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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."
Producing encyclopedias in every language is futile and a waste of resources. They should produce an online encyclopedia in English that is worth spit, but unfortunately we're stuck with Wikipedia, the million monkey solution to scholarship.
You know what Wikipedia really is about? It's an encyclopedia of popular consensus, not scholarship. I'm only grateful that it wasn't around in the 1930s, because we'd have had huge popular consensuses on eugenics as the way forward for humanity and the utility (or not) of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and other untermenschen, articles on how much of a crackpot Alfred Wegener was for claiming that the continents moved, and the health giving benefits of smoking.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
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.
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
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. U-Bun-TU is Swahili for "Teh Sux" - is TRUE.
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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! ;-)
You just got troll'd!
I hate niggers
us the courtesy disappe=aring up its GAY NIGGERS from lost its earlier moans and groans