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Sure, but most of the mindshare will still navigate around English. Look at the number of languages for the introduction https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:
by Zababa 5y ago
Sure, but most of the mindshare will still navigate around English. Look at the number of languages for the introduction https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Introduction https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Introduction, and then look at the Tours https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Tours https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Tours. Already here we see a massive reduction in the number of languages. I think that the more specialized the information on Wikifunctions or Wikidata becomes, the fewer language choices there will be. This means it could appeal mostly to bilingual or English native audiences. Programming is already very focused on English. I don't think you can build something for people all over the world if most of the people actually building this thing can all communicate with each other in the same language.
That's one of the moments where diversity in teams is very powerful: if your team is only composed of people that can understand and express themselves in English, the people that can't won't be served well by your product.
Of course you could encode "In this culture, X is Y and in this culture, X is Z", but at this point why not just keep the encyclopedia like it is right now?
- kaba0 5y agoBut now you only have to provide a native language tutorial of wikifunctions instead of recreating all the vast information available in different languages. It is perhaps unfortunate that English is the default medium, but such is life. We can’t really get to do anything together without a common language, but I don’t see how choosing one of the most spoken second languages as common ground is discriminating. It is inclusive to the widest amount of people over not having such a functionality.
- Zababa 5y agoIt's not inclusive, because the idea is to push a unique source of truth on those people rather than let them express their truth in their language.
- yorwba 5y agoThe idea is to provide a unique source of truth that allows everyone to express their truth in their language and have it reflected in all other languages.
- kaba0 5y agoSo you say there is no universal truth? Is the mass of the Sun different between English and Hungarian?
- Zababa 5y agoI think that there are universal truth, I just don't want the distinction between what is an universal truth and what is not to be made by a small team of active Wikipedia contributors. I realize that this is probably already the case, but I think these changes will aggravate that.