[Foundation-l] Signal languages Wikimedia projects

[Birgitte SB]

--- On Sun, 11/23/08, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Signal languages Wikimedia projects
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at 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