I'd like to ecco (is that an eEnglish word..?) Michael Finney here. Most
people who engage them self in a small language wikimedia projects will
sooner or later participate in projects like en:wp and commons as well - and
thus both learn more about the "facts of reality" as well as communicating
with others in a (for them) foreign language.
They may of course also learn the not so pleasant fact of reality that
native English speakers unfortunately sometimes come across as a rather
arrogant lot (an attitude also unfortunately often also adapted by
dutch/scandinavians etc who often are more comfortable using English than
other language groups - I've been arrogant myself at times)
Finn Rindahl (mainly nowiki&commons)
2008/12/1 Michael Finney <finney.md(a)gmail.com>
Jimbo:
Thank you for your comments. As a person who manages a small wiki project
and two language forks from it, I found some of the comments very
disturbing... almost frightening that such exist. Your comments re-affirm
my
confidence in the Wikimedia Foundation and its purpose.
Thanks.
Mike
On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 1:24 PM, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia-inc.com> wrote:
Geni wrote:
>> "The mission of the Wikimedia
Foundation is to empower and engage
>> people around the world " first line of the mission statement. By
>> actively promoting minority languages you lock more people into them
>> which is not consistent with trying to empower them.
I wrote:
> I do not share geni's views at all.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
It doesn't seem that anyone does...
I should add at the same time that I think that it is a good thing for
people to try to learn a relevant global language in addition to their
local language, with the choice depending upon personal context.
In many parts of the world and for many people, English is an excellent
choice of a second language. In other parts of the world (Francophone
Africa for example), French is an excellent choice. Chinese might be
good for some people. Russian for others. Hindi for others. There are
many variables.
And I hope that Wikipedia is helpful to people both in learning about
the facts of reality (usually most comfortably done in your mother
tongue) and in learning another language. I don't see these goals as
being in competition at all, but rather mutually reinforcing.
--Jimbo
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