Linguist List's
Wikipedia Update Vote
Letter sent to The LINGUIST List, by Dr. Barbara Partee:
Moscow, March 9, 2007
Subject: Getting linguists organized
to improve Wikipedia linguistics coverage
Dear Linguists,
Linguists in Moscow are getting organized about filling in
gaps in linguistics coverage in the Russian-language
Wikipedia, and working together to standardize entries on
languages and language families. It seems to me that the
English-language Wikipedia also needs some effort to improve
linguistics coverage. It's currently somewhat spotty, with a
lot of gaps in content and in biographies. Having fuller
linguistic coverage would be one good way to reach out to
prospective students and to help educate the broader public,
as well as providing resources and links for all of us. Is
there a chance that Linguist List could help coordinate such
an effort? You have the optimal channels and the breadth to
reach everyone, if you could possibly take it on - to get
the word out and ask people to suggest what new entries are
needed, and then to call for volunteers to write new entries
and improve existing ones. Not that you guys should try to
write or edit or screen articles, but to be a hub and a prod
and a facilitator. The "community" should do the editing.
Yuri Koryakov, who is coordinating the Russian linguistic
wiki work, noticed that there does exist such a project in
principle, but it seems to be quite dormant and not really
organized:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Linguistics
I think it needs more coordination and communication - and
Linguist List would be ideal if you could do it! Could one
of your young people collect suggestions, solicit
contributions, keep track of who is doing what, send out
tips and reminders, and offer to help with uploading?
Faculty might even be encouraged to give wiki-writing
assignments to their students - I know that happens in some
fields. If I understand how wikipedia editing works, the
nice thing is that the first efforts don't have to be
perfect, because it can always be further edited. You could
broadcast periodic calls asking people to look at articles
in their fields and help edit them and add links to open
source material.
I know your team has a huge amount of work already - we all appreciate it! But I'd like to think that in this case a modest additional effort could have really great value both for linguists and for our efforts to educate young people and the public.
By the way, my Russian colleagues and students really value Linguist List! It really connects the world!
Very best wishes,
Barbara