[Wikipedia-l] Re: Conference report from South Africa

[Andy Rabagliati]

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!