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

[Michael Finney]

Jimbo:
Thank you for your comments. As a person who manages a small wiki project
and two language forks from it, I found some of the comments very
disturbing... almost frightening that such exist. Your comments re-affirm my
confidence in the Wikimedia Foundation and its purpose.

Thanks.

Mike

On Mon, Dec 1, 2008 at 1:24 PM, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia-inc.com> wrote:

> Geni wrote:
> >>> "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage
> >>> people around the world " first line of the mission statement. By
> >>> actively promoting minority languages you lock more people into them
> >>> which is not consistent with trying to empower them.
>
> I wrote:
> >> I do not share geni's views at all.
>
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
> > It doesn't seem that anyone does...
>
>
> I should add at the same time that I think that it is a good thing for
> people to try to learn a relevant global language in addition to their
> local language, with the choice depending upon personal context.
>
> In many parts of the world and for many people, English is an excellent
> choice of a second language.  In other parts of the world (Francophone
> Africa for example), French is an excellent choice.  Chinese might be
> good for some people.  Russian for others.  Hindi for others.  There are
> many variables.
>
> And I hope that Wikipedia is helpful to people both in learning about
> the facts of reality (usually most comfortably done in your mother
> tongue) and in learning another language.  I don't see these goals as
> being in competition at all, but rather mutually reinforcing.
>
> --Jimbo
>
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