There are something similar to paid translations in what you may call
prioritized articles. That is articles that are so important for a language
that they should be written, no matter whether they exist in a larger
language.
For example in the Northern Sami Wikipedia there should be an article about
Sami border guides during WWII. The article at nowiki describes exclusively
border guides between Norway and Sweden, [1] which where a rather low
intensity border during WWII. The frontier between Norway and Russia was
much more hostile, and later in the war also the frontier between Norway
and Finland. The article at enwiki is similar. [2] There are a number of
good sources, and also some quite interesting articles.[3][4][5]
I wonder if such important articles can be prioritized on a list of paid
work by WMF, as they are extremly important to balance facts that otherwise
can go unnoticed by the community. We as a community tend to write about
our interests, and so reflects the interest of the larger society. That
society is not necessarily aware of some of the biases that is inherent in
our common knowledge.
[1]
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenselos
[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_guide
[3]
https://forskning.no/andre-verdenskrig/2015/02/risikerte-livet-ble-fratatt-…
[4]
https://www.nrk.no/nordland/vil-ha-frem-samenes-krigsinnsats-1.11694527
[5]
https://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/samiske-grenseloser-reddet-tusenvis-sa-ble…