[Foundation-l] Wiki Loves Monuments (Was: On curiosity, cats and scapegoats)

[Milos Rancic]

2011/9/12 Tomasz Ganicz <polimerek at gmail.com>:
> W dniu 12 września 2011 19:30 użytkownik Tomasz Kozłowski
> <odder.wiki at gmail.com> napisał:
>> On 12.09.2011 19:05, Milos Rancic wrote:
>>
>>> Eh, wrong example. There is Wikimedia Macedonia and they really hate
>>> monuments because every local tycoon builds monuments in Macedonia,
>>> presently.
>>
>> What was that supposed to mean? Either I don't get the joke or this
>> isn't really a joke, is it?
>>
>
> Maybe it is just missunderstanding of word "monument"? In "Wiki Loves
> Monuments" it does not mean a memorial statue of the person, but an
> "unmovable pice of human heritage" such as historical buildings, old
> towns, old cementaries, etc. So - a recently built memoral of recent
> political or social activities rather do not fulfill the definition.
> In order to avoid this missunderstanding we called our (Polish) part
> of "Wiki Loves Monuments" -"Wiki Lubi Zabytki". Maybe in Macedonian
> there is similar word to Polish "zabytek" ?

Not expert in Macedonian, but I think that you are probably right, as
it seems that nouns are the same in Serbian: "spomenik" is both
particular ("memorial statue") and general word (Belgrade Castle is
also "spomenik"). There is a word "monument", but that one means
something of really big importance (Egyptian pyramids are "monument";
while even Belgrade Castle isn't usually named with that word;
Wikipedia could be called "monument", as well) or for something very
old, usually connected with civilization which doesn't exist anymore
(obelisks could be called "monument").

And, yes, according to Macedonians which I know (including
Wikimedians), there is ongoing "monument/statue rush" in Macedonia.
It's a kind of subcultural kitch movement among richer Macedonians. At
lesser level, it could be seen in the rest of Balkans, as well.