(Click on images to see them full-size)
The idea behind EthnoLinks was to build on the Ethnologue database and create a more colorful and social site. Thanks to some database help from my friend, Kevin, I was able to put together a very nice site that allowed you to search for any language in the world and then had a nice group of links.

Everything on the page was generated automatically by the database. This was due in part to the Ethnologue use of the three-letter ISO codes for languages.

The Flickr images were brought in by a WordPress plugin that searched for images tagged with the country and language name.

My original hope had been to transform the comment section into a Facebook style "share a link" function that would automatically generate thumbnails and then use a voting system to allow the best links to rise to the top while inappropriate links would be removed by people with a vested interest in a language or regiion. That proved to be quite difficult and I didn't have the programming resources to make it work.
Once I had the prototype working I showed it to the Ethnologue editor, a long time friend of mine, and asked him to show it around SIL and see what reactions were. He responded with a positive word of encouragement but said that Ethnologue was developing in a different direction.

At the end of the day, I decided to take down the site. It was too big for me to maintain by myself and I wasn't even sure that was the best way to create meaningful links and community. The language codes and names for SIL are often controversial. And the idea of splitting the world up into 7,000 distinct little groups seemed arbitrary. I don't have any specific recommendations for a better system at this time. In fact, I currently favor "no system," that is, allowing people to share information and group together organically.