Re: Election Rules (non-english speakers)
Mickey Conn <mickey.conn <at> gmail.com>
2008-12-01 12:23:08 GMT
I am very interested to see the discussion on the representation of
minority languages. The last board meeting agreed a text to go out to
Wikimedia projects in other languages used in the UK
(http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Languages) and I
have now started making contact (initially with minority languages
native to the UK, but I also plan to contact projects in other
languages widely used in the UK.
With luck, we will receive some interest and be able to open a
discussion with participants in these projects on what sort of
relationship they would like with Wikimedia UK, and what formal
structures, if any, we should be looking at putting in place.
Best Wishes
Mickey Conn
On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 10:42 PM, Michael Peel <email <at> mikepeel.net> wrote:
> What advantage is there to requiring minority languages to be
> represented on the board? I would be very surprised if that were
> required to obtain funds to support minority languages (although
> obviously we would need a way to carry out that support...). As and
> when we have members who speak minority languages, and if they want
> to be on the board, why should they not go through the standard
> process? What would we do if we did have reserved seats but no-one to
> fill them?
>
> I can understand positive bias to counteract a negative one, but I
> don't agree with it - either way, it's still a bias.
>
> Also, we are far from being a Wikipedia/Wikimedia London at present,
> and I would be very surprised if we ever turned into that.
>
> Mike
>
> On 29 Nov 2008, at 21:54, Andrew Turvey wrote:
>
>> michael west said:
>>
>> >> A board seat for a representative of indigenous non English
>> speakers would I presume only represent a member of the Celtic
>> language speakers. The facts are that non-indigenous people who
>> contribute to the WMF who speak languages at home or in prayer
>> outweigh those whose languages are official languages of the UK. It
>> just seems bizarre.
>>
>> The reason why I think Wikimedia UK should focus more on, say,
>> Sottish Gaelic with its 50,000 speakers than, say German, with its
>> 500,000 speakers in the UK, is that we already have a German
>> chapter which can promote German language projects. We are the only
>> chapter which could ever promote Scottish Gaelic, and, as I said
>> before, we may be able to unlock public funds in order to do so. I
>> don't remotely agree that this is racist.
>>
>> There is clearly a danger that Wikimedia UK will end up just being
>> Wikipedia London; recognising the diversity of UK Wikimedians -
>> across projects, languages and the constituent countries, would I
>> think be a positive step.
>>
>> My suggestion of 2 had in mind a board of around seven. Of course
>> it would be fewer if there were fewer board seats.
>>
>> From: Andrew Turvey <raturvey <at> yahoo.co.uk>
>> To: wikimediauk-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org
>> Sent: Saturday, 29 November, 2008 0:40:35
>> Subject: Re: Election Rules (non-english speakers)
>>
>> Q5: Is there any way that you think the election should be run
>> differently to the election of the interim Board?
>>
>> I wanted to answer one of the questions I put with a suggestion
>> regarding minority languages.
>>
>> Most of the people active in Wikimedia UK seem to be active in the
>> english Wikimedia projects. However, there are some other smaller
>> Wikimedia languages where UK editors form a vital part of the
>> editing and readorship base. I'm thinking particularly of the
>> native languages of the UK such as Welsh, Scottish Gaelic and maybe
>> Irish, Scots/Ullans, Cornish, Manx etc.
>>
>> As well as recognised the diversity of the Wikimedia community,
>> there are also significant public funds available for promoting
>> these languages which could be used by us to support these projects.
>>
>> The Board has already reached out to these projects by asking if
>> the newsletter could be translated into these languages. My
>> suggestion is we set aside two reserved seats on the Board for
>> people who actively contribute to at lease one wikimedia project in
>> a minority language of the UK.
>>
>> What do you think?
>>
>>
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>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK
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>
>
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For other times I shall enquire.
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