[Foundation-l] Signal languages Wikimedia projects

[Marcus Buck]

Andre Engels hett schreven:
>> nd this configuration does make sense, in my opinion. If we
>> have a hypothetical language with one million oral speakers, but only a
>> handful of people able to write, it will still be useful to create a
>> written encyclopedia. Cause if you start to teach the one million
>> analphabets how to read, they immediately have written content
>> available. If there is no written content available, there is no
>> incentive to learn to read. It's a chicken or egg dilemma. Why are there
>> so few books in Breton? Cause there are so few people able to read
>> Breton. Why are there so few people able to read Breton? Cause there is
>> so few content available. (among other reasons) It's a self-energizing
>> effect. The more content there is, the more interest there will be.
>>     
>
> That may be a laudable task, but it is not our task.
Are you sane? That's _exactly_ our task! Give access to information to 
people, who nobody else cares about.
English Wikipedia is a great project, but almost all information in it 
can be found elsewhere on the internet. There are other online 
encyclopedias, databases, private and institutional websites, Google 
Books. English Wikipedia is just a more convenient way to access the 
information out there. It saves you time sorting out the good and bad 
information on the world wide web. That's it, a convenience tool. But a 
well-developed Yoruba Wikipedia or Gan Wikipedia or Sango Wikipedia or 
[add in here one of hundreds of other languages] could be the only 
easily accessible information resource at all. Nobody cares about giving 
information access to the five million Sango speakers or the hundreds of 
thousands signers. We should care! I doesn't cost us much. Well, 
actually it doesn't cost us anything.

Marcus Buck