[Foundation-l] Oral Citations project: People are Knowledge

[Achal Prabhala]

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 on the project is available here:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:People-are-Knowledge.ogv?withJS=MediaWiki:MwEmbed.js
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:People-are-Knowledge.ogv
or
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:

- Updates on events, meetings and discussions held around the project
(as they happen)
- Updates on articles created in Malayalam, Hindi and Sepedi as a result
of the project (as they happen)
- English transcripts of the interviews and a full English subtitle track
for further translation (we could use some help here).

We would be very grateful to hear your feedback, and begin a broader
discussion.

Best wishes,
Achal