To avoid further disrupting discussion of interlanguage links and usability, I'll address the cultural problems separately now. I must admit, though, that in a discussion where we seemed to have agreed (rightfully so) that a 1% click rate was significant enough to warrant serious consideration, I was disappointed that someone could then be so callous about the need for cultural sensitivity because it most directly impacts "only 0.55% of the world population" in this case. There is no meaningful difference in order of magnitude there.
We have significant distortions in the makeup of our community that affect our culture. There are quite a few groups that are seriously underrepresented, in part because our culture comes across as unfriendly to them at best. I talked about African-Americans because it's what was applicable in that particular situation and I happen to have some familiarity with the issues. It could just as well have been Australian Aborigines or another cultural group that has issues with our community. I'm not as prepared to explain those concerns, but I would welcome people who can educate us about such problems. It's legitimate to be wary of things that promote American cultural hegemony, which is another distortion, but that's not really warranted when the concern relates to a minority culture in the US.
Some people seem to have gotten hung up on the issue of intent. I didn't say there was any intent, by the community or individuals, to exclude certain groups or to create a hostile environment for them. I actually tried to be as careful as possible not to say that. The point is that even in the absence of intent, it's possible for our culture to appear hostile to such groups. We didn't have any intent to be hostile toward living people, either, yet we've had a long struggle to cope with the consequences of that impression created by our culture.
Consider the principle of not "biting" newcomers, which relates to a similar problem. It's not about the intent of the person doing the "biting", it's about the impact on those who encounter it. We need to be more welcoming to people, and striving for more cultural awareness is part of that.
--Michael Snow
True, but it reminded me on the time English Wikipedia sanctioned non-latin script usernames and blocked them indefinitely and forced them to rename for months. At that time many English Wikipedia sysops supported this idea and much more of them were indifferent. If I recall correctly, no board member offered any complaint on that as you stated now.
I think I can understand your frustration but still I feel it overreaction. I need to say unconcious Anglocentric hegemony on Wikimedia project is sometimes irritating, not only the recent suppression of "other language" links, and English speaking people should be much more aware of that, rest their complaints won't be listened to, even in case it is valid by itself, like in this case.
Cheers,
On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 8:21 AM, Michael Snow wikipedia@verizon.net wrote:
To avoid further disrupting discussion of interlanguage links and usability, I'll address the cultural problems separately now. I must admit, though, that in a discussion where we seemed to have agreed (rightfully so) that a 1% click rate was significant enough to warrant serious consideration, I was disappointed that someone could then be so callous about the need for cultural sensitivity because it most directly impacts "only 0.55% of the world population" in this case. There is no meaningful difference in order of magnitude there.
We have significant distortions in the makeup of our community that affect our culture. There are quite a few groups that are seriously underrepresented, in part because our culture comes across as unfriendly to them at best. I talked about African-Americans because it's what was applicable in that particular situation and I happen to have some familiarity with the issues. It could just as well have been Australian Aborigines or another cultural group that has issues with our community. I'm not as prepared to explain those concerns, but I would welcome people who can educate us about such problems. It's legitimate to be wary of things that promote American cultural hegemony, which is another distortion, but that's not really warranted when the concern relates to a minority culture in the US.
Some people seem to have gotten hung up on the issue of intent. I didn't say there was any intent, by the community or individuals, to exclude certain groups or to create a hostile environment for them. I actually tried to be as careful as possible not to say that. The point is that even in the absence of intent, it's possible for our culture to appear hostile to such groups. We didn't have any intent to be hostile toward living people, either, yet we've had a long struggle to cope with the consequences of that impression created by our culture.
Consider the principle of not "biting" newcomers, which relates to a similar problem. It's not about the intent of the person doing the "biting", it's about the impact on those who encounter it. We need to be more welcoming to people, and striving for more cultural awareness is part of that.
--Michael Snow
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On 6/7/2010 5:25 PM, Aphaia wrote:
True, but it reminded me on the time English Wikipedia sanctioned non-latin script usernames and blocked them indefinitely and forced them to rename for months. At that time many English Wikipedia sysops supported this idea and much more of them were indifferent. If I recall correctly, no board member offered any complaint on that as you stated now.
