[Foundation-l] MENA Education Program?

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
For reasons that are not in line with the policies of the language
committee, the board has refused to allow new projects in any of the Arabic
languages. The Language policy allows for this; the WMF board will decide
if it will allow a new project when there are issues, any issues. The
insistence on one Arabic language is not based in fact. The ISO standard
explicitly recognises them.

The Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia is doing relatively well and shows that there
is room for linguistic diversity for multiple Arabic languages.
Thanks,
      GerardM

PS It is my personal opinion that there is room for the many languages that
are used in the Arabic world

On Wednesday, 16 November 2011, aude wrote:

> On Nov 16, 2011, at 3:04 AM, Keegan Peterzell <keegan.wiki at gmail.com<javascript:;>
> >
> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 1:39 AM, Barry Newstead <bnewstead at wikimedia.org<javascript:;>
> > >wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Katie,
> >> Just to build on Moushira's response to tackle your questions a bit
> >> further.
>
>
> Thank you Moushira and Barry for the replies.
>
> I won't give a full reply just yet, since I am typing on my phone...v
> except for some reply to Keegan now
>
> >>
> >> On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 5:26 AM, aude <aude.wiki at gmail.com<javascript:;>>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Erik, Sue, Frank, et al,
> >>>
> >>> Can you please say more about the plans for a Middle East education
> >>> program? (yes I have read notes from the recent trip on outreach
> >>> wiki)
> >>>
> >>> What is the timeframe? Who is going to run it? Will you establish a
> >>> "trust" there? Where will the office be?
> >>>
> >>
> >> We are planning a pilot in Cairo, but have not yet firmed up the
> >> details.
> >> Frank, Annie and Moushira will spend a week in Cairo in December to
> >> investigate the opportunity further and see when it would make
> >> sense to run
> >> a small pilot.  We are hoping for February, but want to make sure the
> >> conditions are right for success.
> >>
> >>>
> >>> If the program is to be duplicated, I certainly hope there are not
> >>> the
> >>> same issues with quality, as has happened in Pune.  What lessons
> >>> have
> >>> you learned and what will you do differently?
> >>>
> >>
> >> We do not plan on duplicating the Pune experience. For one, we want
> >> to do a
> >> much smaller pilot. We also want to dig into questions regarding
> >> copyright
> >> and student writing ability in Arabic before we start the pilot.
> >> Nitika
> >> has captured a series of lessons on the pilot [1] and we are doing
> >> further
> >> detailed evaluation work to ensure we mine the pilot fully.
> >>
> >>>
> >>> Knowing that there is quite a backlog, last time I checked, with
> >>> pending changes on Arabic Wikipedia, I am very concerned for the
> >>> ability of volunteers there to handle a massive influx of new
> >>> content.
> >>>
> >>
> >> This is a concern we share...and we discussed this with the community
> >> members in Doha as Moushira mentioned.  No easy solutions here and
> >> we'll
> >> need to innovate.
> >
> >
> > Forgive me if I've missed something, I don't have time in the day to
> > follow
> > all the links I'm provided in emails.
> >
> > Why exactly are we focusing on the Arabic Wikipedia and not localized
> > dialects and languages?
>
> Yes there are dialects, and if you want to call it a dialect, yes
> there is the Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia which is mostly spoken and not
> necessarily written.  Arabic Wikipedia is appropriate here for the
> education project.
>
> >
> > Relying on a group to tutor as well as maintain a website doesn't
> > work very
> > well when we branch from an internet forum to an encyclopedia.  The
> > Public
> > Policy Initiative team did an amazing job in setting up standards for
> > education programs and has expanded well in North America and the UK
> > and
> > will continue to grow.  Growth means learning, and I think that we
> > learned
> > from the India project on the English Wikipedia that international
> > projects
> > need a bit more time and structure before we dive into creating
> > content.
> >
> > The west has a nasty habit of considering every Middle East country
> > as just
> > speaking Arabic with little regard to Semetic languages.  I believe
> > there
> > is a reason that the Arabic Wikipedia is vastly underused, staffed,
> > and
> > content: people like writing in their native language.
>
> Actually a lot of people (as with India) in Egypt and other places
> edit English Wikipedia. (about 50% edits to English / 50% to Arabic)
>
> Cheers,
> Katie
>
>
>
> >  The Indian project
> > is a different matter- I'd say the exception to the rule.  I can
> > understand
> > Egypt and a couple other countries being interested in the Arabic
> > project,
> > but in my amateur opinion such an undertaking by the WMF's education
> > program should hold off for a bit until there's a solid community to
> > help.
> > We can't use wikis and Wikimedia projects as educational tools without
> > guidance from a solid community.
> >
> > Again, just my opinion as someone keenly following the use of
> > Wikimedia for
> > education.  I hope the best for the MENA project.  Annie, Frank,
> > Moushira,
> > any others involved I'm more than happy to help if needed.
> >
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > ~Keegan
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Keegan
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