Sunday, June 09, 2013

Thanks for all the fish

Milosh is leaving the movement. It takes me aback. Last time I met him was at the Amsterdam hackathon, we discussed several things that might help our shared dream of more linguistic diversity in the Wikimedia movement.
  • Wikidata is to be opened to any and all languages that are recognised as a language. This includes artificial languages and dead languages. Some people may find it controversial that we consider Wikidata to be a project in its own right and, the connection to Wikipedia incidental.
  • Wikisource should be one project like Commons and Wikidata. It would be best when all the instances of Wikisource are merged. Wikisource as we know it, is very much a workbench. Important is that people know how to use the tools. It makes no difference what language your user interface has, what matters is the language of the text. This can be any language
  • When the work is "done" on Wikisource, it should be advertised, it should be marketed, it should find a public. That is very much something best done OUTSIDE of Wikisource. 
Ah well, these things make sense, they will improve linguistic diversity and they will create an environment that will even stimulate the creation of more Wikipedias. The question is how to find the energy to make this happen.. The Dutch are known for their windmills, just like the Spanish. We will miss Milosh for this fight.
Thanks,
      GerardM

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