[Wikipedia-l] Re: Sample ASL/English entry

[Mark Williamson]

> Mark there are people that have a terabyte in their home computer. Also
> you make it seem that all these articles will miraculously apear. I am
> sure that it will take a long time before we have 10.000 articles in ANY
> of the signed languages. To get there, we need people who are seriously
> committed to the project. So the problem is not what you make it seem.

And who are these people? The last time I checked, the high-end
computers had 80 gigs. Maybe it's up to 100 or 200 now. But I
sincerely doubt a terabyte.

As I noted previously, the Sicilian Wikipedia reached over 2000
quality articles within less than a year of existance. That was with
one dedicated contributor. Now, according to the mysterious HJH, there
are tons and tons of people who can't wait to start building this
bilingual ASL + English Wikipedia. If this is the case, I'd not be
surprised if it reached over 1000 articles within a few weeks or even
a few days, and quickly surpass 10000 as well.

> It is your opinion, yes. But why not have the deaf decide it for
> themselves. We can start a project that does not have the "ideal"
> infrastructure. We have done that before with Commons and we can do it
> again for signed languages. When you make the video for an article in
> multiple parts, eg a paragraph at a time, the article is modularised and
> only those paragraphs are replaced that need replacing. I think there
> are many ways of making it work more easy. I am not going to learn
> signing, but I will also not make the road to the realisation of a
> signed wiki unnecessary complicated by insisting on things I am not
> aware off or that are not for me to decide.

This is not the first time you have assumed things about me which you
have no way of knowing.

Here you assume I'm hearing rather than deaf. What are you making this
assumption based on? You've never even met me. So stop assuming I'm a
hearing person.

And then, you say "insisting on things I am not aware of" -- what is
it here that I'm in over my head on? I knew that ASL was used in
places other than the US and Canada, when even Mr HJH didn't. I knew
about sign-synthesis programs based on autonomous signed languages
entry rather than machine translation, when he didn't.

Now, I agree that there are ways of making it easier. But sign
synthesis is certainly one of them. It saves heaps of space and
bandwidth, and you told me deaf people don't like it -- are you deaf
or HoH?

I can live with sign or speech synthesis if it saves that much
bandwidth. It's not nessecarily pleasant or perfect, but systems are
being improved, and again, if it saves that much resources, I'm
certainly willing to make the sacrifice.

You say earlier (in different wording of course) that people with
lower-end computers can go screw themselves... well, then, why can't
people not willing to tolerate sign synthesis just go screw
themselves???

> Well Mark, let us cross this bridge when we meet it. The difference is
> that people ARE asking for ASL.

Perhaps what you're not understanding here is that that was an analogy
rather than a completely unrelated question that I asked for no
reason. Why should ASL be tied to enwiki? It deserves an independent
Wikipedia, despite your continued insistence to the contrary.

Mark