Interesting initiative and great effort done by those who worked on this novel idea.
Lack of published sources is a huge problem for articles related to developing and third world countries. It is a problem, not only in native language Wikipedias, but even in English Wikipedia too. I don't believe Oral citations is a complete solution to these problems, but definitely a interesting way to approach it.
I was talking to a journalist today on another Wikipedia story and he himself was curious to understand how we are overcoming this serious problem of lack of published sources. He was very excited when i mentioned this. Like many others had when we featured this at the last Bangalore Meetup, he was worried on how we would prove that these oral citations are credible and actually from subject matter experts. Like Shiju said, this problem may also be apparent in any online published source.
Anyways I believe the community needs to discuss this to decide whether to take this forward or not.
Do watch the making of the project. An interesting watch guaranteed :)
Regards
Tinu Cherian
On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 1:00 PM, Achal Prabhala
<aprabhala@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear friends,
At the beginning of 2011, a group of us began working on a project to
explore alternative methods of citation on Wikipedia. We were motivated
by the lack of published resources in much of the non-Anglo-European
world, and the very real difficulty of citing everyday aspects of lived
reality in India and South Africa.
We are now at a stage where the project is almost complete, and we'd
like to share our work with the broader movement, especially within
India and South Africa.
There are three languages we worked within: Malayalam, Hindi and Sepedi.
The project page documents the process and logistics employed, as well
as the findings and results:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Oral_Citations
A film made from the project is available here: http://vimeo.com/26469276
There have been discussions on oral citations for some time now within
the language communities we worked with for the duration of the project.
At this stage, we are really interested in *your* feedback, either on
this list, or on the Discussion section of the project page.
There are still some things to come, namely:
- Better (high resolution) versions of the film on Wikimedia Commons
with an open subtitle track for translation, in process
- Updates on events, meetings and discussions held around the project
(updated as they happen)
- Updates on articles created in Malayalam, Hindi and Sepedi as a result
of the project (updated as they happen)
We would be very grateful to hear your feedback, and begin a broader
discussion.
Best wishes,
Achal
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