[INDOLOGY] fr.Wikipedia and other non sa.wikipedia

Thu Jan 30 12:06:33 UTC 2014

I have occasionally contributed to the Tamil Wikipedia
(and to other Wikipedias), although not frequently.

As an example,
the following page

"http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%86%E0%AE%A3%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9F%E0%AF%81_%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%9F%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%AE%E0%AF%8D_%E0%AE%85%E0%AE%9F%E0%AF%8D%E0%AE%9F%E0%AE%B5%E0%AE%A3%E0%AF%88"

(alias "http://ta.wikipedia.org/s/kk3")

was created by me,
at a time when I was cataloguing old Tamil books
which had belonged to the late T.V. Gopal Iyer (1926-2007).

Best wishes

-- Jean-Luc Chevillard

On 30/01/2014 11:22, elisa freschi wrote:
>
> Fabrice,
>
> I do contribute to Wikipedia (and even write Indological reviews on
> Amazon or on PhilPapers) whenever I happen to read an article and find
> something incorrect in it, although I try hard to look for more reliable
> sources (e.g., the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy). However, I
> never contributed to the Italian, French or German Indological sections
> of Wikipedia. Why so? Because they are much worse, as far as I can
> judge, than the English version and because I see no point in scattering
> energies through many Wikis. I understand that it makes sense to
> contribute to the, e.g., German Wiki when I have something important to
> add about Austrian Literature or about any other German-specific topic.
> But I do not think that there are enough Italian or German Indologists
> who do not read English. Nor am I ready to start to engage in a war
> against the English super-potency (although I can feel the paradox of
> preserving the Indian ideo-diversity while neglecting the European
> linguistic diversity). Further, quite frankly, French, Italian or German
> Indologists in fact need to be able to read English without any hesitation.
> Long story short: perhaps you are the only one contributing to the
> French Wikipedia, but not the only French speaking Indologist who
> contributes to Wikipedia.
>
> elisa
>
>
> Dr. Elisa Freschi
> Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia
> Austrian Academy of Sciences
> Apostelgasse 23
> 1030 Vienna
> Austria
> Phone +43 1 51581 6433
> Fax +43 1 51581 6410
> http://elisafreschi.com <http://elisafreschi.com/>
> http://oeaw.academia.edu/elisafreschi
>
> On 30/gen/2014, at 11:01, Dominik Wujastyk wrote:
>
>> If there is a taboo, I break it all the time.  :-)
>>
>> I think Wikipedia is an amazing experiment.  It's got flaws,
>> obviously, but overall I consider it one of the most exciting
>> developments in global knowledge-sharing that's ever taken place.  Up
>> there with Gutenberg, surely.  I have an Android phone, which now
>> understands spoken questions, and often answers them from Wikipedia.
>> It's completely amazing to have an encyclopedia in one's pocket.  And
>> the whole model of globalized collaborative writing is extraordinary,
>> and new.
>>
>> I was at a lecture a couple of years ago when the speaker was
>> criticizing something in one of the Wikpedia entries. I had a laptop,
>> and before the lecture was even finished, I had updated the Wikipedia
>> page to reflect the lecturer's corrections.  This kind of thing raises
>> all sorts of interesting new questions about the nature of academic
>> knowlege storage and transmission, what we trust, and how we manage
>> our relationshop to our sources.  The history-tracking feature of
>> Wikipedia is absolutely critical to its value.
>>
>> There are fights in Wikipedia, of course, over contentious issues.
>>  But the system and the m
>>  
>> anagers address this issue of conflict, and surprisingly often,
>>  things calm down after a while.
>> I
>>  would
>>  imagine there's quite a struggle going on right now at
>> fr.
>> Wikipedia.
>>  org
>>  about Devadatta (Dieudonné).
>>  [I checked, and yes there is.]
>>
>>
>> An indological case in point is the Wikipedia account of the
>> California textbook controversy over Hindu history dispute
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=California_textbook_controversy_over_Hindu_history> that
>> started in 2005.  If you click "View history" you'll see how much of a
>> struggle there's been between factions.  It's been stable for quite a
>> time now, and it's short, factual, and the emotional and aggressive
>> language of the early versions has been purged and has stayed purged.
>> Numerous sockpuppets
>> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sockpuppet_%28Internet%29> were active
>> in the early years, but they were eventually blocked by the Wikipedia
>> managers.  I would say that the CTCHH dispute is an example of the
>> Wikipedia system working rather well.  It took several years to work,
>> and the angry middle period was unpleasant.  One has to be patient in
>> such cases, and take the long view.
>>
>> Best,
>> Dominik
>>
>>
>> On 29 January 2014 17:41, Fabrice Duvinage <fabrice.duvinage at gmail.com
>> <mailto:fabrice.duvinage at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>     Is there any taboo about contributing to Wikipedia? Though I guess
>>     many indologists are not against knowledge-sharing for free and
>>     improving the general knowledge about India, I am the only
>>     indologist/sanskritist in the fr.wikipedia and feel like hell
>>     about it  How is it in other wikis: en, de, etc,?
>>
>>     Sincerely yours,
>>     Fabrice Duvinage
>>     10, rue Alfred Mézières
>>     54000 Nancy
>>     0652825128 <tel:0652825128>
>>     http://fabriceduvinage.voila.net/
>>
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>>
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