[Wikipedia-l] Sample ASL/English entry

[HHamilto at doe.k12.ga.us]

To help in the discussion of the ASL/English wikipedia I have made a sample
(http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clerc). The hand icon there is there to
indicate the paragraph is signed. Click on the number one after it to go to
the page with the signing that is housed off the Wikipedia site. The deaf
adults and students who have seen this are ready to start building more as
they see it as a very valuable and accessible tool for acquiring
information.

While it is possible to use simple Wikipedia to build a sign augmented
simple wikipedia there are several problems. One the word "simple" can have
a negative connotation," simple" meaning "not smart" as in Simple Simon.
That would infuriate many in the deaf community and doom the project.
If videos were housed on each users individual server then a person who
wants to change the video that does not have access to that particular
server would be unable to do so thus defeating the goal of wiki.

Videos could be stored on the Commons and linked to from the English text
page but the video file size limit would need to be increased dramatically
from 2MB. The sample video in the link above is about 1.5 minutes and is
16MB.

Making Wikipedia able to handle video will make it more up-to-date. Text
and pictures were top-o -the-line in the '80's.

To reiterate an earlier point. ASL is a natural language and deserves a
Wikipedia like any other natural language. The users of ASL are bilingual
in ASL and English to varying degrees (some totally fluent in both, most
more fluent in only ASL) and the languages influence each in the deaf
community. ASL has many signs borrowed from English orthography. There is
no common ASL orthography. Attempts at using SignWriting and other
orthographies have not caught on even after 20 years.

Making an ASL/English Wikipedia will provide the deaf community
particularly students a powerful learning tool. An encyclopedia is a
learning tool, not simply a collection of articles.