The Struggle of an African-language Wikipedia

A reader writes to mention an International Herald Tribune article discussing the troubles an African-language Wikipedia faces in getting underway. While there is a lot of interest, the primary obstacle is that of exposure: the majority of people on the continent of Africa do not have internet access. From the article: "What use is an encyclopedia when literacy rates among a language's speakers approach zero? (This is not a problem for Swahili.) And who should control the content in a local language if not enough native speakers are inclined, or able, to contribute? If it had been native speakers only who contributed to the Swahili version, that Wikipedia might not exist at all."

Comments

One thing at a time...

[owlnation]

Perhaps Wikipedia could learn from the lessons of Napoleon and Hitler - um, assuming of course that the wikipedia entries on these guys are in any way accurate.

It is never wise to fight a battle on more than one front. Focus! Do one thing well and then expand once you've got it right. The English version of Wikipedia has a long way (years of work) to go before it approaches being a valuable reliable source of data.

By the time that the quality and reliability issues are fixed, Most Africans will have broadband and be able to create any pages they like.

Re:No, the article is not true!

[GerardM]

You apparantly did not read it carefully because had you done so you would have known it was originally published in the New York times.
Thanks,
GerardM

Re:Truth isn't sign of a troll.

[4D6963]

Feed them, clothe them, and give them the means to do so themselves.

No! NO!! Don't you have any sense of priorities? What they need the most is a $100 laptop and WiFi hotspots so they can edit Wikipedia in their language! Not food or water, electricity or peace! Knowledge, dude! ;-)