[Foundation-l] small Wikipedia projects - follow-up to Jimmy Wales' talk

[Oliver Keyes]

It's currently at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:IShadowed/Outreach; we
only started work on putting it together a couple of days ago.

On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 2:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hoi,
> Do you have an URL for this project ?
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
> On 18 July 2010 15:45, Oliver Keyes <scire.facias at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > There's an en-wiki project I'm getting involved in that is planning
> > "outreach" to smaller wikis. Would you like me to give you a ping when we
> > launch?
> >
> > On Sun, Jul 18, 2010 at 12:45 PM, Amir E. Aharoni <
> > amir.aharoni at mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
> >
> > > 2010/7/18 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> > > > Amir, we talked about issues with right to left languages at
> Wikimania
> > in
> > > > Gdansk, that is another can of wurms where we need people to pick up
> > the
> > > > slack. At translatewiki.net we are looking for developers who are
> able
> > > and
> > > > willing to help solve technical issues that have to do with allowing
> > > > structures commons to languages. Examples are multiple plural forms,
> > > > addressing people by their gender, addressing people in a formal or
> > > informal
> > > > way.
> > >
> > > OK. This is certainly important and i am willing to hear more thoughts
> > > about that. Another significant technical issue about which i would
> > > want to read is how do such outreaching wiki-activists cope with poor
> > > or non-existent network infrastructure in such places.
> > >
> > > But i am particularly curious not about the technical issues, but
> > > about people's experiences - if there are any - with the actual
> > > content.
> > >
> > > For example, i can quite easily imagine teachers in some countries
> > > saying: "Why should we write encyclopedia articles or textbooks in our
> > > local language? Textbooks should be written in English / Russian /
> > > French / Spanish / Portuguese." Did anyone have to cope with that?
> > >
> > > I am not even talking about countries where it is a question of
> > > language preservation; for example, in regions of Russia such as
> > > Tatarstan or Sakha most people know Russian and many know Russian
> > > better than their regional language. In this case, writing a Wikipedia
> > > in Tatar is not an immediate educational necessity, because Russian
> > > textbooks are accessible to people. It is rather a question of
> > > preserving the local culture; i strongly support that, but there are
> > > worse cases.
> > >
> > > I am rather talking about countries in, for example, Africa, where
> > > people don't necessarily know English or French well, but where
> > > education nevertheless functions mostly in a foreign language. Do
> > > people there even imagine that it's possible or desirable to write an
> > > encyclopedia in their language? Given all the technical tools and
> > > support, will they actually think that it's worth doing it?
> > >
> > > These are the challenges about which i am most curious.
> > >
> > > There are, of course, many other issues, technical and non-technical:
> > > lack of words for modern and foreign things, lack of standard
> > > orthography, low literacy rates, etc. I am willing to hear about all
> > > the aspects.
> > >
> > > --
> > > אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
> > > Amir Elisha Aharoni
> > >
> > > http://aharoni.wordpress.com
> > >
> > > "We're living in pieces,
> > >  I want to live in peace." - T. Moore
> > >
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