[Foundation-l] Fwd: NYTimes.com: African Languages Grow as a Wikipedia Pr...

[Aphaia]

On 8/29/06, Anthere <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Nod.
> There are a couple of things we can do, I think, without being
> paternalistic. It is simply to "tell them". To tell them about our
> projects. To tell them about "free content". To tell them how they can
> participate and develop their own language project.

True, if you have a chance to talk with them either online or offline.

> And to make suggestions about how they could push more (maybe by paying
> an editor in chief, maybe by organising a conference, maybe by having
> advertisment on Wikipedia in a local journal, maybe by visiting a
> school). But then, I think that's their business to do what is needed
> once they have the cards in hand (the platform).

There is another kind of helping you can offer. Visit those wikis
regurally. Patrol their RC, removing spams, invite anon editors to
register (sadly perhaps not in their own language, but something is
better than nothing in most cases),  encourage registered editors to
get more involved into projects: localize their interface, be familiar
with some MediaWiki gimicks (e.g. Template etc), share the Wikimedia
Project know-how (Meta:Request for permissions etc. Most of newbies
have no clue on that at first time), suggest them some useful
communication channels, just as like you talk to a newcomer on your
home wiki. Or formerl test wiki on meta or now on Incubator. You can
do those without being patarnalistic, you just have them shorten the
time they need to be more involved just from the Wikilove for your
co-editors.

-- 
Kizu Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * vivemus, mea Lesbia, amemus *