have been
called to it otherwise. I started patching the old UseMod wiki to
better support Esperanto and Unicode, and ended up pretty much
maintaining the software and server config.
Will an Esperanto-language Wikipedia really educate lay readers in the
future better? Maybe, maybe not. But as a recruiting tool it's
certainly been a success, and I'd rather not begrudge that chance to
others.
-- brion vibber (brion @
pobox.com)