[Wikipedia-l] Re: Re: Re: new request for ASL/English wikipedia (Neil Harris)

[Andre Engels]

On 9/10/05, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:

> Where does it say in the goals of the WMF that everything is to be text
> based? It says that we are "dedicated to encouraging the growth,
> development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to
> providing the full content of these wiki-based projects to the public
> free of charge." Not even the Wiki principles make it compulsary to be
> text based.

No, but the Wiki principles do make it compulsory to be easily edited.
The only alternative for text-based that anyone has brought forward is
to use videos of people signing. Using that method would mean that one
would have to re-sign the whole article each time one would want to
correct a small error. Not to mention that it is a highly
non-standardized system. It would be comparable to a system of having
a Wikipedia consisting completely of scans of hand-written articles,
or of sound files.

> >If we allow an ASL wiki, then how can we say no to an Auslan wiki,
> >a Gestuno wiki, an ISL wiki, etc.
> 
> This question is completely wrong. It suggests that ASL is more than any
> of the other sign languages. Languages that are as destinct as German
> from English.

How does it suggest that? I would say it suggests exactly the
opposite. If ASL were indeed "more" than other sign languages, then it
would not be strange to include ASL, but exclude the others. Exactly
because it is not more, nor less, allowing one sign language would
imply allowing many.

> There are people who want wikipedias in sign languages. They will have
> to overcome many organisational and technical problems before they will
> see a functional project. The insistence that it needs to be written is
> fundamentally wrong; if you were to insist that wiki principles need to
> be adhered to, it would be more compatible with what we aim to be.

The one implies the other, in my opinion. Craig is showing a problem.
You answer "There will be problems to overcome, but that's no reason
not to do it." It would be much more helpful to give an indication of
HOW those problems might be overcome, rather than shooting the
messenger.

Andre Engels