That's before I joined the board, but actually Florence, who was chair of the board then, definitely did speak up on that issue at the time. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-December/059034.html
I think I can understand your frustration but still I feel it overreaction. I need to say unconcious Anglocentric hegemony on Wikimedia project is sometimes irritating, not only the recent suppression of "other language" links, and English speaking people should be much more aware of that, rest their complaints won't be listened to, even in case it is valid by itself, like in this case.
The specific case here isn't so much the issue, it's an example to illustrate the larger concern about how we make our culture insular and closed, such that the environment seems hostile to others. Certainly English-speaking people are as responsible for that as any other part of our community, if not more, as your example illustrates. But given the seriousness implications this has for the overall health of our community in the long term, I don't think it's an overreaction to want to address it.
--Michael Snow
Native Americans used to compare European Americans to spiders.
http://www.native-languages.org/cheyenne-legends.htm
That referred to our quick adaptive nature that was not rooted in tradition. We seem to be very clever and good at things, but not committed to anything. I think the problem has probably grown much worse as the broad spectrum of our activities impacts traditional societies. Not only is our music different, but there is a hundred kinds of it; likewise our other cultural artifacts.
I suspect users from many cultures do better in an environment that is sheltered from the full impact of Western culture.
Fred Bauder
To avoid further disrupting discussion of interlanguage links and usability, I'll address the cultural problems separately now. I must admit, though, that in a discussion where we seemed to have agreed (rightfully so) that a 1% click rate was significant enough to warrant serious consideration, I was disappointed that someone could then be so callous about the need for cultural sensitivity because it most directly impacts "only 0.55% of the world population" in this case. There is no meaningful difference in order of magnitude there.
We have significant distortions in the makeup of our community that affect our culture. There are quite a few groups that are seriously underrepresented, in part because our culture comes across as unfriendly to them at best. I talked about African-Americans because it's what was applicable in that particular situation and I happen to have some familiarity with the issues. It could just as well have been Australian Aborigines or another cultural group that has issues with our community. I'm not as prepared to explain those concerns, but I would welcome people who can educate us about such problems. It's legitimate to be wary of things that promote American cultural hegemony, which is another distortion, but that's not really warranted when the concern relates to a minority culture in the US.
Some people seem to have gotten hung up on the issue of intent. I didn't say there was any intent, by the community or individuals, to exclude certain groups or to create a hostile environment for them. I actually tried to be as careful as possible not to say that. The point is that even in the absence of intent, it's possible for our culture to appear hostile to such groups. We didn't have any intent to be hostile toward living people, either, yet we've had a long struggle to cope with the consequences of that impression created by our culture.
Consider the principle of not "biting" newcomers, which relates to a similar problem. It's not about the intent of the person doing the "biting", it's about the impact on those who encounter it. We need to be more welcoming to people, and striving for more cultural awareness is part of that.
--Michael Snow
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
I was sent this. I don't know what to do of it.
* * *
"Due to a large amount of spam, emails from non-members of this list are now automatically rejected. If you have a valuable contribution to the list but would rather not subscribe to it, please send an email to foundation-l-owner@lists.wikimedia.org and we will forward your post to the list. Please be aware that all messages to this list are archived and viewable for the public. If you have a confidential communication to make, please rather email info@wikimedia.org
Thank you."
Please forward my message to the public.
Cyrano, back earlier
Message follows:
However we could encourage donations by having a static page that is
part of the UI of each project that prominently lists everyone who has donated to WMF. e.g.
-- John Vandenberg
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Forgive me if I enter this conversation without reading the last hundreds of mails, but I see we are talking about 'sponsorship, yes or no ?' here.
A recurrent question my good sirs. Who is pushing it this time? Who is expecting a lot of money from it? Because there is a lot of money to make from the 6th site of the world. Did the foundation explained it to you? Do we have a problem with the current fund raising model and campaign. Do we have big sudden urgent monetary need?
I thought we didn't.
I thought that Wikipedia and Wikimedia were non-profit projects. So why are we even discussing sponsorship? Have we any financial problem? Do we want to allow rich organizations to start casting their monetary vote into what we should do? Shouldn't we remain stoically independent by receiving only voluntary donations and voluntary efforts from good wills guided by universal principles?
Is there a consensus from the Foundation about this? I'd like a quick and honest answer from each of the member. Is it acceptable to accept money from organizations like Virgins which pursues lucre before "free knowledge for anybody"?
I firmly vote no until I have a full understanding of the financial need of risking the financial autonomy of wikimedian projects.
And I'm quite alarmed to be discussing this.
