Native Americans used to compare European Americans to spiders. http://www.native-languages.org/cheyenne-legends.htm
That referred to our quick adaptive nature that was not rooted in tradition. We seem to be very clever and good at things, but not committed to anything. I think the problem has probably grown much worse as the broad spectrum of our activities impacts traditional societies. Not only is our music different, but there is a hundred kinds of it; likewise our other cultural artifacts. I suspect users from many cultures do better in an environment that is sheltered from the full impact of Western culture. Fred Bauder > To avoid further disrupting discussion of interlanguage links and > usability, I'll address the cultural problems separately now. I must > admit, though, that in a discussion where we seemed to have agreed > (rightfully so) that a 1% click rate was significant enough to warrant > serious consideration, I was disappointed that someone could then be so > callous about the need for cultural sensitivity because it most directly > impacts "only 0.55% of the world population" in this case. There is no > meaningful difference in order of magnitude there. > > We have significant distortions in the makeup of our community that > affect our culture. There are quite a few groups that are seriously > underrepresented, in part because our culture comes across as unfriendly > to them at best. I talked about African-Americans because it's what was > applicable in that particular situation and I happen to have some > familiarity with the issues. It could just as well have been Australian > Aborigines or another cultural group that has issues with our community. > I'm not as prepared to explain those concerns, but I would welcome > people who can educate us about such problems. It's legitimate to be > wary of things that promote American cultural hegemony, which is another > distortion, but that's not really warranted when the concern relates to > a minority culture in the US. > > Some people seem to have gotten hung up on the issue of intent. I didn't > say there was any intent, by the community or individuals, to exclude > certain groups or to create a hostile environment for them. I actually > tried to be as careful as possible not to say that. The point is that > even in the absence of intent, it's possible for our culture to appear > hostile to such groups. We didn't have any intent to be hostile toward > living people, either, yet we've had a long struggle to cope with the > consequences of that impression created by our culture. > > Consider the principle of not "biting" newcomers, which relates to a > similar problem. It's not about the intent of the person doing the > "biting", it's about the impact on those who encounter it. We need to be > more welcoming to people, and striving for more cultural awareness is > part of that. > > --Michael Snow > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
