[Foundation-l] A Wikimedia sidebar box for wikipedia.org

[Robert Scott Horning]

Aphaia wrote:

>On 9/29/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>  
>
>>On 9/28/06, Brion Vibber <brion at pobox.com> wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>What doesn't work about it?
>>>      
>>>
>>Let's start with the most obvious bit: WMF is an international
>>organization, and we want volunteers to contribute as many
>>translations as possible of key pages on the WMF wiki, no matter how
>>few there are of them.
>>    
>>
>
>It would be wounderful, but not feasable I think. Most of
>international organizations  limit their official language into a
>number we can count by our two hands. Their regional branches issue
>publifications in the regional languages, but those two - official
>publification from the organisation itself and local publification
>from its branch or sister organizations - are different matters.
>  
>
One aspect of Wikimedia projects is that we have linguistic resources 
and individuals who are willing to translate content between many 
different languages, perhaps many more than would typically be available 
for most other multi-national organizations outside of perhaps ones 
related to the United Nations.

That said, I would say that a reasonable metric in terms of a line to 
draw and not require any further translations to more obscure languages 
that are difficult to support would be the same as for new project 
proposals:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/New_project_policy#Interest_poll

The United Nations limits their "official languages" to just six: 
 English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Arabic

If you don't speak one of those languages, UN interpreters won't help 
you directly.  This list is very obviously politically motived by UN 
politics, but still, these languages alone cover most of the world in 
some way or another.

Clearly, in terms of communications between chapters and the base users 
of Wikimedia projects, it is important to offer information and 
organizational information in multiple languages.

Remember, less than half of all Wikimedia content is written in English, 
and that percentage that is in English is increasingly becoming smaller.

-- 
Robert Scott Horning