Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-10-07/In the media

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• Re: Belarusian Wikipedia manual... worse than Wikipe-tan? Check. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:08, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
  • 4.3 million Belarusian rubles, the crowdfunded amount, is the equivalent of $250 U.S. (Current exchange rate: 17,175 to 1.) -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:09, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
  • And 86% funded already! But seriously, even though the amount is correct and with the up-to-date (official?) exchange rate, there is a question of whether anybody actually uses that exchange rate, e.g. an official rate might just be a number put down every day by the government for how much people can take out of the country, whereas folks who really want to take out money would likely use the Russian ruble/Belorussian ruble grey market, then convert the Russian rubles once they are abroad.

The question of taste on the cover illustration is likely very culturally-sensitive. My feeling is that, like readers of the New York Times fashion mag or riders of the London or Paris metros in the 1970s, this would be pretty tame stuff to most Belorussian readers.

Finally, we should wonder why the Belorussian organization is asking for less than $300 from crowdsourcing when they could likely get that with 2 e-mails to SF? My guess is that, like Russia, Belarus prohibits most funding by international organizations to domestic organizations. They are afraid that the CIA might gain leverage over the local Wikiorgs. Alexander Lukashenko is the last dictator in Europe, and we should all encourage our fellow Wikipedians in Belarus in their activities. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 15:37, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

• Wales was also on Newsnight (October 6, 2015) with similar sentiment. Widefox; talk 22:49, 13 October 2015 (UTC)