Direct contribution is indeed very important, but I think supporting endangered languages is something we can do without too much pain and is something that should be done.
As to the 250 Wikipedias are better than 40 argument, what I was referring to is the fact that what sets Wikipedia apart from other encyclopedias - one of the things that sets is apart - is that it is available in so many languages, many of which don't normally receive Internet exposure. I find it amazing that there's a Wikipedia in Voro, or that there's a Wikipedia in so many Filipino languages, or in Breton, or in Cornish!
Of course, having a Wikipedia in dialects or accents shouldn't be done at all. The things that's worrying me is that people are now starting to say that as long as we reach all people with the languages we've got, that's OK. In Europe, if you have a Wikipedia in every national language, you've reached 99.99% of people. But is that the climate we want at Wikipedia?
That's why I say that for every new proposal, we need concensus on whether that proposal is a language, but nothing else - none of this "is it necessary?" business, which I think sets a dangerous precent. The Low Saxon Wikipedia is useful, the Frisian Wikipedia is useful, the Voro Wikipedia is useful. All of these Wikipedias should stay and similar cases should be approved in the future.
As I said before, there's a difference with proposals such as Zlatiborian, "Bostonian", etc. In fact, I am also against languages being renamed for political reasons, like Moldovan, Montenegrin, etc. I'm also not particularly favourable to projects like Bavarian, etc. *However*, as long as we force speakers of legitimate regional languages like Samogitian, Vlax Romany, Megleno-Romanian, Sorbian, etc, that haven't yet got a Wikipedia, to go through an over-rigorous proposal phase, we're going too far.
I think most of us here are smart enough to distinguish before languages which are never mentioned on the internet and have no written standard - and are therefore "invented" by the person who proposes them - and legitimate minority languages that need all the help we can get (if for every paragraph typed arguing about the Zlatiborian hoax someone wrote one template-based article at the Voro Wikipedia, we would have had about 40 articles extra and helped save a wonderful part of Europe's lingustic heritage...)
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