[Wikipedia-l] Re: Setting up a Wikipedia in _______ (what ever language)

In addition to agreeing with the thrust of Ec's refreshingly nuanced treatment of the subject, I also add the following comments: Jiaqing Bao ti 2004/12/25 ChS 03:37 sia-kong: "Public good", but which public? Be careful that public good does not mean the welfare of the dominant-language population, the State, or your local police department. Quite often speakers of "minority languages" have a complex relationship with the dominant-language speakers, whose dominant status often extends into social, economic and political domains, all of which are interwined with language issues. In this hypothetical scenario, the 1% who are writers control only what they write; the strictly non-literate are not influenced by Wikipedia at all and can't care less if it's all wrong (the language being strongly associated with this particular group, with no possibility of misleading outsiders). It is only the hypothetical readers/non-writers who are at a disadvantage: they may pick out mistakes (or worse, errors) but lack the orthographic means to correct them. On the other hand, such a scenario is hardly representative: the vast majority of lesser-used languages are no more difficult to write than they are to read. Moreover the hypothetical readers/non-writers, having detected the mistakes, errors, or bias in the writers' product, may well be spurred to remedy their status as non-writers, particularly once they find out the writers do not really control the medium of knowledge production (Wikipedia). The depiction of "mainstream language Wikipedia" as "good" is a bit too rosy (not to mention, vague), and the characterisation of "minor [sic.] Wikipedia" as likely to be "inaccurate", "misleading" is unfair. While I agree more eyeballing is better than no eyeballing, I think it's fair to claim that errors and bias have sources that are not all related to number of eyeballs (see [[en:Wikipedia:WikiProject_countering_systemic_bias]] for such a claim). So while your concern regarding similar backgrounds has a point, it is one that is likely applicable to all WPs. However, since all users of this hypothetical community share the same dominant language(s), nothing prevents the reading non-writers from raising the issues with the writers. Or the larger WP community if the writers choose to monopolize discourse. Bad translations, selective translations, mistakes...these are all part of the WP process. For large WPs the process is accelerated; for smaller ones, the cycle may be slower. The difference is quantitative, not qualitative. Every WP article is based on a source or a set of sources. If the source is correctly informative, it is a good source, regardless of what language it is in. So the idea that a "minor [sic.] Wikipedia" article drawing on a mainstream language source is somehow redundant or "less genuine" reflects more of a condescending attitude toward "minority things" than a reasoned argument. It also reflects a mistaken view that a good translation is a non-creative work and that "information" exists independently of language. Wikipedia may not be a language conservation project, but it is surely a language _amplification_ project. If you allow for the amplification of all European state languages plus a few East Asian languages, it would be reasonable to offer the rest of the world's written, Internet-using languages a chance at doing the same. This would not necessarily be out of any sense of guilt or "we owe you" but a gesture of fairness, good will and even solidarity. This is public good on a global scale, or at least has that potential. As for English WP being trustworthy, no doubt many trust it. But it is only because not enough people trust it that it has continued to improve. The moment all of us trust it entirely would be the time for Wikipedia to shut down. And if the English WP is trustworthy by virtue of the size of its community, does that mean the Japanese WP is less trustworthy? Meta has this honest self-assessment about Ja: "Over 100 users are very active but 40%-50% of edits are done by anonymous users." It'd appear that 100 editors are responsible for quite a big chunk of the 90,000 articles. Do you trust it? As a very minor editor of ja, my inclination is to trust my fellow Wikipedians are editing in good faith without necessarily trusting the correctness of the content. All the more reason to have an on-line, FREE encyclopedia. Sure, it won't be perfect but Wikipedians prefer asymptotic improvement to pseudo-perfection. Small and tiny WPs have a slower cycle but the process is not fundamentally different.