OSW Wiki - a request for an iberian experiment (long)

[Averbuch]

Chapeau!
this is, as always, a great idea.
I envy you for having so many people in the world that speak you language
and
 wish you all the best of fortune fallowing this dream
much love
tova
israel

-----Original Message-----
From: OSLIST [mailto:OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU]On Behalf Of Artur
Ferreira da Silva
Sent: Saturday, July 12, 2003 7:46 PM
To: OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
Subject: OSW Wiki - a request for an iberian experiment (long)


Dear Michael Herman,
Dear friends of OSI-USA,
Dear friends of this community of practitioners (of OST facilitation ;-)

I would like to profit from the newly launched wiki ".net" space to conduct
an experiment.
In this post I will describe the experiment I want to try, the team I am
creating to develop it, and some fundamental reasons that underlie my
proposal.

I will wait for your comments and a decision from the people responsible
before beginning the experiment.

First, I would like to say that I think that the new wiki-site is a major
improvement in the right direction as, contrarily to the old ".org" site,
it allows for the co-creation of the site from the all community. So, what
we have been doing in this list, mainly for the subscribers of it, can now
be also done in a site that will remain OPEN to all the world.

But for that site to be really OPEN to the world, and not have some
implicit "givens" (how I hate this word...) that are unspoken and
invisible, it must be directed to many nations and languages and not be
written in English-only - as if it this language had been "given" to us by
an English-speaking-God that, in the sixth day, created the English
language - even before that language was created by human beings, that have
also created many other languages, before and after that.

As you all now, Iberian languages (Portuguese, Spanish or Castellan, Galego
- part of Spain to the north of Portugal, including Coruna and the
"Santiago way") and Catalan - Barcelona, and surroundings - even if that
last one is somehow between Castellan and French) are very similar.

Normally the speakers of one of those languages can understand the others
in written (not necessarily when it is spoken - especially if it is a
Portuguese speaking Portuguese that the others will not normally
understood, not even in Brasil). And those languages include not only the
small Iberian Peninsula in Europe, but also all the South-America, 5
countries in Africa and now also East-Timor - not to speak of Macao,
Malacca or Goa, where there are also small traces). A good part of the
world


The idea is to create an Iberian wiki-place in the wiki
"openspaceworld.net" site, dedicated to Open Space in Iberian languages -
Espaço Aberto/Espacio Abierto. I have now a group of some OST facilitators
and others interested in OST in Portugal and Brasil, and one Spanish
speaker that are interested in teaming for that purpose. I have also made a
call to two lists in Spanish (one in Spain and the other in South American)
and I am waiting for answers. I am now asking other Portuguese or Spanish
speakers in the OSLIST to join the effort.

The call was more general and aimed at the creation of an
iberian-cyberspace, but I think that OST and the OST-wiki could be the good
place to begin the idea. After all, our entire subject is OPEN SPACE and in
this list other languages are allowed, as Chris recently reminded me. On
the other hand, if I understood well, the structure of the wiki makes this
easy to implement and not confusing
to visitors, as people that see a link in Portuguese/Spanish (or Haitian
Creole) will not follow that link or they can always go backward.

The fact that the cyberspace is mainly English-speaking is something that
is suffocating for the natives of other languages, as they never can
express themselves correctly, even in communities, like our own, that
accept other languages and "bad English" from non-English speakers. And
never means never - even for the ones that have a good command of English
as a second language. And a lot of people - believe it or not - don’t speak
English at all.

Now, what do the others think?

Warm regards

Artur

PS: this doesn’t mean that I will not contribute in English to this list or
the English part of the wiki site, and, Michael, I didn’t forgot that you
asked me to write the call for research papers on OSO...

PPS: And, if the idea is accepted, my team begins to be large enough, so
that I can spare a team member whose first language is French - Veronique -
who also made the French translation for the old site - to join a French
speaking similar team if that team will be created - with people from
France, Belgium, Quebec, the African French speaking countries, etc. Maybe
John may also ask some Haitians from the Creole site (congratulations on
that, John) to join a French team.

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