---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton <rodrigo.argenton@gmail.com>
Date: 25 January 2012 11:51
Subject: Waste of money, Wikipediacentrism. - Brazil
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org

Dear all,
Well as you know, Brazil is a priority, but when spending is a waste.
We have a volunteer group that operates in Brazil since 2008 in direct contact with the problems of Brazil, know much about the free national culture, know a lot about education in the country, and their projects, they can tell the reasons why Brazil has poor performance on Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation conducted several interviews with the group, I was interviewed three times and had several conversations with several different employees. Also recently a person was hired to do a search on this, already operating in Brazil.
And yesterday they announced the arrival of two more employees to ask only that, again. [1] They already have the answer to these interviews, what they are asking again?

And what I find worse is the fact that there is a prohibitive message for explanation of other Wikimedia projects. As for the local group that Wikipedia is not central. And there will be an office of WMF, only to activities for Wikipedia. And many Brazilians criticize the model of the WMF, and that centralization in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is only the tenth seventh most visited site in the country. Need better, yes, but the problem is the community that is not healthy, and that the WMF does not interfere on that. So it's skating, and spending resources unnecessarily.

Several staff members say the Wikipedia impact is larger than the other projects.
Which has more impact for you?
"The Movement Wikimedia projects through education, created free educational resources available in Wikibooks, and classes on Wikiversity, this could change the lives of thousands of poor children" or
"The Movement Wikimedia succeeded in creating an encyclopaedia in Portuguese high quality "

Unfortunately I live in a country that 38% of teens lives in extreme poverty [2], how they want to create a program just with universities, to share knowledge if people that never walk inside one university? Or not be able to read the contents of Wikipedia because they were not properly literate. I'm not talking to literate Brazilians, I'm talking to create free educational resources, and create classes, and encourage businesses and organizations to do that change, this is a collaborative work.

With the money spent to keep three people six days in Brazil from the U.S.A., we could fund a fellow to start a social work with teachers to create this material.What is the interest of the WMF on this? "Our priority is Wikipedia"

Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment.

I'll keep imagining, and having to push myself very hard to see this world. That will never be reached by Wikipedia alone.Especially in Brazil.

If it were to promote Wikipedia as a site, it would be best to hire a company, not a Foundation, if that way selected, do things as a Foundation.

Sorry for my English, I'm tired and I didn't review.

[1]https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A9dia:Esplanada/geral/Wikip%C3%A9dia_Encontros,_Brasil_%2824jan2012%29
[2]http://noticias.r7.com/brasil/noticias/adolescentes-sao-mais-pobres-que-restante-da-populacao-20111130.html

--
Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton
rodrigo.argenton@gmail.com
+55 11 7971-8884