[Foundation-l] How could information flow ?

[Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales]

Tomos at Wikipedia wrote:
> I think it was not a mistake that every project got the fundraising notice.

It was a mistake, at least in the sense that I asked for the notice to
be put up, and _thought_ that I communicated the intention that it be
put up in English only.  Whether it went up elsewhere because my
intention was not sufficiently clear, or because the person who
actually put it up made a mistake, I don't know.

But it only made sense because we are in a cycle of Slashdot stories,
and Slashdot is an English website.

> I was on an IRC channel when there was a discussion of some project being 
> upset, and therefore blanking the message or not translating it. One person 
> asked if the messages could be turned off for some projects. A few 
> developers expressed that those projects should come up with alternative 
> fundraising plans that cover their portion of expected funding need. 

I do not know if this was a joke or a serious proposal, but I do not
support this in any way shape or form.  And if I don't support, more
precisely, if the board doesn't support it (and I think I can
comfortably say that none of us would), it isn't going to get anywhere
at all.

> Nothing was turned off. There followed a discussion of putting different 
> traffic priorities to different projects. (But I am not sure if they were 
> really serious about this.)

I don't know the nature of that discussion, so I can't comment.  I
would say that *if anything*, I would support that we always tend to
"look out for the little guy" first, that is to say, to do whatever we
need to do to make sure that small and growing wikimedia communities
do not become 'ghettos' without proper support.

> So after all, we are not so disappointing, I found.

Yes.  Everyone, especially everyone who is really active, can be
safely assumed to be acting from maximum goodwill.  WikiLove and all
that.  :-)

Please always communicate to everyone in every language that I view
Wikimedia as a _global_ movement, and that I am very much opposed to
English-centric decisionmaking.

As a matter of practicality, it is not possible to conduct high-level
policy discussions in any other language than English.  And this is
not just because of the board being English, but rather because for
reasons that have nothing to do with any of us, English is the most
widely spoken intermediate language in our environment.

If a German, a Japanese, an Italian, and a French person all meet to
speak, and they wish to successfully communicate, it will be in
English in most cases.  This is not the fault of anyone at Wikipedia,
and it is not an excuse for being English-centric in any way.

--Jimbo