[Foundation-l] Cherokee Wikipedia Name Suggestion

Thu Jul 13 18:06:42 UTC 2006

Oldak Quill wrote:

>Not at all. The best way to improve the site would be to work with
>other langauge Wikipedias and within Wikimedia. Are you being active
>in seeking members?
>  
>

Yes, I am, however, our culture is alien to the Wikipedia culture and 
there are going to be issues
with the way the site operates.  So far every Cherokee who has edited on 
WP has gotten banned
or scrutinized to the point they leave.  We have a concept of respecting 
the space of a person
who is working on something. 

WP 's policies allow a 16 year old with a computer to come in and 
disrupt someone else's work and this
doesn;t work for us.  Our culture is based on mutual respect, and I 
believe WP and Wales operate on the
premise people on WP should be the same way.  This has not been the 
course followed.  I think WP should
continue and we can do hat we need with the content -- off site where 
our cultural issues can coexist
peacefully. 

You wont get many native people editing here due to the way the site is 
organized -- respect for others is
lacking in the way articles are edited.  It's ok though, we can still 
both be successful if we figure out a way
to create dual environments where folks can be successful.

I am meeting w9ith the tribal council of the Ute, Shoshone, and Unita 
Nations on July 18, at 1:30 in Fort Duschene
on the machine translations for their Wikipedia, so I am making 
excellent progress.  They also expressed a desire
to host their content off Wikipedia due to their review of the issues 
with how the site works -- its alien to most native
cultures.  The Ute's believe their language is sacred and they don't 
want non speakers working on it for religious
reasons.  You are going to find this is a prevalent attitude among 
Native Peoples.  The ute's did not even allow their
langauge to be written down until the mid 1970's due to their religious 
beliefs, so this is a big step for them.

Jeff

>On 13/07/06, Jeff V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>  
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>>Robert Scott Horning wrote:
>>
>>    
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>>>Jeffrey V. Merkey wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Oldak Quill wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>Most Wikimedia projects don't translate "Wikipedia", "Wiktionary", and
>>>>>"Wikimedia", they transliterate them. Even non-Latin alphabets do
>>>>>this: Russian Wikipedia is called "Википедию" which transliterates as
>>>>>Ve-I-Ka-I-Pe-Ye-De-I-Ya (those are the names of the letters, at
>>>>>least). Does Cherokee have some kind of formal transliteration system?
>>>>>
>>>>>On 12/07/06, Jeffrey V. Merkey <jmerkey at wolfmountaingroup.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>>>The name should be:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>ᏗᎪᏪᎵ ᎦᏣᏄᎳ
>>>>>>
>>>>>>(digoweli gatsanula)
>>>>>>"the books = pedia " " that are fast = wiki "
>>>>>>
>>>>>>to match the actual meanings of the words "wiki" and "pedia".
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The current name of the site, while catchy, is not accurate for the
>>>>>>language, and was synthesized.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Just a suggestion...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Jeff
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>            
>>>>>>
>>>>Yes. it does have one for words like this, but taking potshots at the
>>>>name can create something you do not intend.
>>>>
>>>>Let's look at it:
>>>>
>>>>Wi-gi-que-di-ya
>>>>
>>>>wi  - (negative imperfect past tense)
>>>>gi - to combine
>>>>que - incomplete verb root about an animal
>>>>di - plural for a non living object
>>>>ya - broad area of concern (means "pertains to or covers a broad area or
>>>>topic)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>While it is interesting some of the points and counter points about this
>>>issue, isn't this something better left to be discussed on project pages
>>>by participants and made as a local decision?  At least I would feel
>>>more comfortable with people who are involved with the development of
>>>the project (aka Cherokee Wikipedia content developers) instead of
>>>getting European or Austrialian attitudes from people who may never even
>>>add a single word to that project.
>>>
>>>This whole discussion strikes me as something very similar to when the
>>>name Wikipedia itself was coined, along with all of the other major
>>>sister projects and their names.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>There are no participants on the site.   The site has been dead for
>>months.  Probably because NONE OF THEM SPEAK CHEROKEE.
>>Perhaps best thing is to close the site completely and I'll just manage
>>the fork off Wikipedia.
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>Jeff
>>_______________________________________________
>>foundation-l mailing list
>>foundation-l at wikimedia.org
>>http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
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