On 11/29/08, Andrew Turvey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > michael west said: > >>> A board seat for a representative of indigenous non English speakers >>> would Ipresume only represent a member of the Celtic language speakers. >>> The facts are that non-indigenous people who contribute to the WMF who >>> speak languagesat 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.
Here, here. I'm not saying that you should turn away or 'forward' German-speaking UK residents, for obviously if I move to the UK (which is not altogether unlikely and depends on 3*20 minutes in mid-december), I'd join and participate in the UK chapter as well, it being not viable to go to Switzerland for many chapter events/projects. However, it is unreasonable for the UK chapter to publish, say, leaflets about Wikipedia in German, there being three chapters who can and should do this. Same for French, Italian etc. Michael >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 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: [email protected] > 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? > > > -- Michael Bimmler [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l
