After browsing
the wonderful Wikicities for some time, I have a
different idea. We do not need to be bound by the format of an
encyclopedia. Why not start a wiki about Cantonese, written
mainly in standard English and/or standard Chinese? I believe
that wiki will be very useful, will attract contributors and
readers, and should not be opposed.
Felix, I think it's an excellent idea. In fact I think it's a nice fit
for what folks might be searching for in Cantonese - a cultural
literacy guide, or something more freeform to capture the flavor and
quirkiness of the language as a spoken, adaptive language. I can
imagine whole sections on film, Cantopop, slang, literature and
colloquialisms/differences in Cantonese found in HK, Guangdong,
Southeast Asia, North America, etc.
"What folks might be searching for in Cantonese" - so here we're
talking about the needs of non-Cantonese speakers who would like to
learn more about Cantonese, rather than Cantonese speakers who would
like to learn more about other subjects?
Since that
will be a different project, I would like to do a
quick popularity survey here. Who will support that project?
Who will contribute?
I think it would be a much more exciting project to Cantonese speakers
on the 'net if it was more fun and able to morph to the interests of
the community, rather than what would be dictated by a formal
encyclopedia.
"The interests of the community" -- I think that in fact the number of
people who will want to write in English and Baihua about such a topic
spectrum as Cantonese (even if we include culture as you suggest) will
be smaller than that of people who would like to write /in/ Cantonese
about anything at all.
The great thing about an encyclopaedia is that it fits perfectly with
all the interests of the community. You can write about whatever your
area of interest is, and it still fits in. There is no room in a
CantoPedia for an article about "Nine Inch Nails" or Germany (except
where Cantonese and Germany intersect), while in a Cantonese-medium
general encyclopaedia there is room for both. Thus, the NIN fan or the
German culture buff will be limited to writing about Cantonese, a
topic they most likely are not at all interested in, when in a general
encyclopaedia they would be able to write, in their mother tongue,
about these topics which interest them but aren't exactly
"Cantonese-related".
In addition, most of the content suggested could already fit into
Wikipedia in any language very very well, with some possible parts (ie
lessons in Cantonese language) would fit better in Wikibooks.
So you said you think it will be a "much more exciting project to
Cantonese speakers on the 'net". What percentage of these people care
at all about Cantonese pop culture? Many of them, yes, but a great
deal of them are probably more concerned about business, daily life,
and that sort of thing. Even of those who ARE interested, how many of
them are interested beyond just "liking movies" or "listening to Lau
Tak Wah Andy"?
The thing is, a CantoPedia would be much more restrictive than a
general encyclopaedia which is written in Cantonese.
So far I have heard from you specifically 2 concerns that I can remember:
1) a Cantonese-version Wikipedia will split resources from the 'small'
zh community
- Response: Now, zh.wikipedia has over 20k articles. This isn't
exactly "small" anymore, although it's still smaller than, say, en or
ja. How many of the contributors speak Cantonese at all? I assume it
is a significant, but still not even 1/4, minority. How many of these
Cantonese-speakers would actually contribute to a Cantonese-version
Wikipedia INSTEAD of zh? That must be a much smaller percentage - this
would start as a fringe project, perhaps with most Cantonese speakers
at zh: at least popping in to read it sometimes, but undoubtedly it
would take a while to gain a stronghold where droves of people would
actually leave zh: for a Cantonese-version Wikipedia.
2) a Cantonese-version Wikipedia won't be able to morph to the
interests of the community as well as a CantoPedia
- (responded to already above)
This is not to say I think that the Cantonese-language Wikipedia must
be created instantly, but rather that I haven't seen any new arguments
from you or actual responses that weren't just repeating yourself from
before. So I have summed it up here, and I want to know: do you have
anything more you would like to say?
Mark