Wikipedia and Indigenous Languages

[Zoloft]

The Prospects for the Sum of All Human Knowledge in Wikipedia in Indigenous Languages

I noticed this article from a week or so ago when I was reading another Rising Voices article we recently discussed here.

It's a realistic depiction of the struggle to adequately represent indigenous peoples in Wikipedia projects. There's a participation gap there of some magnitude and a tremendous under-representation of both the languages and their speakers.

To date, only four [of 600 Latin American] indigenous-language versions are represented: Quechua (19,900 articles), followed by Náhuatl (9,940 articles), Aymara (3,830 articles) and Guaraní (3,128 articles); and 29 more projects are in the Wikipedia Incubator.

Rising Voices secured a grant and cooperation from the Wikimedia Foundation to perform a study (Best Practices for Creating Free Knowledge in Indigenous Languages on Wikipedia) in October 2016 to determine why there was such a gap between promise and realization, and to establish better ways to build Wikipedia projects in cooperation with indigenous peoples.

Some of the report's findings:

• Native speakers are barely present in each of the projects evaluated, or not present at all
• All the projects were launched without prior knowledge of the language or the participation of native speakers or their community
• The main cause of the low participation of indigenous populations in Wikipedia is the digital divide — these peoples do not have ready access to the resources needed
• Wikipedia language projects are oriented around reading and writing — most indigenous languages are oral and don’t have writing systems
• The main topic of discussion in the active projects is about the different ways each editor writes and spells

From the article, I gained an impression of the existing projects being the product of well-meaning activists unconnected with the indigenous peoples whose languages they are attempting to document.

Wikicolonialism?

[thekohser]

It's a bit of sour grapes talking but I am personally convinced that one of the reasons there are some 288 actively-operating Wikipedias for different languages is that it sounds triumphant to say there are 287 Wikipedias other than the massive English Wikipedia. This is good for Jimbo's speaker fee structure, and it's also good for Katherine Maher's fundraising messaging. It only follows that indigenous populations are not connecting with these triumphant-sounding projects -- their connectivity was never really the goal.

fixed - t

[Poetlister]

Of course, any speaker of a small indigenous language in Latin America who is sophisticated enough to be editing Wikipedia probably speaks Spanish or Portuguese well enough to use those Wikipedias. Creating a minority language Wikipedia may wel be helpful in preserving that language, but it is unlikely to do much for participation.

[Randy from Boise]

It's a bit of sour grapes talking but I am personally convinced that one of the reasons there are some 288 actively-operating Wikipedias for different languages is that it sounds triumphant to say there are 287 Wikipedias other than the massive English Wikipedia. This is good for Jimbo's speaker fee structure, and it's also good for Katherine Maher's fundraising messaging. It only follows that indigenous populations are not connecting with these triumphant-sounding projects.

I think your basic premise is correct: that the main purpose for flooding the world with encylopedia projects before volunteers was originally to run up the count and to build plaudits for the professional Wikipedia elite. Never forget that the big feather that Jimmy Wales wants for his cap is a Nobel Peace Prize — a priority which he again tipped with his WikiTribune "Taster No. 1" blogpost (mentioned in another thread). linkhttps://medium.com/wikitribune/wikitrib ... 9a22401bd3[/link]

That said, there are valid rationales for the plethora of microprojects. We have seen in the last decade vast improvement in machine translation. This implies an improved ability both for English-speakers to make use of Non-English Wikipedias and hints towards the eventual ability of Non-English Wikipedias to adapt content on a mass scale from more fully fleshed out English, German, or French encyclopedias.

Yesterday I was playing around for an hour with the biography of a radical Swedish-speaking Finnish politician. In building a bibliography I made productive use of both the Swedish and Finnish Wikipedias (and will return to them when I have time to begin doing serious work on content). I was also able to fix a simple error on the Swedish WP, not speaking a word of Swedish myself... That would not have been possible in 2002, or rather, it would not have happened. Instant machine translation is a thing now, and for some language pairs it is getting pretty damned good. Admittedly this is today of limited scope, but the trend toward future improvement of machine translation is undeniable.

So what probably did start as a component of a Utopian propaganda slogan — "The sum of all human knowledge freely available to all people in their own native tongue" — has in fact taken baby steps towards fruition in practice.

So how many "real" Wikipedias are there in 2017? Not 288, that's for damned sure. But there are a couple dozen, and viable shells for future development of dozens of others. It is ultimately a good thing that they are there, assuming that there is a positive value to the existence of a free Wikipedia, as I do.

RfB

[Graaf Statler]

It's a bit of sour grapes talking but I am personally convinced that one of the reasons there are some 288 actively-operating Wikipedias for different languages is that it sounds triumphant to say there are 287 Wikipedias other than the massive English Wikipedia. This is good for Jimbo's speaker fee structure, and it's also good for Katherine Maher's fundraising messaging. It only follows that indigenous populations are not connecting with these triumphant-sounding projects.