Cyrano, back from the moon. - --------
PD: Will the next step be signing contracts where we allow Virgins to say "buy the last cd of [insert star name here] and support Wikipedia!" "Yes! Virgin supports Wikipedia! Virgin loves knowledge. Virgins thinks, with a tear in the eyes, that any kid should have the right to education, damn it!. Virgin is your friend, see? So each time you buy a CD, Virgins "Unite" (we though at first Virgins IsYourFriend but we we're told we were too obvious) gives one cent to the big encyclopedia online that everybody shares! See? Look at our logo on their site! LOOK AT IT MY SWEET CHILD, AND BUY MY PRODUCTS!
Oh boy, I can't wait too see it in its full splendor now that we catched the tail of the devil.
Michael Snow wrote:
To avoid further disrupting discussion of interlanguage links and usability, I'll address the cultural problems separately now. I must admit, though, that in a discussion where we seemed to have agreed (rightfully so) that a 1% click rate was significant enough to warrant serious consideration, I was disappointed that someone could then be so callous about the need for cultural sensitivity because it most directly impacts "only 0.55% of the world population" in this case. There is no meaningful difference in order of magnitude there.
While the part of your message I callously cut off below, was very good and valuable, coming from a chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, the above paragraph really does merit taking into task of.
Considering that I really thought you were a person who edited regularly, I genuinely thought you couldn't be blinded by stats.
Apparently not so.
Click through is almost irrelevant in this particular instance, and anyone who regularly actually uses interwikis, would tell you so.
_We *glance* at the intewiki sidebar, and evaluate things on that basis, many times a day, without ever clicking._ When the bar is collapsed, and we seek an infobox, or more otherwise formatted generic information on a particular subject, and we click to see if it is available on a different language (personally I do so very often with regard to French films), we feel like fools "haha, made you look".
I'll keep coming back to the institutional issues that have been laid so bare here, until they are fixed. Sorry.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Michael Snow wrote:
To avoid further disrupting discussion of interlanguage links and usability, I'll address the cultural problems separately now. I must admit, though, that in a discussion where we seemed to have agreed (rightfully so) that a 1% click rate was significant enough to warrant serious consideration, I was disappointed that someone could then be so callous about the need for cultural sensitivity because it most directly impacts "only 0.55% of the world population" in this case. There is no meaningful difference in order of magnitude there.
I at least agree that it warrants a new thread.
We have significant distortions in the makeup of our community that affect our culture. There are quite a few groups that are seriously underrepresented, in part because our culture comes across as unfriendly to them at best. I talked about African-Americans because it's what was applicable in that particular situation and I happen to have some familiarity with the issues. It could just as well have been Australian Aborigines or another cultural group that has issues with our community. I'm not as prepared to explain those concerns, but I would welcome people who can educate us about such problems. It's legitimate to be wary of things that promote American cultural hegemony, which is another distortion, but that's not really warranted when the concern relates to a minority culture in the US.
I would agree that the use of the word "lynch" was unfortunate because of the suggestion that anyone should be hanged. Cultural sensitivity allowed for me to grasp that the use was metaphorical, and not literal. Using that choice of words by a person who is not from the United States as an excuse to play the American race card can only exacerbate the problem. I would expect that the language is strong enough to withstand attacks by the connotational flavour of the month. Have you forgotten that in its origin Lynch's Law was applied more to those Virginia residents whose loyalty to the Revolution left something to be desired. Slavery and race relations had nothing to do with it.
Caution in avoiding offence with one's words must be coupled with a willingness to avoid seeing offence in the words of others. One needs to begin from the assumption that a word is being used in its most ordinary sense. Just like "gay" is not restricted by modern homosexual connotations, so too "lynch" must not be narrowly interpreted in the context of the African-American experience. There is no need to impose modern American connotations on one's words.
Some people seem to have gotten hung up on the issue of intent. I didn't say there was any intent, by the community or individuals, to exclude certain groups or to create a hostile environment for them. I actually tried to be as careful as possible not to say that. The point is that even in the absence of intent, it's possible for our culture to appear hostile to such groups. We didn't have any intent to be hostile toward living people, either, yet we've had a long struggle to cope with the consequences of that impression created by our culture.
I am willing to accept the premise that African-Americans are underrepresented among Wikipedia, but I am not willing to jump to the speculative conclusion that this is almost entirely attributed to our choice of words. The pusillanimity of political correctness will not resolve disproportionate representation.
