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 - dont speak English at all. Now, what do the others think? Warm regards Artur PS: this doesnt mean that I will not contribute in English to this list or the English part of the wiki site, and, Michael, I didnt 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. * * ========================================================== [email protected] ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of [email protected], Visit: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html
