But you raise an important issue, which is whether *we* as an *organisation* should financially help similar ideas (ie, paying editors). Of course, this requires specific requirements (such as control, validation of final quality, starting language with few editors expected, local organisers etc...), but on the concept, should we or should we not ?
I guess *we* is the Wikimedia Foundation. I don't think Wikimedia should fund projects that pay editors. There are plenty of NGO's and there is plenty of money going into development projects for developing countries. Lots of that money is spent on expensive plane flights and big salaries to send white people to poor countries. So what we (as in the broader Wikipedia community) can do is try to get some of that money to develop projects we think can make a difference, by directly paying many people in poor countries (as opposed to several politicians and big men gaining lots of bribes).
You are perfectly allright : till now, editors have always been volunteers. Which could be the consequences that start paying some, even if it is on a small and little know language ?
Bambara is spoken by more than 10 million people and if you include Dioula and other Mande languages we're probably talking about 30 million people who are able to understand it (if it's spoken out, hence the importance of creating .oggs once there is substantial material).
That it is little known is basically due to the fact that it is spoken by poor people, and hardly ever read or written.
Given that the goal of the Foundation is "to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public free of charge", I would say that supporting such projects (ie, paying editors in certain specific conditions) is within our area of action. What I do not know is whether it would be acceptable to do it with donation money, or if grants should be seek (sought ?) to support such an involvement. I would really welcome opinions on this. In the past year, I have seen little criticizing (as opposed to supporting) comments related to the way the Foundation money should be spent, but for comments saying (a year ago) that developers should get paid in priorities before Angie and my costs be reimbursed, or comments saying (early 2005) that with all the money we got, the website should be more accessible.
If Wikimedia Foundation starts a fund raising for specifically this goal, that would be fine. But people who donated often donated the money for having more reliable access. They _could_ be disappointed to see that the money is being used to pay people to write articles. But again, we (community) can find the money elsewhere - and Wikimedia can endorse such projects.
Perhaps a beginning of an answer would be that current developers do not seem overall to be mad with the idea of Chad and Brion be paid, while they are not. It may be because they consider Brion has been working a lot for the project and deserve to be partially paid by the Foundation, it may be because they consider that Chad work is required and can not be done any more by Jimbo. In short, it is acceptable because one is known and loved, and acceptable because the other is seen as doing a mandatory job. I am not sure, not being in the developer team. I suppose participation to such project will be possibly acceptable to editors if they can see where the benefits stands. Just thoughts. Waiting for all of yours.
There is a huge difference between paying developers to improve the access to Wikipedia and to paying contributors. Wikimedia should make sure Wikimedia (and especially its servers) keeps online.
Guaka!