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

[Jon Harald Søby]

Sorry, but to me this just sounds like FUD. Do you have any information to
back up your claims about small wikis deteriorating? Don't forget, these are
WIKIS we are talking about. In WIKIS everyone can change the content, and
even though people may add bad content, they may also add good content (and
believe it or not, there is functionality that makes people able to remove
bad edits!). You're applying the problems of the large wikis to the smaller
ones, which is not really appropriate, because they are on completely
different levels. Sure, the smaller wikis have problems as well, but they
are very different from the problems enwiki and dewiki are having.

2008/12/1 Christiano Moreschi <moreschiwikiman at hotmail.co.uk>

>
> Have you forgotten that these are WIKIS we are talking about? It's not just
> a matter of translation: the technology isn't there to do it automatically
> and we don't have the manpower do it manually. Even if the technology were
> there, it's a WIKI. Unlike your friend's translations, our content can
> drastically deteriorate and become useless overnight if nobody's watching
> it.
>
> CM
>
> Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.
>
>
>
> > Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:58:54 +0100
> > From: gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
> > To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> > Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing
> >
> > Hoi,
> > EMC2 is a company who sells storage solutions to big companies. I was at
> a
> > presentation of their documentation manager. He informed his audience
> that
> > the people who buy their products invariably state that they prefer the
> > English documentation. They always get the translations as well. The
> benefit
> > to EMC2 is that they sell more products. The translation of their
> > documentation adds pennies to the pound in costs, costs that are easily
> > offset by the increased sales.
> >
> > The point is that people understand things better when they are addressed
> in
> > their own language EVEN when they can read the language that is foreign
> to
> > them.
> > Thanks,
> >         GerardM
> >
> > 2008/11/30 geni <geniice at gmail.com>
> >
> > > 2008/11/30 effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com>:
> > > > Because bear in mind, especially in those languages, a complemented
> work
> > > of
> > > > human knowledge really adds something. In the large languages, we
> already
> > > > had encyclopediae and dictionaries of good quality. Wikipedia is
> better
> > > > sure, and has improved our lives. But now just imagine that you are
> > > living
> > > > in Botswana, and on school (if you're lucky) there is very little
> > > material
> > > > available... and now there is an encyclopedia... In YOUR language!
> > >
> > > English is an official language of Botswana. Quite a lot of African
> > > countries move to English or French for education above a certain
> > > level.
> > >
> > > >Even if
> > > > it only contains 1000 articles,
> > >
> > > ~102 articles currently.
> > >
> > > > you can already learn a lot from it. You can
> > > > improve your knowledge, and increase the odds in competition with the
> > > > western world.
> > >
> > > What is Tswana for mass spectrometry (looking at the translations for
> > > that term across European languages is mildly amusing) ? There are
> > > large areas where if you don't speak english you can't operate in that
> > > area. There is nothing wikimedia can do about this. Highly
> > > questionable if we would even want to.
> > >
> > > This doesn't mean we should give up on many languages but it does mean
> > > that we have to accept that the educated people from those countries
> > > may not want to use them and there is a significant risk of them
> > > becoming POV forks.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > geni
> > >
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-- 
Jon Harald Søby
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by