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Wikipedia and language choice | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6633 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 33 of 55 06 December 2006 at 11:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Regarding Persian speakers, they prefer to contribute to the English version because less foreigners know Persian and it's far more informative if they write about their language, country, culture, etc. in English, French, and other widely understood languages. We consider Wikipedia as a means of providing information. So if the Persian articles are low we can't have such conclusions (especially b). This that we write in English obviously proves b. Besides, the most educated people in USA are Iranian and Jewish communities let alone in Iran where many of young generation have at least bachelor's degree. And It has nothing to do with freedom of speech because Wikipedia is not conducted from the country where the language X is spoken. Should one choose Polish because it's the 4th? Are Dutch and Swedish more widely used than Spanish given that Spanish is the 10th? Can we really conclude d on this basis? Friendly speaking, to choose your language consider your interests and aims. Edited by Alijsh on 07 December 2006 at 3:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6676 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 34 of 55 07 December 2006 at 11:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
This claim is so racist that I won't even bother to comment. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6901 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 35 of 55 07 December 2006 at 11:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yes, let's not have any of those snide comments again, please (I must have missed that one when I read this thread this morning). Plenty of people in the UK have a Bachelor's degree and I would think twice about saying everyone was equally bright. A degree does not necessarily make one any cleverer. After all, there are a good many bright people who don't have a degree to their name (Bill Gates being one, as far as I know).
Back on topic, I suppose it is funny that Spanish ranks so low in the 'Wiki-sphere' but this obviously does not correlate with the large number of people who speak it. Chinese is one of the most spoken languages on the planet and yet the Chinese Wikipedia has fewer articles than Polish. Issues of 'freedom of speech' aside (what *is* freedom of speech anyway), it is worth knowing that some countries and language communities have their own resources and sites and not all of them see Wikipedia as the be all and end all of the Internet. It's also worth baring in mind that many Spanish speakers from Latin American may not have regular (if any) access to the Internet...plus a good nmber of them might have better (and more important) things to do with their time than post or edit articles on an online encyclopaedia. Not everyone has the luxury of hours to spend chatting online. :) Edited by lady_skywalker on 07 December 2006 at 11:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6633 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 36 of 55 07 December 2006 at 11:46am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You can interpret it as you like for all I care, but I didn't say this from myself about the US. I read it in newspaper. I don't have time to find something online other than this: http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/AmilImani60429.htm Iranians are among the most highly educated people in U.S. and annually contribute over $600 billion into the U.S. economy. Anyway, I meant no rudeness. I meant if the Persian articles are low we can't say its speakers don't value knowledge and education and are not therefore potentially interesting people to have a conversation with. Isn't it offensive? I wrote those lines to say you we value knowledge everywhere we are and for having more education we go to university. Edited by Alijsh on 07 December 2006 at 12:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6633 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 37 of 55 07 December 2006 at 11:49am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't think I talked against or in favor of this.
We are one of those. Edited by Alijsh on 07 December 2006 at 12:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6676 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 38 of 55 07 December 2006 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Please excuse my harsh remark; I overreacted.
Okay, I understand that there is a misunderstanding here. What I suggested was that participation at Wikipedia might be an indicator that the community of speakers of a certain language values knowledge, but of course this doesn't imply that speakers of languages with few articles on Wikipedia don't. Anyway, I realize now that it's not a very good indicator for many reasons (e.g. not everybody is equally enthusiastic about the Wikipedia concept etc.) By the way, all the Iranians I've met so far at scientific conferences (I'm a scientist) were surely well-educated, interesting, and nice people, and I would surely not claim that they don't value education. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| RogueRook Diglot Senior Member Germany N/A Joined 6843 days ago 174 posts - 177 votes 6 sounds Speaks: German*, English Studies: Hungarian, Turkish | Message 39 of 55 07 December 2006 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You don't even know what the word means, boy. We had that before, didn't we. Back then I had to explain what ethnicity means. As far as Jews are concerned they indeed display an astounding degree of intellectuality. They are very erudite and civilized people. Thats why I value Jews very much. Germany would be much more with a thriving Jewish community today. You also cannot deny that there are numerous immigrants or thier descendants among the the intellectual elite in the USA. Just look at the staff of any American university. As far as outstanding scientific feats are concerned the Unitated States always had to rely on imported brainpower. By the way your post is oxymoronic. You make a comment stating you don't want to comment. Huh? Sort yourself out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| nhk9 Senior Member Canada Joined 6815 days ago 290 posts - 319 votes Speaks: English* | Message 40 of 55 07 December 2006 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
If you block people from using wikipedias, wouldn't that actually defeat the purpose of wikipedia. Afterall it should tolerate different points of view. I don't know how you would determine whether or not articles or of better quality etc. But what I think is that if they are educated enough about how wikipedia works, they could perhaps contribute to that community. Yes they would have different political ideas, but if you ban them, you would have a systematic bias in your articles, which is no good. But then there's the problem of lack of free speech in mainland PRC, so until they have that, what they write maybe influenced by the local laws of that regime. Hopefully things will get better. Sorry for digressing. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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