Laurakgibbs

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Original research

I don't think I made it clear enough what the potential issues are, so I wanted to restate them here, as articulated in Wikipedia's core content policies:

• We are an encyclopedia, which means we do tertiary analysis of mostly secondary sources. We do not accept original research, and our direct use of primary sources is very limited. I notice you characterized the issue as me disagreeing with your use of public domain sources: this has nothing to do with it; the issue is that even secondary sources generally become less reliable for our analysis over time as standards and relevance changes. It would be very worthwhile if your research cited newer scholarly analysis of tradition previously collected on the ground
• I deeply respect the work attempting to increase our deficient coverage of oral tradition. However, we can only accept information that is verifiable in a reliable source, which is usually (but not always; a recording may be reliable) a written source.

Thanks. Remsense诉 00:16, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

This is NOT original research; I do original research on proverbs... but that is not what I am providing here.

I am providing SECONDARY SOURCES from African language researchers: anthropologists and ethnographers, linguists, translators, missionaries, colonial officials (sometimes people who have Wikipedia articles about them, sometimes not). I am working systematically through the available literature, starting with public domain literature, and then I will be moving on to more recent content -- although for many of these African languages, there is not more recent research to be found; the work that happened during colonial times for colonial reasons is sometimes the only published material that is available. Laurakgibbs (talk) 00:21, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

If there is not more recent research than 1905, I would fear that we cannot responsibly say much about a subject, as it is a borderline unacceptable age for a source to be treated as secondary and reliable in this field. The source becomes primary, as we have to newly interpret it ourselves rather than trust it's saying things in a manner straightforward to us. Remsense诉 00:23, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

You seem to not understand that languages and cultures have HISTORIES, and in the case of oral literature, after colonial contact and the spread of English and European languages, the scholars who were doing ethnographic research with native speakers 100+ years ago had access to cultural knowledge that is invaluable. When it comes to folklore of any kind, the research conducted in earlier times is essential to the field. Laurakgibbs (talk) 00:26, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

And we cannot simply repeat what these researchers say, since their field also has a history, and standards are much different now. To do so potentially constitutes a reinterpretation of what has become a primary source to us. While citing premodern history is possible, it is always in tandem with more recent analysis: we can't write an article about evolution based just on what Charles Darwin wrote. Remsense诉 00:29, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

But these are articles about languages, and they are providing a description of the language, and they sometimes include sample texts, etc. Those sample texts are not research, but they are important to the language articles, and I am providing additional sample texts from the orature of that language which documented as part of the secondary literature for that language. I am not providing random proverbs from random websites, as in the Swahili article; I added my Swahili content in a separate section to distinguish it from the random proverbs someone else had added (and which were not deleted): Swahili proverbs from random websites

The African language articles are in generally pretty poor shape, and they very much need improvement. Often they consist of little more than material copied over from Ethnologue et al. I really hope you will see the value of adding substantive content to these African language articles; I will be adding more recent references when available, but there is important value in any secondary sources which can improve these articles IMO. Laurakgibbs (talk) 00:35, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry: something being poorly documented does not mean our editorial standards decrease. I really hate saying that, as they are poorly documented due to incredibly tragic and discriminatory systems and dynamics. I agree these articles need a lot of work, but we need to hold them to the same standards as we do everything else to treat them with the respect they deserve. I hope my good faith is apparent, as I really think this work is important. Remsense诉 00:40, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I hope my good faith is also apparent. I have been preparing for this project for the past 2 years, working as a bibliographer for the Internet Archive inventorying ALL the bilingual African language materials available there, with the next stage of that project being the addition of those bibliographical references and material to the African language articles. This is not comparable to your comparison of Darwin and evolution etc.; these are articles about languages, and I am citing secondary literature that is relevant and useful for the documentation of these languages. Laurakgibbs (talk) 00:43, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Also, FWIW, on one of the first articles that I edited, the Ndau article, an editor, DanCherek, chimed in with a correction to my punctuation in the bulleted list of Proverbs, but that editor raised no objections to what I was doing, which is why I have continued adding content daily to the African language articles. If that editor did not object, I am not sure what to think about your objections; I left a thank-you on his talk page for his help, and he replied that all was good -- and so I have carried on daily, until today. I've also seen much more serious editorial problems in the African language articles that I've worked on, and also in the ones that I have not worked on yet; surely editorial efforts would be better spent trying to fix those more serious problems, like the random Swahili proverbs that I cited above, rather than objecting to my work...? Laurakgibbs (talk) 01:22, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Oral literature

Hi, thank you for your work, it's really needed. Have you considered making new articles for each section you're writing and then just summarise these articles in the section on the language page? I've been really wanting to have the article format of Oral traditions of the (for example Zulu people), and the content you're adding is great for that. If you like this idea, please add any created ones to the "Articles created by this task force" section and I'd be happy to work w you on them Kowal2701 (talk) 18:03, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm SO GLAD you organized this group! I have been working alone for the past month without much guidance. I was thinking that someone more expert than myself would probably need to write up actual new articles (my one experience creating a new article was really arduous; they set the barrier high for new articles these days!), but I am hoping that the material I am providing can be a kind of kernel to build on. In most cases, the language articles are so scanty that they really need the oral literature section to boost them up; the Mende language article got boosted from stub to starter after I added the oral literature section, so that made me really happy!