Consider the principle of not "biting" newcomers, which relates to a similar problem. It's not about the intent of the person doing the "biting", it's about the impact on those who encounter it. We need to be more welcoming to people, and striving for more cultural awareness is part of that.
It will take more than platitudes to solve that problem. Sometimes we need to apply a little dinkum oil to a problem, at other times we need to value a person's single contribution.
Ray Saintonge wrote:
Caution in avoiding offence with one's words must be coupled with a willingness to avoid seeing offence in the words of others. One needs to begin from the assumption that a word is being used in its most ordinary sense. Just like "gay" is not restricted by modern homosexual connotations, so too "lynch" must not be narrowly interpreted in the context of the African-American experience. There is no need to impose modern American connotations on one's words.
Just so. I was mightily amused, with no wish to cause offence, recently when presented with a piece of text wherein the young Abraham Lincoln was described by the ladies as "very gay", and for that reason being in demand amongst their soirees. Context is king, emancipated or not.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Dear Michael,
on one side, thank you for bringing this up - I had for example no idea of this interpretation, and couldn't even have imagined it probably.
On a more general note, how do you think this problem could be approached? I assume that you can understand that someone uses a word in a different meaning than the one you brought up, and this is something that is happening all the time of course - I have experienced it several times. Translating or writing in a non-native language can be a tricky thing (For example, calling someone "black" would be considered highly offensive in the Netherlands, where negroid is apparently offensive in the US), but even within one language there can be different interpretations. Do you see a way that people can consider this? Do you see here a task for the writer, or rather a message for the reader of messages that there might be another meaning in it than the offensive one you might read at first?
About the underrepresentation - yes, almost every single group is underrepresented besides the 1) white, middle aged single men, 2) pubers&adolescent boys, 3) people with all kinds of disorders. Women, black people, lower educated people, inuit, seniors, children<10y and many other groups are underrepresented for even more different reasons. My understanding has never been that this is because there are misinterpretations of what people say - rather the harshness with which we discuss sometimes, especially when newbees do something "wrong", seems to scare people away. Rather the complicated community structure, the huge amounts of regulations etc - although I'm confident that the strategy team has done more research into this and can come up with more solid data and causes.
So although I do agree that we should be careful with cultural differences, I do not think that we can avoid possible "lynching"-issues (as in, how the word is used) because we can't expect everybody to be have a major in English. I think it is rather likely that these offenses are actually more often the other way around, where non-natives consider something as offensive, but will not speak up about it. Not so much because Americans or Brits are so harsh (well, some are) but because of the numbers - there are numerous more cultures compared to the few that have English as a native tongue.
Lodewijk
2010/6/8 Michael Snow wikipedia@verizon.net
To avoid further disrupting discussion of interlanguage links and usability, I'll address the cultural problems separately now. I must admit, though, that in a discussion where we seemed to have agreed (rightfully so) that a 1% click rate was significant enough to warrant serious consideration, I was disappointed that someone could then be so callous about the need for cultural sensitivity because it most directly impacts "only 0.55% of the world population" in this case. There is no meaningful difference in order of magnitude there.
We have significant distortions in the makeup of our community that affect our culture. There are quite a few groups that are seriously underrepresented, in part because our culture comes across as unfriendly to them at best. I talked about African-Americans because it's what was applicable in that particular situation and I happen to have some familiarity with the issues. It could just as well have been Australian Aborigines or another cultural group that has issues with our community. I'm not as prepared to explain those concerns, but I would welcome people who can educate us about such problems. It's legitimate to be wary of things that promote American cultural hegemony, which is another distortion, but that's not really warranted when the concern relates to a minority culture in the US.
Some people seem to have gotten hung up on the issue of intent. I didn't say there was any intent, by the community or individuals, to exclude certain groups or to create a hostile environment for them. I actually tried to be as careful as possible not to say that. The point is that even in the absence of intent, it's possible for our culture to appear hostile to such groups. We didn't have any intent to be hostile toward living people, either, yet we've had a long struggle to cope with the consequences of that impression created by our culture.
Consider the principle of not "biting" newcomers, which relates to a similar problem. It's not about the intent of the person doing the "biting", it's about the impact on those who encounter it. We need to be more welcoming to people, and striving for more cultural awareness is part of that.
--Michael Snow
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 9:30 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
Dear Michael,
on one side, thank you for bringing this up - I had for example no idea of this interpretation, and couldn't even have imagined it probably.
