I agree with Brianna here 100%.
On Fri, 17 Nov 2006, Brianna Laugher wrote:
== Vision
Statement ==
'''Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
in the sum of all knowledge.'''
Comment:
One version from the Retreat contained the phrase "in their own
language" at the end, but we removed that later--I made the argument
that there are different ways to address language barriers, e.g. by
teaching another language like English and then giving access to
learning resources in that language. IMHO we should not explicitly
endorse or reject any particular _strategy_ of knowledge dissemination
in our vision statement.
The more I ponder this statement the more I dislike it. Forget
dissemination -- what about knowledge collection? As if knowledge only
exists in English, or major European languages. The "language barrier"
goes both ways. To access some of the world's oldest and most classic
texts, we should also advocate teaching everyone classical Chinese.
How likely is that? The gift of accessing information in your native
language should not be underestimated by those who are lucky enough to
take it for granted.
It is not simply a gift. As you suggest, treating this issue lightly
limits the efficacy of collection. More knowledge is lost when there are
no native speakers trained as archivists, because archiving or gathering
is something done [in all languages] by people who only speak a limited
set of languages.
The principle of multilinguality is what really gives
Wikimedia
*global* participation and therefore WMF a global voice and global
influence. That is something amazing that I am not really aware of
anyone else... anywhere... doing on the same scale.
Absolutely. It is not only special to Wikimedia, it is one of the
more beautiful goals of the organization, despite having been a difficult
one to pursue to date. It has led to Wikimedia being one of the prime
places where one can observe debates about small-language classification,
naming, and categorization -- because we have a practical use for the
decisions we are making.
--SJ
It deserves proper recognition -- I think the "in
their own language"
should be re-appended.
regards,
Brianna
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