[Foundation-l] Positive discrimination related to smaller communities and projects

[GerardM]

Hoi,
Every now and again, there is this issue that has an impact on
multiple communities. These communities can be in the same project (eg
different languages within Wikipedia), they can be  communities in
different projects (wiktionary / wikiquote) and they can be
communities that do a different thing in (consumers, editors and
developers).

We try to resolve issues by consensus. Sometimes issues are dedided by
power. When a community wants a feature in the Mediawiki software and
there is noone willing to program it, it does not happen. In the
tradition of free software and free content, you can do it yourself or
find / pay someone to do it for you.

When things are to be decided by a vote we start to have another
issue: size. When two distinct communities have opposite views, the
larger community prevails as it is bigger. This leads to situations
that are "democratic". It is also something that leads to
underrepresentation of these smaller projects or is detrimental to the
evolution of the projects. Wikipedia is the biggest of the projects.
English is the biggest community in all of the projects.

Consequently issues with languages like Farsi, Arabic or Hebrew are
not resolved. Positive discrimination of projects like wikibooks or
wikispecies to give them features that serve their need are not or are
not seen to be considered.

I think that given our size as an organisation, we are in a position
to do things specifically for the smaller projects and communities.
This is not democratic but is will boost the potential of these
projects and communities.

As we are in the "business" of providing free information to all, I
think we would further our aims most when, from an organisational
point of view, a disproportional amount of resources were invested in
nurturing the smaller projects and communities.

My question is: is this something we are willing to consider. If we
agree that this is something to consider, what can we do to make this
a reality ??

Thanks,
    GerardM