Something That Seriously Made Me Go Hmmm….
There is a “Simple English” language option for Wikipedia (simple.wikipedia.org). A separately maintained copy just like the French, Japanese, Arabic, Swahili etc. Who knew?
And it’s excellent. The articles are very simple (Wiki policy is only use the 1,000 most common words) and on average very well written. The big surprise for me was how well the articles render very complicated abstract ideas such as “money.” Some subjects do take a beating — “quantum mechanics” is damn near impossible to explain without mathematics, let alone technical vocabulary — but most of them come through amazingly well, especially considering that the translators are all self-appointed volunteers!
Now. Think about the implications of a Wikipedia for all the people in the world who read English only poorly….
First of all, who are these people reading it? Where do they live? What would their global socieconomic status be like? What worldview and/or relgion would they tend to hold? Now, who would be writing it? Ask the same questions about the writers and the readers — and then consider the possible agendas on the writer’s side.
I’m not hinting at anything specific here. I’m just listing some of the questions I’ve been using to guide myself through the possibilities.
Two points I encountered from discussions in the main Simple English Wiki project struck me particularly deeply:
First, what about children just learning to read? Will Simple English make Wikipedia accessible to every 6 year old child everywhere? What about the ones growing up in countries run by dictators or, or within a conservative Christian family?
Second, and I quote the main project talk page here,
“This wikipedia has a number of goals, of which I want to focus on one which I think is very important, but which seems to be neglected somewhat … The translations, naturally, go in two directions:
- From SWP to other language Wikipedias. This is one reason to put articles from the English Wikipedia into Simple English, especially articles of general interest.
- From other language Wikipedias to SWP. Through this, SWP acts as a springboard for topics which are not yet covered by EnWP because they are of interest to a particular nationality (and language group). SWP allows editors with a native language other than English to write articles about topics that are important within their country, but underrepresented in EnWP. I am thinking in particular of articles about people and about settlements.”
In other-words, this discussion tool is also bidirectional. We have to consider the agendas of the nominal *readers* too when we analyze what happens. In short, the third-world can talk back in this medium!
Is the Simple English Wikipedia the prototype for the first truly humanity-wide debate system? Is the very first draft of the Human Child Primer being written?
