[Wikimedia-l] Global East

[Fred Bauder]

A nationalist point of view is not neutral point of view. I can imagine
what the dictator of Kazakstan considers a suitable article.

Fred

> Yesterday Yuri, ED of WMUA (and my college in FDC) was interviewed in
> the main morning program on Swedish Radio re the ua.wp contra ru:wp in
> Ukraine and of Kazak WIkipedia
>
> The 8 minutes report is half in Swedish and half in English so a bit
> hard to listen to [1]
>
> The most interesting parts are
> *The Kazak dictator is making all academics in this country to update
> the Kazan version of Wikipedia, perhaps to get it POV but mostly so they
> will not be dependent of ru:wp, ie he sees it as a must to have a decent
> Wikipedia version in order to be independent of the culture from Russia
> *In Ukraine the former education minister (pro eu and pro Ukrainian
> language) actively promoted the ua:wp so not be dependent on ru:wp. The
> current minister have the opposite idea and has made Russian  an
> official second language in the eastern part of Ukraine
> *It seems the university students make it as almost a political choice
> if to use ua:wp or ru:wp, and then in western Ukraine choose ua:wp
>
> The central role of Wikipedia in theses vital political issues I have
> not heard of from our ordinary "western" chapters/language versions (or
> is catalonian/Amical an example)
>
> And reflecting on this, I also think, even if independent,  of the
> dramatic increase of use of arabic and indonesian wikipedia [2] . Also
> of Vietnamese wikipedia which has a tremendous increase in number of
> article  by intellegent use of bots. Also of the very interesting
> development in India, with their many different language versions.
>
> We here very little (nothing?) from these interesting developments,
> where we all probably can have a lot to learn
>
> Asaf talks of the problem of getting Global South started as there are
> very weak/missing wp communities. But are we as a movement doing enough
> to support the active communities and developments in the Global East?
> (I can not help also think of Sues words re elections within the
> movement. Do these processes conserve our existing dominance in Board
> and groups of representatives coming from western world?)
>
> Anders
>
>
> [1]
> http://sverigesradio.se/api/radio/radio.aspx?type=db&id=4725418&codingformat=.m4a&metafile=asx
> [2] http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthlyCombined.htmtic
> increase of use of arabic wikipedia
>
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