You are correct Mark
But the difference might be that what you talk about is hypothetical, while the os gets articles this way. What you suggest is great, but we should focus to what is practical for now.
Ant
Mark Williamson a écrit:
Hi...
Regarding manuscripts,
it's often a possibility that the person has seen a webpage but that writing the manuscript out in longhand is more convenient for them.
For example, a middle-aged Toareg man who lived in the city for a few years and used e-mail, but now doesn't have easy access to a computer because he has moved back with his village to take care of his ailing mother.
This man could probably find the time to make the long trek to a city and use an internet cafe to dash off an e-mail to me with the text of an article for the Toareg (or perhaps Berber) Wikipedia, but it would be very inconvenient and it would be much easier for him to use traditional Toareg writing implements to make the articles out in manuscript form while in the village (perhaps even with input from other villagers!), and then use the postal system to mail it ("snail-mail") to a computer science professor in Algiers, who would then e-mail it to me and I would post it.
This would obviously be much easier for the Touareg man than to actually make the long trek from Southeastern Algeria to the capital, Algiers, just to visit the journalist and make use of a computer.
Just because you don't have access to a computer doesn't mean you never HAVE had access. And you might have access to a computer, but it might be inconvenient compared to writing on paper and using conventional post.
Mark
On 28/05/05, V. Ivanov amikeco@gmail.com wrote:
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
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