On Mon, 25 Apr 2005, Timwi wrote:
Andy Rabagliati wrote:
There was some discussion of that. Two (very real) problems :-
- Editing. Voice editing sounds clumsy, and would sound like CamelCase :-)
the sound file is not an original article, but a reading of an existing textual version.
At the conference, we discussed original content contribution by phone. This is wikipedia-by-cellphone - you have to be able to contribute, or it is not a wiki !
- Accents. If an Indian is trying to understand what a Geordie or someone from Barbados is saying, it might as well be in Afrikaans :-)
I'm not sure how large and how representative a sample of listeners you have already surveyed, but I highly doubt this is a real problem. recordings are obviously supposed to be spoken slowly and clearly.
Are you a native speaker of English? Where are you from? What accents do you tend to have trouble understanding?
Yes, I am a native speaker, in a plummy version of the Queens English. I am also well travelled.
I assure you, this problem is very real. Have you travelled to the North of England ? You may be suprised - sometimes you will have /absolutely no idea/ what they are talking about.
I lived for 10 years in the USA. Do you think an Indian would have any idea what a native of Brooklyn was talking about ? English might be the mother tongue for both of them - but Churchill famously said that America and England were separated by a common language.
I have had to ask someone from Huntsville, Alabama, to repeat themselves three times - and they were only spelling their name.
Cheers, Andy!