That's a correct summery. WMF is focused on WP-EN and maybe on WP-DE, but not interested in that by you mentioned 287 or 286 Wiki's. My theory is, they give them some money, those chapters can do what they want with that money, because the revenues of there banners whit Jimmy whit his brown doggie eye's telling Wikipedia is a sinking ship are much, much higher the money they are giving to the local chapters. For instance, I am very curious how much money they raise In Holland, but I think it's a great moneymaker for WMF.
For that reason they don't care about different language Wiki's. Copyvio, crap articles, trolls, they don't care! As long the money is coming in, they will never change this Web-2 earning system. Because it sounds good when that blond, female chairman Katherine is flirting with a journalist and telling about the international ambition of WMF, but in fact it's contempt of women for the given reason.

[Graaf Statler]

It's a bit of sour grapes talking but I am personally convinced that one of the reasons there are some 288 actively-operating Wikipedias for different languages is that it sounds triumphant to say there are 287 Wikipedias other than the massive English Wikipedia. This is good for Jimbo's speaker fee structure, and it's also good for Katherine Maher's fundraising messaging. It only follows that indigenous populations are not connecting with these triumphant-sounding projects.

I think your basic premise is correct: that the main purpose for flooding the world with encylopedia projects before volunteers was originally to run up the count and to build plaudits for the professional Wikipedia elite. Never forget that the big feather that Jimmy Wales wants for his cap is a Nobel Peace Prize — a priority which he again tipped with his WikiTribune "Taster No. 1" blogpost (mentioned in another thread). linkhttps://medium.com/wikitribune/wikitrib ... 9a22401bd3[/link]

That said, there are valid rationales for the plethora of microprojects. We have seen in the last decade vast improvement in machine translation. This implies an improved ability both for English-speakers to make use of Non-English Wikipedias and hints towards the eventual ability of Non-English Wikipedias to adapt content on a mass scale from more fully fleshed out English, German, or French encyclopedias.

Yesterday I was playing around for an hour with the biography of a radical Swedish-speaking Finnish politician. In building a bibliography I made productive use of both the Swedish and Finnish Wikipedias (and will return to them when I have time to begin doing serious work on content). I was also able to fix a simple error on the Swedish WP, not speaking a word of Swedish myself... That would not have been possible in 2002, or rather, it would not have happened. Instant machine translation is a thing now, and for some language pairs it is getting pretty damned good. Admittedly this is today of limited scope, but the trend toward future improvement of machine translation is undeniable.

So what probably did start as a component of a Utopian propaganda slogan — "The sum of all human knowledge freely available to all people in their own native tongue" — has in fact taken baby steps towards fruition in practice.

So how many "real" Wikipedias are there in 2017? Not 288, that's for damned sure. But there are a couple dozen, and viable shells for future development of dozens of others. It is ultimately a good thing that they are there, assuming that there is a positive value to the existence of a free Wikipedia, as I do.

RfB

Yes, but it can so much better. Why, why keeping failed crap projects a life with donor money? That projects will never improve themself, because it's the end of the free donor money and the cockaigne jobs.

[Randy from Boise]

Yes, but it can so much better. Why, why keeping failed crap projects a life with donor money? That projects will never improve themself, because it's the end of the free donor money and the [cockamamie] jobs.

The oversupply of money is the cause of a serious plague: a massively growing bureaucracy in need of a purpose, which results in meddling with volunteer communities, and an obsession with counting site views over improving site content, to name two symptoms.

RfB

[Graaf Statler]

Yes, but it can so much better. Why, why keeping failed crap projects a life with donor money? That projects will never improve themself, because it's the end of the free donor money and the [cockamamie] jobs.

The oversupply of money is the cause of a serious plague: a massively growing bureaucracy in need of a purpose, which results in meddling with volunteer communities, and an obsession with counting site views over improving site content, to name two symptoms.

RfB

Yep. And at the moment you are saying this is wrong you are trolled out, like Gregory and I. And others. But that bottle of fine Italian wine you get anyway, because I like those who dare to say the truth without thinking of the consequences.

[Johnny Au]

Do you think Cebuano is an indigenous language? It's neck-to-neck to the English Wikipedia when it comes to article count.

[Graaf Statler]

Do you think Cebuano is an indigenous language? It's neck-to-neck to the English Wikipedia when it comes to article count.

Article count is unimportant. The Dutch Wikipedia has 1.900.000 articles, but most are bot articles like this or this. And maybe you like this official gendergab article. The gendergab articles what make Sandra 70K Rientjes so proudly!.