Hello Lodewijk and Charles,
I am now quickly responding after arriving in my hotel. The question whether it is about Wikipedia or about knowledge - I am not sure, but I think that it is a very useful, structuring question.
About „oral traditions“. I don‘t have my books here, but I give you an example what I mean. I remember the case (I hope correctly) from Johannes Fried, Der Schleier der Erinnerung.
There was a territory in Africa, occupied by the British in the 19th century. Shortly after, they wanted to learn more about this territory. There were no history books, but they asked the inhabitants. For example, why is this territory divided in seven provinces. The British got the answer: Once there was a king. He had seven sons. So he divided the territory into seven provinces, each for every son.
Time went by. The British colonial rule changed the administrative division of the territory. They reduced the number of provinces from seven to five. Decades later, in the 20th century, the colonial rule came to an end. Shortly before that, the British asked the inhabitants about the territory again. They got to hear: Once there was a king. He had five sons. So he divided the territory into five provinces.
The human brain and memory, and collective memory, are not unchangeble unlike paper. They adapt. The human brain is not made to record data for historians but to deal with life. You cannot remember everything. When needed, your brain builds up a new story from remembered fragments and tries to keep the new story coherent with present information.
About an „oral traditions“ project outside of Wikipedia: It has been proposed. But it will encounter problems like any other platform for „oral history“. It is a lot of work, it can attract extremists, and you have to make sure that the content is actually usuable for historians or other scientists (e.g., the person speaking must be identified correctly). And, of course, the testimonials have to undergo the same scrutiny as any other historical source. In my experience most scientists prefer to interview people by themselves, under their own conditions, and being the first to use the material.
Kind regards, Ziko
Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org schrieb am Mi. 4. Okt. 2017 um 22:11:
And that is where the broader Wikimedia movement could come in, to provide that pipeline of rigor and reliability, right? I don't know a solution either, but the question for the strategy is not whether we have a solution right now. The question would be whether the movement should work towards finding a solution through our ecosystem (or even beyond), and support that. Maybe at the end of this process, some information may end up on Wikipedia - if the process proves to be reliable enough. And maybe not.
I also agree with the nuance by Charles, that we're talking about many different types of knowledge - some of which may be more suitable than others.
Lodewijk
On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 12:53 PM, Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but if oral tradition is recorded at the academic standard, why
should
we be the first publication venue? Usually these people just publish
books
in academic publishing houses.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 9:51 PM, Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> wrote:
There may be a way to do it on another project designed for the
purpose,
but that cannot be English Wikipedia, and I doubt that any project that allows anonymous editing could manage it credibly. Oral tradition would
at
least have to be sourced to the teller, and would have to be recorded
by
a
reliable and identified recorder, who can be held responsible for their
due
diligence. This would not be an easy thing for a crowdsourced project,
but
anything less would be like a magnet for everything we don't want. Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Chandres Wikipedia Sent: Wednesday, 04 October 2017 9:25 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Strategy] September 28: Strategy update - Final draft of movement direction and endorsement process (#25)
I do not have a perfect solution to introduce oral traditions in
Wikipedia
today, but I’m convince that we need to find a way to do it.
Just to give you an illustration:
Today ,a significative amount of African topics in the Wikipedia in
French
rely only on the work of only few French historian. Without saying they
are
not honest, I find difficult to consider that there words have really
so
more value than the words of the Ancient of the African tribes.
We know for sure than oral tradition will include bias, but do not
forget
that the « traditional western historian work » are not exempt of bias
too.
Charles
PS: IMHO, I find offensive the way you define oral traditions, but it
may
be caused by a misconception from my part.
These are the definition I use for urban legend and oral tradition,
very
different each other I think. urban https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/urban#English legend < https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/legend#English%3E (plural urban legends < https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/urban_legends#English%3E) A widely circulated story https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/story that
is
untrue https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/untrue or apocryphal < https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/apocryphal%3E, often having elements of humour https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/humour or horror < https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/horror%3E. oral https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oral#English tradition < https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tradition#English%3E (countable < https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary#countable%3E and uncountable <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary#
uncountable>,
plural oral traditions https://en.wiktionary.org/ wiki/oral_traditions#English) Cultural https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/culture material
transmitted <
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/transmit%3E orally from one generation < https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/generation%3E to another.
Le 4 oct. 2017 à 21:11, Yaroslav Blanter ymbalt@gmail.com a écrit
:
You might be right, and the goal is indeed to differentiate between them. I just do not see how it could be implemented in practice. A legend is a legend, be it urban or not.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Wed, Oct 4, 2017 at 9:09 PM, Chandres Wikipedia chandres.wp@gmail.com wrote:
to Wikipedia. They might still be a separate WMF project, which is likely to be problematic (since it is really difficult to differentiate between say folk tales and the oral traditions which state that Earth is flat and that all US presidents report to the Zionist Occupational Government),
but
For me, your definition of oral tradition is the one of « urban
legend
».
TO my understanding, oral tradition refer to culture where the History of the tribes/nation/people is transmit only by a spoken way and never put on paper. Am I wrong?
charles
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