[Foundation-l] Priorities

[Ray Saintonge]

Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> The argument being made is that we must somehow prop up the
> construction of Wikipedia in dying languages even at an extreme cost
> in order to preserve them.
>   
How "extreme"?
> I don't think that people understand the immense cost involved. The
> Wikipedias in dying langauges are tiny because the labor needed to
> make them comprehensive does not exist in volunteer form. ... which
> should not be shocking, since if *a language is dying people will not
> be excited about writing in it*.
>   
The labour needed to make them comprehensive is indeed absent, but 
comprehensiveness is an unrealistic ideal.  Detailed articles in a small 
language about the obscure local flora and fauna on the other side of 
the world are not needed.  Nobody should object when they are added, but 
a more realistic expectation is to have a range of articles about the 
things that make a difference to the culture associated with that language.
> In a month's time a million people will edit English Wikipedia at
> least once. There are 20,000 'frequent contributors' by reasonable
> metrics.  None of them are on the foundation payroll.
>
> There are more people who effectively work full time on our largest
> projects than *speak* some of the dying languages we have projects in.
>   
Is this an argument in favour of the Tyranny of the Majority?
> There is an enormous manpower cost in creating a usable and
> comprehensive Wikipedia. Due to the volunteer nature of the project we
> do not see this cost but it still exists.
>
> When we talk about using Wikimedia funding to preserve dying
> languages, which don't have the volunteer pools needed to build
> Wikipedia naturally, we are talking about bringing that huge cost on
> to the foundation.   It just can't work... and it is not desirable.
If we can agree that comprehensiveness is not a realistic goal for all 
these languages, what techniques do you have for evaluating the costs 
that you postulate.  In your hypothesis of huge costs are you 
disregarding the possibility of targetted funding?

Ec