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

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

Actually, I would not go as far as suggesting that some money should be
spent for supporting languages, but, indeed, if the language support is a
(secondary) goal of the Foundation, then a special care can be taken of
the languages for instance where Wikipedias constitute the largest amount
of texts available online in these languages. This special care can be
creation  of Wikicompendia as suggested earlier, or increased volunteer
effort for such projects, showing participants how to edit, what to write
and such things, or indeed some additional advertisement among target
groups, or smth else I can not immediately think of. On the other hand, if
this is not a goal, we can raise the bar and just watch who is going to
make it. I am not talking now about artificial and extinct languages, and
I am not talking about doomed languages with dozens of speakers, it is
more about endangered languages (dozens of thousands, may be even hundreds
of thousands speakers).

Cheers,
Yaroslav

> All these comments are very informative, but we're straying from the
> topic. The question is not whether we should deliberately exclude
> minority languages or cultures, but whether we should consider the
> preservation of cultures and languages part of the Foundation mission.
> If we don't consider something a goal, that does not mean we work
> *against* it. For example, our goal is not to promote human rights or
> prevent child soldiery, even though our work benefits those causes.
>
> Should the Foundation be willing to allocate donated funds and
> resources to that purpose? What is the mission of the Wikimedia
> Foundation itself (not of the individual users, who have their own
> causes and motives)?
>
> --
> Yours cordially,
> Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
>
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