On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 1:15 AM, Asaf Bartov <abartov(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
0. "because we can" is indeed a very poor
reason to do anything. We are
also probably the only global network that can ensure complete coverage of
all Pokémon characters in 100 languages. That's far from proof that we
should allocate active investment (as distinct from volunteer choices) to
this.
It's easy to miss historical responsibility which one person or group
have. We are living in the present and we often don't realize how
important is what we are doing at the moment.
For few years we already did one historical job, which is about the
biggest encyclopedia in the history of humankind.
There is no software piece, no image of a monument or a beauty of
nature (or numerous things which we are doing at the moment)
comparable to the fact that we can preserve not just languages, but
many cultures.
I know that it's not precisely in our mission, but if we leave the
strict interpretation of our mission, it could pass. There is no one
else to do that and there is no time to wait for another global
movement to do that.
I am not saying that we should start doing things indiscriminately and
move the focus from the free knowledge to the language preservation. I
agree that we should cover first those languages with the most chances
to survive (among them, those with the most chances to have
significant contribution to Wikimedia projects).
The point is that if we don't do that, nobody will. And that's not
because nobody in the future won't be willing to do that, but because
there are maybe ~50 years to do the job. That's not a lot. Wikipedia
is 13 years old and 50 years is around for times more than that. We
are simply living in one specific period and our size and focus are
giving us specific kind of responsibility.