On a more general note, how do you think this problem could be approached? I assume that you can understand that someone uses a word in a different meaning than the one you brought up, and this is something that is happening all the time of course - I have experienced it several times. Translating or writing in a non-native language can be a tricky thing (For example, calling someone "black" would be considered highly offensive in the Netherlands, where negroid is apparently offensive in the US), but even within one language there can be different interpretations. Do you see a way that people can consider this? Do you see here a task for the writer, or rather a message for the reader of messages that there might be another meaning in it than the offensive one you might read at first?
[snip]
So although I do agree that we should be careful with cultural differences, I do not think that we can avoid possible "lynching"-issues (as in, how the word is used) because we can't expect everybody to be have a major in English. I think it is rather likely that these offenses are actually more often the other way around, where non-natives consider something as offensive, but will not speak up about it. Not so much because Americans or Brits are so harsh (well, some are) but because of the numbers - there are numerous more cultures compared to the few that have English as a native tongue.
Hmmm. On the specific "lynching issue", I have to say that I must disagree with you. I believe it *could* have been avoided. There are times when "going public" (ie. answer on the list) about things that shocked, bothered, or angered us is possibly the least effective way of "communicating".
To give a personal "assesment" of the lynching issue, I understood Mariano's first post as sarcasm, and it did not shock me much (Spanish, French, maybe close enough in the first place?). I came to realize with Michael's post that this might be a poor choice of words, but did not really understand what I perceived as a really strong reaction to what to me was actually a rather funny comment. However, Mariano's following reaction as well as Yaroslav's came across to me as unecessarily aggressive and actually shocked me in what I perceived as a lack of consideration and altogether rather nasty answers. Strange.
But then, this is me. A woman, French, living in a country that does not speak my mother tongue, reading in yet another language not my own, with my background (cultural, social, educational etc.). In the end, the above considerations are a result of all that. And my take on this is that everyone actually reads this list, a discussion page, an email, whatever, with their own background, their own consideration. Which is fine.
But which I believe isn't fine any more when things are erected in semi-accusatory statements about one's culture, understanding (or lack thereof), origin or such.
I believe that such things should be first cleared in private. Not so much to keep them out of the "public zone" as in "you can't talk to people in public", but rather as a sign that we are probably all fallible and would rather double check with the person involved what their intent really was before we actually
As such, while I fully support Michael's concern that cultural awareness (or lackthereof) is one of the critical problems Wikimedia projects are facing, and that it should definitely be addressed, I found the transition from usability to cultural awareness via lynching somewhat strange. But ok, why not.
The problem I see here, is that Mariano's reaction, while probably understandable, failed, in my opinion, to tackle the real problem Michael was (at least the way I understood it) trying to point out ie. "we at Wikimedia often lack cultural awareness skills and that is maybe why we're having this whole long, at times aggressive discussion about interlanguage links". and we started getting personal. And Lodewijk, in pure Lodewijk fashion, tried to cut short the personal things, thank you Lodewijk :).
So here are tricks I learned a long long time ago, which I believe might apply here.
In a conversation, there are four steps: "What I think, what I say, what the other hears, what the other understands". And between what I think, and what the other understands, there are usually many worlds.
So what derives from this is that as a listener, before I react to something that shocked me with strong words, I try to make sure that what I understood and what was meant are the same thing. As a speaker, being criticized for whatever I've said, I avoid going "gosh, you really don't understand anything" but rather go for the "hmmm, maybe I expressed myself wrongly in the first place" approach, and reformulate. Reformulate is the answer, especially in public forums, to avoid going all flame and personal.
It is a hard thing to keep in mind at all times, I find, but I've also found it makes communication much easier, when applied.
All of this rambling really to say that while cultural awareness is a very important thing, it rarely helps if basic communication skills are not taken into consideration. Reformulating and making sure we've understood is one of them. And it is, in my opinion, even more exacerbated in a diverse cultural background, and when the common language is not everyone's mother tongue.
Delphine
--- El mar 8-jun-10, Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com escribió:
The problem I see here, is that Mariano's reaction, while probably understandable, failed, in my opinion, to tackle the real problem Michael was (at least the way I understood it) trying to point out ie. "we at Wikimedia often lack cultural awareness skills and that is maybe why we're having this whole long, at times aggressive discussion about interlanguage links".
