On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 5:11 PM, Yusuke Matsubara whym@whym.org wrote:
Perhaps https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Writing_clearly as well?
Perfect, thanks! I had already watchlisted that at some point, but I didn't find it whilst searching. I'll look around later, to see where else that page could be usefully linked from.
On Thu, Jul 7, 2016 at 5:05 AM, Birgit Müller
birgit.mueller@wikimedia.de wrote:
Nick, thanks for sharing! This is really awesome. (Or should I write:
"This
is helpful" to fit into the German stereotype? :D)
Haha! Yes, at Wikimania, various people from a few Northern European countries commented on the habit in some cultures (particularly North American) of frequently using superlatives. The tangential example that I immediately thought of, is the song from The Lego Movie, "Everything Is Awesome".
Link it on Meta: I found
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Best_practices_in_giving_a_Wikipedia_present...
and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Presentations, but both pages seem to
be a
bit outdated/not visited very often.
Might also make sense to link it on the general conference/Hackathon
pages
like
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Hackathons/Hackathon_tips_for_organizers#Comm...
?
I was initially thinking of it more as a guide to clearly-written (and empathetically-read) communication, but yes, presentations are also relevant. Maybe we should just interlink the [[Writing clearly]] page, from one or more of those.
On Thu, Jul 7, 2016 at 12:34 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I have been thinking about what you say. The problem I see is that your attitude is one where you have to be compassionate for the benefit of people for whom English is a second language. [...]
I think I understand what you mean, but I'd suggest that this is a perfect example of what the article is about. You have focused on the word-choice of "compassion", and a specific definition of that word. We could instead, interpret the intent of the author more towards the definition of "empathy" or "consideration". The article could (should! AGF!) instead be more generously interpreted, to be about cross-language communication in general, and to understand that it was simply written by someone who uses English as their primary language hence it approaches the issue from that perspective.
I.e. The same advice all applies if you work/communicate in a group that uses [Japanese] as the primary language, but some of the participants are not native [Japanese] speakers.
So, I'd reword your conclusion, as "we have to be empathetic (or considerate) towards people for whom our native language (whatever that may be) is not their own."
It is tough to consider that it is not so much the words that are used but
it is understanding what points are made
Exactly! :-) We should be careful about spending too much effort arguing about the nuances of word choice, especially in informal discussions (versus drafting a policy or writing code or similar, where word-choice can be crucial!), and instead try to interpret what other people are saying/writing, with an assumption of positive intent.
Hope that helps, Quiddity / Nick