[Wikimediaindia-l] What's in it for me?

[Amir E. Aharoni]

2011/12/17 Barry Newstead <bnewstead at wikimedia.org>:
> I have limited experience, but in my travels in India, I think the greatest
> challenge is in basic awareness of how Wikipedia works.

That's true for the whole world. A particular problem for India is
that many people to whom i spoke, all of whom knew English, don't know
that
a. There's a Wikipedia in their language.
b. It is possible to read and write their language on the computer
*they already own*.

By creating technologies like Narayam and WebFonts the i18n team is
making Wikimedia projects more technically accessible to speakers of
these languages, but work is still needed to be done in raising
awareness. One of the ways to do it is to convince Indians who know
English to make the choice to contribute more to projects in languages
of India for the sake of the people who don't know English. I call
this "the software localization paradox": The situation today is that
in a technological project like ours people who know English are best
suited for building the groundwork for people who don't, but too
often, people who know English just contribute to English projects.

--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