Dear Anthere,
As for the articles coming from the South Ossetian teachers, I get them by e-mail and put them to WP (after wikifying; they come as a simple text file or a Word file).
<<Just a side comment. Perhaps you should mention in the comment box the name of the original author. I would see two benefits First it is more honest toward the author, who is credite is work. Second, it is good image to show several people are contributing.>>
Sure, you are right! Thank you for the idea: I've been thinking about creating a Category or a Template for the purpose, but finally considered mixing content with authorship a not so good idea. But putting a name into the comment line is both easy and really useful. Or should I register a special account to post all the articles created in the project? That will make searching them very easy, etc. What do you think?
The journalist informed the locals about the "first encyclopedia in Ossetian"; some of them got interested. Neither computers, nor Internet are widely available in S.Ossetia -- so the interest could rest just the interest, but then the bright idea appeared... :)
<<Nod. Both arguments are fair. I would like to know whether these teachers have themselves good internet access ? Presumably quite limited ?>>
As for the only teacher, who is working already on her 3rd article now, she has some limited but free access to a Win98-computer at her school. There she types her text in MS Word format and brings it on a diskette to the South Ossetian journalist, who sends the text to me via e-mail. The same journalist also shows her the result of her work at the Wikipedia. Her first article (about the writer Nafi Jusoity) is now the elected one, its part is on the first page, and as far as I know the teacher is very proud about the fact.
I don't think it's a good idea to involve manuscripts: if a person can't use a computer at all, this person probably can't imagine electronic text (moreover hypertext) and its specialities. That's why we are most of all interested in younger teachers and students of Ossetian-related specialities (future journalists and teachers). Besides the texts for WP we achieve another purpose: raise the prestege of the language, showing that quality texts in it are needed and can be paid.
Among our further plans is looking for such people in the villages of North Ossetia, where exists at least one highly literate group: the teachers of the Ossetian language. But most of them are not at all good computer users... So we have many interesting challenges.
<<Perhaps a collaboration with computer offer ?>>
Can you tell more about your idea? I didn't get it.
We are also planning to meet authorities of the North Ossetian State University in order to organize presentations of Wikipedia at several faculties. The future Ossetian philologists and journalists might get much experience from writing texts in WP. Still such a presentation does not seem possible in the nearest future, for it's not easy for me to go to Vladikavkaz now. Born there, I live in St.Petersburg at the Baltic Sea at the moment.
<< Can you tell me more about the reasons why this does not seem possible in the nearest future ? I think your experience sounds very.. >>
Well, at least because the study year is over by the end of May. The best time for such presentations at the local universities is October-November or February-March, when the students are not frightened by the nearing exams and have time to participate in projects like WP.
Slavik/Amikeco