Le Monday 6 June 2005 00:38, Delirium a écrit :
Yann Forget wrote:
As you noted, the choice is a political one, and I'm not sure we ought to be in the business of running political campaigns. Providing resources for anyone to work on a Wikipedia in any language they choose, sure; but to actively promote the use of particular languages over other languages isn't our place.
Well, imposing a foreign language is a political choice, even if it is because this is not enough content in the local language.
I don't see how that's "imposing" anything. As an English speaker, I provide content in English free of charge; people may choose not to use it if they don't like English-language encyclopedias. If speakers of other languages do not provide a similar amount of content, that's not because I imposed anything on them.
You didn't, but social, commercial and technical solutions have been imposed on them which prevent them to read and write in their mother tongue or other local languages. So saying that they have the choice not to use English content is false. They are forced to do so, because they don't have the means to work in another language.
Providing tools to people to do what they want with them is non-political. Launching a $30,000 advertising campaign to promote the use of minority languages is overtly political, and something I would strongly oppose.
Yes, providing tools is necessary, but not enough. It is also necessary to explain content providers (web sites, etc.), content distributors (cybercafés, universities, etc.) and users (writers, teachers, etc.) why using these tools are beneficial for the end users. No big money is necessary for that, only some well organised lobbying.
-Mark
Regards,
Yann