Delphine, if that was Michael's message, yes, I completely failed to interpret it that way.
My answer, which might have been an over-reaction, was such in part because I though Michel irrelevantly brought up a historical/ethnic issue were there was none, but mainly because he moved away from the topic we were discussing with an extensive mail, leaving behind what I thought was important.
What's more, even if we take the historical context, comparing the usability with a minority wrongfully persecuted by a mob was in a way what I intended; I don't see why would feel anyone offended.
As a matter of fact, and unless there is another issue I've managed to overlook, if we are here discussing whether "lynching" in the English language must be immediately interpreted in relation with the events in the USA that are the roots of the word, or a wider concept of mob violence[1] that has since then acquired, I don't see the point on this thread any more.
In short: there are complains to the current Theme, and they should not be ignored, but the current implementation demanded a lot of work, for what we need to follow procedures in order to further improve the interface we have now in an ordered way.
Cheers, Mariano.-
Hello Delphine,
Talking about 'cultural awareness and sensitivity' would you let me propose some minor case study?
reaction to what to me was actually a rather funny comment. However, Mariano's following reaction as well as Yaroslav's came across to me as unecessarily aggressive and actually shocked me in what I perceived as a lack of consideration and altogether rather nasty answers. Strange.
It was very strange for me to read that Yaroslav (while I know only one Yaroslav here on the list - it's Yaroslav Blanter) was... OMG... "unecessarily aggressive". Moreover I was 'actually shocked' as to my experience Yaroslav is not too kind or better to say warm in tone sometimes (!), but I never saw him "unecessarily aggressive". So I spent some slice of night (it's 3:30AM here in Kyiv now) to run some investigation. As to the best of my understanding (and if I'm not mistaken) that was another person (should I point exactly?) which has not much in common with Yaroslav: he is from Russia as well and he is admin in ru:WP also.
It was that another person who spoked about "lynching", 0.55% and was... yes, "unecessarily aggressive" toward Michael, while I was unable to discover Yaroslav' participation in that thread.
While I'm not from Russia (perhaps because of that my perception of word "lynching" is almost exactly as Michael's), I could treat this small ...incident in several different ways and most of them will not make me happy, some could make me angry. Obviously my main explanation that it was just mistake :) 'cause 'somebody' was too much in hurry and didn't check the name.
Sincerely,
Pavlo Shevelo
2010/6/8 Delphine Ménard notafishz@gmail.com:
On Tue, Jun 8, 2010 at 9:30 AM, Lodewijk lodewijk@effeietsanders.org wrote:
Dear Michael,
on one side, thank you for bringing this up - I had for example no idea of this interpretation, and couldn't even have imagined it probably.
On a more general note, how do you think this problem could be approached? I assume that you can understand that someone uses a word in a different meaning than the one you brought up, and this is something that is happening all the time of course - I have experienced it several times. Translating or writing in a non-native language can be a tricky thing (For example, calling someone "black" would be considered highly offensive in the Netherlands, where negroid is apparently offensive in the US), but even within one language there can be different interpretations. Do you see a way that people can consider this? Do you see here a task for the writer, or rather a message for the reader of messages that there might be another meaning in it than the offensive one you might read at first?
[snip]
So although I do agree that we should be careful with cultural differences, I do not think that we can avoid possible "lynching"-issues (as in, how the word is used) because we can't expect everybody to be have a major in English. I think it is rather likely that these offenses are actually more often the other way around, where non-natives consider something as offensive, but will not speak up about it. Not so much because Americans or Brits are so harsh (well, some are) but because of the numbers - there are numerous more cultures compared to the few that have English as a native tongue.
Hmmm. On the specific "lynching issue", I have to say that I must disagree with you. I believe it *could* have been avoided. There are times when "going public" (ie. answer on the list) about things that shocked, bothered, or angered us is possibly the least effective way of "communicating".
To give a personal "assesment" of the lynching issue, I understood Mariano's first post as sarcasm, and it did not shock me much (Spanish, French, maybe close enough in the first place?). I came to realize with Michael's post that this might be a poor choice of words, but did not really understand what I perceived as a really strong reaction to what to me was actually a rather funny comment. However, Mariano's following reaction as well as Yaroslav's came across to me as unecessarily aggressive and actually shocked me in what I perceived as a lack of consideration and altogether rather nasty answers. Strange.
