Hi,
My concern about a list of 20 articles is that it will look far too intimidating, and many volunteers will just decide not to get involved. But if others think it's OK I'll go along with it. I'll probably draw up the list with Singapore featured articles and good articles first.
When we've decided the above issue, could someone please draft a short message explaining the purpose of the programme and how it's supposed to work? There should also be an invitation to, and instructions on how to, join this mailing list. That message can then (after translation, if necessary) be posted on WikiProject or other suitable talk pages to explain to volunteers who were not at Wikimania what the proposal is all about and how to participate.
Cheers, Jack (User:Smuconlaw)
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Message: 2 Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2013 07:51:27 +0800 From: Josh Lim jamesjoshualim@yahoo.com To: Asian Wikimedia Chapters coordination wikimedia-asia-chapters@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-asia-chapters] Wikipedia Cultural Exchange Programme
Hi Taweetham,
On Aug 13, 2013, at 5:44 AM, KaewWiki@gmail.com wrote:
'ambitious' or not?
I think it depends on the resource we have and when we want to achieve that. The initial email by Josh has indicated only what we want to achieve.
- In Thailand, we have a number of volunteers capable of translation
from EN->TH but relatively smaller number on TH->EN.
- In English speaking countries, it is much easier. Perhaps, they
could help other non-English speaking countries on translation into English?
We agreed in Hong Kong that English Wikipedia editors who are certainly more fluent in English than the rest of us will help clean up our translations and copy-edit participating articles. If, let's say, someone from Thailand were to translate a participating article from Thai to English, he/she shouldn't have to worry about how poor his/her English is, as there is a guarantee someone else will clean it up for him/her.
The number of articles shouldn't be an issue here: we don't have to go through all 20 of them (or more, should countries make longer lists) in three months. The point is that we have a reasonable timeframe upon which we complete the lists, and add onto them if need be should we decide to expand upon this project in the future.
In principle, this project should be warmly welcome by readers in many countries. In Thailand, the AEC - "Asian Economic Community" is discussed everywhere. Also, there was a big announcement about "Australia in the Asian Century" - http://asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au I can see high demand from the reader side. However, many of our contributors still do not take it into account.
Exactly why we are doing this now (and why we should do this now): we talk about the integration of the continent on so many levels, and we both know that the creation of the ASEAN economic community come 2015 is a big thing in Southeast Asia. However, I agree with you that many contributors in Asia are still looking at Wikipedia from a national point of view, and the integrationist rhetoric that we hear here in Asia has largely bypassed the Wikimedia projects. While not bad, it neglects the fact that there is a community outside of the country in question, and perhaps this project will help connect the continent together in some form.
Regards,
Josh
JAMES JOSHUA G. LIM Block I1, AB Political Science Major in Global Politics, Minor in Chinese Studies Class of 2013, Ateneo de Manila University Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
Secretary (2013-2014), Wikimedia Philippines Member, Ateneo Debate Society Member, The Assembly
jamesjoshualim@yahoo.com | +63 (917) 841-5235 Facebook/Twitter: akiestar | Wikimedia: Sky Harbor http://akira123323.livejournal.com