Brianna Laugher wrote:
Keeping this in mind --
On 15/11/06, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
We also developed a mission statement from scratch. What's the point? Aside from uniting behind a set of key goals, it helps us to decide which activities fall within our scope and which ones don't -- something that is not always easy, given the diversity of our existing projects and communities. Should we launch a WikiFoo project, or is Foo not part of our mission? Both the vision and mission statement will be frequently cited in future discussions of this kind, so they are relevant, and not just organizational fluff.
== 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. Rather, I suggested we could add a phrase such as "unimpeded by language barriers, socioeconomic status, or government censorship". This was seen as too negative. In any case, I feel that the simple adjective "freely" may be sufficient in order to convey the idea that we seek to make knowledge as widely available as possible.
I think some statement of the importance of multilinguality is needed here.
The suggestion that teaching everyone English and offering them English works is equivalent to offering them works in their own language is... really appalling. We may as well shut down all the other languages and just offer Wikibooks "learn English" in x trillion languages, right? I don't think so...
I am really glad that you picked up on this. This is very much imperialistic thinking; to the winner all the spoils. If you want to understand what the relevance is of native languages, you may want to read what the UN has to say about this.
http://webworld.unesco.org/imld/res_en.html
The notion that by providing information in English we provide sufficient information is fundamentally wrong. The English Wikipedia does not provide sufficient information for people to understand their culture. When it does provide information in the first place, it brings it into a context that is decidedly outside of the culture of these people. When you have read and listened to people explaining what knowledge is lost with the demise of minority languages, you would understand that the tapestry of human knowledge is become threat bare as a consequence. Then again, when you do not know what you lost you did not lose it right ? Wikipedia may become a collection of much of the information that exists, when it does it may help us appreciate the loss that is happening to us all and to our detriment.
It has often been pointed out that the disconnect from the cultural values leads to a loss of cohesion and conflict. History also learned that the "upper classes" adopted the language of the cultural oppressor leading to eventual revolt. The sad thing is that much of the cultural values are lost in the process and one of the slogans for such a revolution is the promise for a cultural resurgence. A resurgence that seems to be always bleak compared to what is considered the "golden age" even if it was objectively not that great for the majority of the populace.
By preserving and promoting cultural diversity we contribute much more than by concentrating on what we happen to do best at the moment. Thanks, GerardM