Re: [wg-review] Outreach [was: Multilingualism]

[Eric Dierker <Eric@HI-TEK.COM>]

Joop Teernstra wrote:

> Joanna wrote:
>
> You cannot outreach without a good
> >story. Right now, my money is on the shoeshine boy. If you could post his
> >photo to this list, you would strike at the heart and give your mission a
> >human face to generate a level of interest that it does not have currently.
>
> For human faces (ICANN-Melbourne) see:
> www.imachination.com/icann/
>

Interesting you should so mention this.  Think of all the cultures which
literally for thousands of years told all their history, which is still known,
with pictures.  Think of the impact of Television and Web Sites. Think of Dick
and Jane readers. A picture is worth a thousand words, and can be understood in
all languages.  A good trial lawyer always has some visual to go with the
argument.  Would you rather rely on instructions or a map.

In working with Universities in developing countries, we have been burdened in
our efforts to establish programs aimed simply at producing IT certified
programers.  Of the many causes of problems none are so difficult as the task of
convincing Professors that we don't have to insist everyone get a complete well
rounded college degree, some should just get the edcucation needed to put food
on their families table.

You ask what does this have to do with anything?

Well in Melbourne Mr. Vint Cerf made the very pointed remark that volunteerism
in translation was too dangerous in that a wrongly translated document is worse
than no translation.  This is an intellectual dodge.  It suggests that only
those elite enough to do it just right should be involved.  It is like the
professors who think that if the student does not fully comprehend e=Mc2 he
should not be programing computers.

This problem stands in our way of implementing reasonable outreach and must be
overcome.  The brutal first six weeks of my participation in this list, was an
experience of some of the most elitist snobbery I have ever witnesses.  In my
case the rebukes were a challenge but I fear for many a brick wall.

So yes pictures and such campaigns are important.  But if I brought someone to
these lists with a compassionate poster of a child, and then they witnessed the
atrocious verbal battery that occurs here we would never see them again.

And so we must combine Outreach with educational gathering points where through
a multilingual environment we can train the new recruits so that their first
taste of battle does not shell shock them.

I hope I have not painted to grim a picture with my words, because I see a great
and brilliant horizon where the internet can be used as the key to unlock the
chains that bind.

Sincerely,

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