-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Please stop any sarcasm. There are ideas worth the consideration, as with any newly available technological tool. We're aiming in this mailing list to shape the futur of the human knowledge through the foundation, right? So it is right to talk about the future, it's not an arrogance. Of course, any affirmation about the future must be considered an hypothesis, however convinced may seem his bearer, but also however unconvinced we are. Listen and think. Then answer so that our interlocutor listens and thinks too. Otherwise, all this mailing list is sheer struggle of prestige, power or noise.
Now, one of the unsolved questions of the WMF is: how do we plan to communicate with analphabets? Even supposing we could bring them a (free) internet terminal, which is far from done, we would still face the barrier of language and the uselessness of writing. A first answer comes to my mind: with the oral or gestural tradition, using roleplay communicates an idea and interacts with the stranger. Because we cannot send people to each ethnical community and leave them as crucial interprets their whole life, this impossibility undermines seriously the main objective of the WMF.: "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge." If we cannot immediately alphabetize people, should we abandon them? Can't we try alternate ways than text? Is the computer completely useless or has it other uses? Does it offer real options to communicate with indians or amerindians tribes, without teaching them nor forcing them? 3d worlds could tell myths (our myths and theirs) way better than words or scriptures. An itinerant wiki worker could interface those people with his or her wiki-device (labtop, mobile, pda, portable videoconference device, etc.) and show them things they would understand. Without forcing, just proposing. The wiki worker would teach the people to use the device to keep interacting with the wikimedia net when he's gone. Would they care to know something? Would they care to ask? Would they care to say something? To answer something? If we keep with this scenario, "Wikiask" mission would be to collect the question of an ethny, translate it to everybody, collect the answers of people who want to answer, and send back the various answers to the ethny through understandable means: a 3d world, a theater piece played by comedians, a film, a story in your language, an artisanal object, art, whichever channel the ethny understands. An example of communicative art: Roleplay is a narrative technique that makes understand and live an information (a situation). There are other techniques, but bear with this one for a while and let's develop the idea. There are humanitarians people and passionate ethnologues who know the exact difficulties of communicating with non-occidenal communities and who may even know some solutions. They may need funds, material, technologies, internet, videos and 3d worlds to give (never sell!) free access to knowledge. Then again, maybe not. Discuss. Note: I'm not necessarily fan of the 3d idea, but as Robert Honing said, we should embrace new ideas and juggle with them. Voltaire have said: "I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it." Don't lose the gigantisc scope of the goal. The roleplay idea and the 3d idea are just hypothesis. The point is, what's at stake is so deep that we should investigate any promising idea.) My 2p. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJL46fTAAoJEHCAuDvx9Z6LP0oIAIZCjl9hM5VgVUg4rMqRqciW bqbcaOV8bfNusSR5vzqjQIjWFABEBR971v6BBQd6rNlPmg52kI0oOb5hRBAG1FOd z/LW1WVlTK0kDYne/BCypx9LieOPT48XxfzISLfYOaaJX592sT8e8uxMd5Sv41hZ TwnFpAV5HqG4MY9d1XkKYQwPcVFYuO8zoj0O3uW6B2qiTuqIy7kvU2Rb/Tw9sqbp x1bTuIXVTthwBHOdvwUznFP1JvLp8JMccgmitoAu+BbwVA7F/tBw1RNH/jPZvAvD 960WoKecuHSDUn0aCtCaT7SjCeAuFDMFp3M6+COQHHeLcE29czGRmEOF+78O00E= =xKVW -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