But then, this is me. A woman, French, living in a country that does not speak my mother tongue, reading in yet another language not my own, with my background (cultural, social, educational etc.). In the end, the above considerations are a result of all that. And my take on this is that everyone actually reads this list, a discussion page, an email, whatever, with their own background, their own consideration. Which is fine.
But which I believe isn't fine any more when things are erected in semi-accusatory statements about one's culture, understanding (or lack thereof), origin or such.
I believe that such things should be first cleared in private. Not so much to keep them out of the "public zone" as in "you can't talk to people in public", but rather as a sign that we are probably all fallible and would rather double check with the person involved what their intent really was before we actually
As such, while I fully support Michael's concern that cultural awareness (or lackthereof) is one of the critical problems Wikimedia projects are facing, and that it should definitely be addressed, I found the transition from usability to cultural awareness via lynching somewhat strange. But ok, why not.
The problem I see here, is that Mariano's reaction, while probably understandable, failed, in my opinion, to tackle the real problem Michael was (at least the way I understood it) trying to point out ie. "we at Wikimedia often lack cultural awareness skills and that is maybe why we're having this whole long, at times aggressive discussion about interlanguage links". and we started getting personal. And Lodewijk, in pure Lodewijk fashion, tried to cut short the personal things, thank you Lodewijk :).
So here are tricks I learned a long long time ago, which I believe might apply here.
In a conversation, there are four steps: "What I think, what I say, what the other hears, what the other understands". And between what I think, and what the other understands, there are usually many worlds.
So what derives from this is that as a listener, before I react to something that shocked me with strong words, I try to make sure that what I understood and what was meant are the same thing. As a speaker, being criticized for whatever I've said, I avoid going "gosh, you really don't understand anything" but rather go for the "hmmm, maybe I expressed myself wrongly in the first place" approach, and reformulate. Reformulate is the answer, especially in public forums, to avoid going all flame and personal.
It is a hard thing to keep in mind at all times, I find, but I've also found it makes communication much easier, when applied.
All of this rambling really to say that while cultural awareness is a very important thing, it rarely helps if basic communication skills are not taken into consideration. Reformulating and making sure we've understood is one of them. And it is, in my opinion, even more exacerbated in a diverse cultural background, and when the common language is not everyone's mother tongue.
Delphine
-- ~notafish
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reaction to what to me was actually a rather funny comment. However, Mariano's following reaction as well as Yaroslav's came across to me as unecessarily aggressive and actually shocked me in what I perceived as a lack of consideration and altogether rather nasty answers. Strange.
It was very strange for me to read that Yaroslav (while I know only one Yaroslav here on the list - it's Yaroslav Blanter) was... OMG... "unecessarily aggressive". Moreover I was 'actually shocked' as to my experience Yaroslav is not too kind or better to say warm in tone sometimes (!), but I never saw him "unecessarily aggressive". So I spent some slice of night (it's 3:30AM here in Kyiv now) to run some investigation. As to the best of my understanding (and if I'm not mistaken) that was another person (should I point exactly?) which has not much in common with Yaroslav: he is from Russia as well and he is admin in ru:WP also.
Thanks Pavlo. Actually I do not think I posted anything in this thread at all, and I overlooked Delphinbe's post as well. This must be a misunderstanding somehow.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 9:56 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru wrote:
reaction to what to me was actually a rather funny comment. However, Mariano's following reaction as well as Yaroslav's came across to me as unecessarily aggressive and actually shocked me in what I perceived as a lack of consideration and altogether rather nasty answers. Strange.
It was very strange for me to read that Yaroslav (while I know only one Yaroslav here on the list - it's Yaroslav Blanter) was... OMG... "unecessarily aggressive". Moreover I was 'actually shocked' as to my experience Yaroslav is not too kind or better to say warm in tone sometimes (!), but I never saw him "unecessarily aggressive". So I spent some slice of night (it's 3:30AM here in Kyiv now) to run some investigation. As to the best of my understanding (and if I'm not mistaken) that was another person (should I point exactly?) which has not much in common with Yaroslav: he is from Russia as well and he is admin in ru:WP also.
Thanks Pavlo. Actually I do not think I posted anything in this thread at all, and I overlooked Delphinbe's post as well. This must be a misunderstanding somehow.
Sorry for taking so long to answer this and offer my apologies. It was Victor's post which shocked me, not Yaroslav. So much for writing late at night. And thank you Pavlo for pointing my mistake out.
Best,
Delphine
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