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

[David Gerard]

2008/12/3 Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod at mccme.ru>:

>> Only after a while did it become apparent that he was talking of
>> the English Wikipedia.  Some surprised librarian asked "are you
>> now talking of the English Wikipedia?"  His answer was something
>> like "yes, the Swedish is almost completely useless" (for advanced
>> astronomy). In the undergraduate astronomy classes he was
>> teaching, all literature is in English.  This seemed like an
>> unknown planet to the Swedish librarians.  And I guess that their
>> surprise came as an equal surprise to the astronomer.

> After eight years of teaching physics at a Dutch university and active
> participation in scientific activities all over the country, I am still to
> see a scientific talk given in Dutch.


en:wp is very much an international Wikipedia, not just for English
native speakers at all. This leads to some difficulties (apparently
infinite supplies of nationalist POV-pushers in some conflicts, for
example), but is almost certainly good for NPOV.

This is no reason to neglect the other Wikipedias - English just
happens to be the current lingua franca and may not be in 100 years.


- d.