[Foundation-l] {Spam?} Re: Swedish, Spanish, French Wikinews set up

[Anthere]

Erik Moeller a écrit:
> Delphine-
> 
>> The least you could have done, Erik, is go fish for those five
>> "supporters" and ask them if they were ready to take care of the
>> project and all it implies.
>>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Start_a_new_edition
> 
> "According to the proposed policy for wikis in new languages 
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Policy_for_wikis_in_new_languages>, at 
> least 5 people have to express an interest in a language edition in 
> order for it to be created,"
> 
> This was the requirement. You had plenty of time to raise objections 
> against this requirement. You did not. I waited after the creation of 
> the Dutch Wikinews for objections before creating the other languages. 
> There were none. Now, as for the French Wikinews, we'll see how it comes 
> along. It should receive a fair chance as any other Wikimedia project. 
> Don't give me any rants about the state of the project after 24 hours of 
> existence.
> 
> Whether or not the majority of the people on Wikinews/Vote/Fr voted for 
> or against the project is irrelevant. The project vote, as it was agreed 
> by everyone involved, was an aggregated vote. The French Wikimedia 
> community is part of the larger Wikimedia Foundation, which is an 
> international organization. That organization has made the decision to 
> launch the Wikinews project. It was only a matter of time until the 
> French edition of that project was set up.
> 
> Now, if you want to formulate more strict requirements as part of the 
> policy for new languages, please be my guest and get involved in the 
> policy discussion on Meta. That is more productive than complaining 
> about decisions that have been made in accordance with previous 
> agreements and written policy.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Erik

About 3 years ago, I ranted a lot about the right of minorities to say 
their opinion and have it respected and taken into account.

We are a diverse project, and we should preserve this diversity by being 
respectful of local habits.

Taking decision by majority vote, and imposing local communities the 
wish of the global community is acceptable only when it does harm the 
project not to all walk in the same direction with the same pace.

For example, changing the order of the wikipedia menu is harmful because 
all items being at the same place help people unfamiliar with a language 
to navigate in each and another local place.

However, setting up a wikinews the way you did it, without prior 
warning, without taking into account the strong opposition which existed 
in the french community when the global decision was taken, without 
taking into account our community is still small in comparison with the 
english and german ones, and might be harmed by this new dispersion of 
vital forces, is not correct.

You may answer notafish with giving her the "big rules", "big policies", 
"big guidelines" and other "big things" which were voted on. This does 
not hide the fact wikinews is not welcome among us. Just as wikiquotes, 
it will be a project in survival. I will not either mention how many 
french people work on wikisource or wikispecies. Wiktionary and 
wikibooks are below 50 edits per day as well. People are doing great 
things on them, but even after 2 years, these projects are still hardly 
resources. They will be great things later, but right now, they still 
host small communities.

One of the very poor aspects of globalization is forcing communities in 
a direction they are not ready to assume. It is forcing communities to 
assume a standard of life which they can not handle. It is pushing them 
to grow to fast, to run after more modern and developped ones.

Do not take it wrong Erik. But in my perspective, setting up a french 
wikinews right now seems to me to have one main benefit : the one of 
showing wikinews is developing and growing and is successful in its 
concept. Except that this will be a screen of smoke. And it will damage 
the image of the french speaking project.

A project governed by rules and policies before being governed by what 
people wish is not what I wish for us. We agreed on a new project, but 
only languages supporting a project should have the choice to start one 
and only when they feel ready to do so. For those opposing, a minimum of 
understanding and acknowlegment would be nice. There is a huge 
difference between starting a new language wikipedia and a new language 
wikinews. Wikipedia goals and general policies are already defined. 
Setting up a 5 people interested rule is fine.

For wikinews, nothing is set.

In my perspective, it is a huge disappointment. Huge because what wins 
here is not what a community really wishes, it is a set of rules, 
policies and such, drafted by a couple of people. It is not consensus, 
it is the rule of the strongest. And local community wish crushed by 
globalization.