I did run into a problem today when I went to work on the Tsonga article, and I left a long comment on the Talk page there; are you experienced enough to make a decision about the unsourced material that appears in that article...??? I don't know who to ask! Here is the comment I left on the Talk page. Laurakgibbs (talk) 18:39, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I’m not very experienced but I’ve put my thoughts there. Maybe we could make drafts of the articles first and list drafts at the taskforce? Kowal2701 (talk) 19:13, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

It is so nice to have someone to work with! I've actually still got a long list of language articles to update with bilingual materials that I've bookmarked at Internet Archive (I did bibliography work on African folktales at Internet Archive for a couple of years before starting on this Wikipedia adventure)... so, I'm glad to help on ANY new article you want to start (and for a new article, we could bring in all the bibliography, not just what's immediately accessible at Internet Archive and JSTOR -- I live near University of Texas and have access to library materials there), but for my own focus right now I want to get through all the languages for which I've found accessible bilingual texts (i.e. Internet Archive and JSTOR). I'm actually not a linguist; I just accumulated these bilingual materials in the process of collecting proverbs, riddles, and folktales in English -- but I've kept track of the bilingual materials exactly so that I could try to contribute to the language articles and boost them up! Some of them really need boosting!

And thank you again so much for explaining about the citation template I can use for the proverbs in the Tsonga article. Slowly but surely I'm going to learn how this all works, ha ha. It's fun learning something new, and I'm very grateful for the help! Laurakgibbs (talk) 19:25, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree, love your enthusiasm too lol. Wikipedia is a collaborative project. Something you might find useful:

Kowal2701 (talk) 19:36, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

We could make a draft of whichever one you feel you have or have had the most content for? I was thinking of creating Draft:Oral traditions of the Soninke people first if you have any proverbs on that? If not I'd be happy to do any one, I'm most interested in oral histories and the Soninke ones are probably the most famous. I have around 5-10 Soninke narratives and epics. First I need to do more studying on oral tradition generally, I'm not an expert only an amateur. I think the work you're doing is great Kowal2701 (talk) 19:44, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Oh, look at that cool tool! Wow! Thank you!

And I don't think I have anything Soninke bookmarked, but it would be great to work on an article where there is an epic tradition (there is all that controversy about Gassire's Lute because of the single source, etc. etc. and I think I remember it has an article of its own already) -- so what I can do is go through my reference bibliographies and see what I can come up with! I've got Scheub's African oral lit bibliography (hard copy), and there are these very useful things at Internet Archive which are SEARCHABLE, so actually even better than hard copy: Littérature orale d'Afrique noire : bibliographie analytique and Anthropological bibliography of Negro Africa (older, but still useful!). Maybe we can come up with a kind of "formula" for doing these oral literature articles, and starting from Soninke is fine with me!

So, tomorrow I'm going to write up the Tsonga language section, but on Friday, I will write up a bunch of Soninke oral literature references both for the new article (yay!) and also for quick use in the Soninke language article (which is currently a stub; it needs help...).

So, yes to Oral traditions of the Soninke people! Laurakgibbs (talk) 20:12, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Great, I’ll make a draft and list it at the taskforce Kowal2701 (talk) 20:16, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

THANK YOU. I'm excited about trying to do a new article. Laurakgibbs (talk) 20:18, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Same lol. Btw if you make 500 edits and have an account for 6 months, you get access to the Wikipedia Library which has access to most journals etc. Kowal2701 (talk) 20:33, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

OMG how awesome is that????? I still like to prioritize materials everybody can access (I wrote up a statement about that on my user page when an editor challenged my use of public domain references)... but of course I want to do a good job with the research bibliography overall. That is very cool! And I'll get there soon. Again, I had no idea: THANK YOU. Laurakgibbs (talk) 21:03, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

No worries lol, the only way I’ve found out this stuff is someone explaining to me too Kowal2701 (talk) 21:12, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

And I promise to pass it along as I progress here! 2 years ago I started recording for LibriVox and knew NOTHING when I started there, but now I know some things and am able to teach the newbies. Likewise I plan to be here a long time and hope the same. (I LOVE RETIREMENT) Laurakgibbs (talk) 21:17, 14 August 2024 (UTC)