--- On Sun, 11/23/08, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com> wrote:
From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Signal languages Wikimedia projects
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Wikimedia's mission is to promote knowledge, we believe
we can do that
best by supporting the many languages which people prefer
to use, but
Wikimedia projects should not be a tool for promoting
isolation. Not
nationalist isolation, not cultural isolation, and not the
isolation
of the deaf. Accomplishing the former without venturing
into the
latter requires careful action and careful consideration of
who we
allow to advise us.
This is very well said. But how do we really avoid becoming a tool for promoting
isolation? All the projects are accomplished on a grassroots basis and if the grassroots
community wishes to be exclusive WMF does not have the capability of making them
otherwise. Case in point is the inability see the development of ro.WP with latin/cryllic
transliteration. No matter that everyone who is not promoting nationalist isolation
understands that this is the solution, it cannot be accomplished until the ro.WP community
moves past nationalism.
BirgitteSB