Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Fighting the fight

I care deeply about languages. I want all our projects to do well. Occasionaly I do things to help these projects on their way.

Today I was spreading the word about localisation on the Kikongo Wikipedia. Their main page said BALLZ! and I changed it to its previous and proper state. When you check the history, you find more vandalism. Small projects without much of a community suffer a lot of this kind of nonsense.

I find myself a lot on many projects and I realised that if I had the admin flag I would be able to do more. I could apply for the Steward setting, but I am not eager or willing to do all the things that many stewards do; I want to do the odd job that come along on my way. The only reason why I want it is because it makes it easy when I find something that needs doing.

I do not think that I want to stand in a steward election, for me it is too much hassle, too bureacratic. I am afraid that that I do not have the stomach for all the politicking. Asking for admin for all the small projects is a non-starter. With some exceptions, there are no viable communities in any of the 100 some Wikipedias that have less then 1000 articles.. There is nobody there. I still try to get support / interest in helping out in Betawiki. I am an optimist :)
Thanks,
GerardM

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't understand why you and others care about language so much. Could you explain or direct me to a wikimedia or other web page explaining the importance? To me, what people communicate is infinitely more important that how people communicate.

I think language and the many varieties of ways to speak and write are a divider that often hinders effective communication. I think we should move towards a single global language.

One of the reasons I will not donate money to the foundation is because it funds so many different language wikipedia projects. I think it is a waste of time and effort creating all those duplicate articles in a language which is not used by many people. -

GerardM said...

Mijn antwoord op jouw vraag is simpel. Wanneer je geen gemeenschappelijke referentie kader hebt IS er geen communicatie dan maakt het niet uit WAT de boodschap is. Veel mensen spreken, schrijven slechts een taal en die mensen hebben evenzeer recht op alle informatie als de mensen die Engels spreken.

Bovendien zijn het de mensen die om talen geven die het werk doen. Ze nemen niets van jou af, maar jij neemt wel iets van hen af wanneer je hun belang niet onderkent..

PS the Dutch I used is a bit complicated, that was just to frustrate translation engine a bit. So do not expect to get the message as you have not got that message yet either :)
Thanks,
Gerard