On 19/10/2012 11:42, Elena ``of Valhalla'' wrote:
On 2012-10-19 at 10:36:40 +0200, Jean-Marc Liotier wrote:
That is why intermediaries are needed - and why the English speakers must learn
to accept the need for international intermediation.
who are these English speakers?
They are you and me - and everyone on talk@osm. To us, using English as
a working language comes naturally - both of us probably interact daily
with foreigners in both our personal and professional lives. But don't
mistake us for the average French or the average Italian - go on the
street and speak English to random people, even in cosmopolitan Paris...
The results will be disappointing.
The mere fact that we give the time and the energy to enter this debate
is a sign that we are not a random sample of the local contributors. We
make ourselves visible, but we are a minority. You will never read
messages here from the masses of local contributors for whom English is
alien. They are the one who have the local knowledge, they are the
majority and they are the ones who must feel at ease in the project so
that everyone can benefit from their contributions. If we make
Openstreetmap a playground for an internationalist technocratic elite,
we lose them. It works well for the Linux kernel where success and the
greater good are correlated to elitist technocratic values - but
Openstreetmap is different because global success depends on local roots.
Reaching out to those strange people is not optional.
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