[Wikimedia-l] conversations between WMF and non-English projects

[Thomas Dalton]

On 29 July 2012 22:48, Steven Walling <steven.walling at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 2:39 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> While I may not be involved in the Portuguese Wikipedia, I do have a
>> masters degree in mathematics, so I can reliably inform you that
>> "majority" is not the same as "all".
>>
>> The WMF tends to employ smart people, so I assume that whoever wrote
>> that bit of the plan knew that that wasn't the most accurate way of
>> describing the activity. So, my question to you is: why did they
>> describe it that way? Why say "Portuguese Wikipedia’s top
>> contributors" when "a selection of Wikipedians in Brazil" would have
>> been far more accurate?
>>
>
> You're making a mountain out of a mole hill here, Thomas. Perhaps the
> caveat "some of" should be added to "Portuguese Wikipedia's top
> contributors", but the current statement is more accurate than the one you
> proposed, given the state of Pt Wikipedia and who came to our meetups.

This is not a mole hill. It is the WMF (I assume intentionally, since
you must have known better) misleading people about its activities.
You had a particular message you wanted to give, so you described the
activity in a way that supported that message even though that was not
an accurate description.

Your description is certainly not more accurate that mine, given that
mine is 100% accurate...