[Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing

[geni]

2008/12/1 Fajro <faigos at gmail.com>:
> WTF???
>
> Some people really need read more about cultural diversity

Bible belt America does not share a culture with say Perth or indeed
much of New York.

> and linguistic rights

No such thing.

Language can be a tool for control. With English this is hard. There
is simply too much of it out there an English speakers move around too
much. It isn't really practical to keep them out. But if your general
population doesn't speak English that doesn't matter. By actively
promoting minority languages you increase the longevity and frequency
of such situations. A population that does not speak English is one
that it is fairly easy for those in power (be it dictators of tribal
elders or religious leaders) to control the information flow to. And
wikipedia can do nothing about that. A single data source is too easy
to block.

So we tolerate smaller languages or languages with lower levels of
existing information but should not go as far as actively promoting
them. For the time being we accept that yes they are what we are going
to have to use if we want to work with such groups (and heh even North
Korea has a hard time dealing with Korean speakers among it tourists).
But that does not mean we should make any attempt to promote them.

-- 
geni