Hacking the Good Days...
Aphaia recently reminded us on the translation list that there are users on Wikipedia who would like to raise questions and comments to the Wikimedia foundation, however these users may not speak English. In that case should these Wikipedians be encouraged to post in their languages on the foundation list?
This has been quite an interesting ad hoc question on Wikipedia; with all the people from all around the world working together, languages and internationalization are always two important considerations for policy implementation and actual collaborations. Although there are a bunch of translators on Wikipedia, I have recenly come to sense that the community is quite antagonistic to users who only speaks one language.
With the original idea of the World Wide Web, the Internet was supposed to be a net that covers the world, the main question is, with the heavy reliance on organizational, collective problem-solving that encourages spontaneity and creativity, will Wikipedia be the first to find a model that can overcome the difficulties in internationalizing its content?
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
