Wikivietlit
Dan Duffy dduffy at email.unc.edu
Mon Mar 12 05:10:21 PDT 2007
Hi all,
I hope to launch Wikivietlit at the VNLP website on Friday. It is a
free web-based, user-written English-language reference to Vietnamese
literature.
Wikivietlit differs from the well-known Wikipedia in that authorities
are writing most of it. 2007 Editor Linh Dinh has contributed nearly
100 articles to set the tone. Summer 2007 fellows Lily Chiu and
Hai-Dang Phan will contribute a set of articles substantiating their
critical interests.
As soon as the VNLP spring event season is over I will be writing about
English and French language scholars of Vietnamese literature, a project
supported by Rockefeller and the Joiner Center which has made all this
possible.
You all are of course invited to revise and contribute. We will protect
your work from vandals.
We hope to provide open access starting on Friday, but right now you can
go to vietnamlit.org/wiki, and register as username "guest" and password
"guest."
Dan
Joe Hannah jhannah at u.washington.edu
Mon Mar 12 10:00:31 PDT 2007
Dan,
I am excited about this effort to harness the great knowledge that exists
in the Vietnamese Studies community and focus it in a useful resource. I
hope we (as a community of scholars) can do similar things in other fields
in the future. Best wishes on this endeavor!
Joe Hannah
Dan Duffy dduffy at email.unc.edu
Fri Mar 16 05:10:41 PDT 2007
Hi all,
Wikivietlit is up at the Viet Nam Literature Project website. Click on
the icon at the upper right corner of our front page,
<www.vietnamlit.org>, or go directly to <www.vietnamlit.org/wiki>
A wiki is a user-written web-based relational data-base using the free
software provided by Wikimedia. The best-known wiki is the popular
Wikipedia, written by non-experts who stress attribution to written
authorities.
Wikivietlit is more like the wikis that work-teams in corporations and
labs and classes at universities use to keep each other up on procedures
and key information. We encourage people who know something about
Vietnamese literature to share their knowledge with each other and the
general public.
The front page of the wiki explains itself, with boxes on coverage,
staff, sponsor, and a featured article, and links to details on
copyright, funding, and such.
Editor Linh Dinh and Wikivietlit Fellow Hai-Dang Phan have thrown
themselves into substantiating the overseas Vietnamese literary-magazine
understanding they share of global Vietnamese literature, with more than
100 articles on predecessors in the colonial and war periods and
traditional verse as well as contemporary figures and institutions.
To get a sense of what they have done, simply use the "Random" key on
the left-hand navigation bar to flip through. You can also look through
their work via the list of articles, site statistics, categories. We
have arranged the functions in a manner as easy to understand for both
readers and contributors as the Wikipedia software will let us.
If you would like to expand on something you see, clarify details, or
contribute a related article, just register as a contributor at the top
of the page and have at it. Linh's is not the only way to think of
Vietnamese literature.
I've got my own world which I will be sharing, and I am recruiting
others to contribute theirs as Linh and Hai have done. Lily Chiu will
be contributing significantly over the next quarter, we hope stressing a
comparatist view.
If you have a coherent set of articles to add, and would like to work
with me formally, just drop a line. As our content expands I will also
be looking for librarians to improve intellectual access, which I would
like to coordinate somewhat. But anyone can just register and get to work.
Dan
Dan Duffy dduffy at email.unc.edu
Fri Mar 16 12:42:00 PDT 2007
Hi all,
I've been getting kind words about the wiki, and some extremely helpful
comments on revising particular articles.
I would like to encourage those who have a lot to say to register as
contributors to the wiki and revise articles on which they have expertise.
Linh and Hai have put their stamps on the wiki in hopes of encouraging
others to join them. Short of vandalism, feel free to revise
extensively. The original authors will notice and react, or not.
There will be articles where experts will disagree at length about the
facts - especially issues of translation - but those should be few
enough that we will have time to find some positive resolution.
I have not yet had time to write entries myself, except to revise what
Linh wrote about me. You can check the authorship of any article by
clicking its "history" tab.
Oh, I have neglected to acknowledge our Wikimaster, Philip Arthur Moore,
whom I recruited through this listserv. Thanks to Philip and vsg.
Dan
Eric Henry henryhme at bellsouth.net
Sun Mar 18 04:30:55 PDT 2007
Dan - - I've been trying to create an entry for Pham Duy in
Wikivietlit, but the system won't let me log on; it just keeps
leading me around and around in circles. (says such things as:
"error: password incorrect"; or error: user name already in use,"
etc. etc.). Pasted in below is the article I wanted to create under
the entry "Pham Duy." -- Eric
Ph?m Duy: Real name Ph?m Duy C?n, Vietnam’s most prolific
song-writer and lyricist. Born on October 5, 1921 in Hа N?i, by
Sword Lake, he was the youngest son of the early 20th century
journalist, reformer, and fiction writer Ph?m Duy T?n. He wrote
his first song, “Cф Hбi Mo,” (“The Young Lass Picking
Apricots”) in 1942, while still an amateur singer and guitarist. He
got his professional start early in 1944 when he joined the “Gбnh
Р?c Huy Charlot Mi?u,” a c?i luong opera troupe. He toured
the length and breadth of the country for two years with this troupe,
entertaining audiences as a between-acts singer of “tвn nh?c”
or “new music,” while in the meantime gaining a familiarity with
the folk music of every region he passed through. In 1946 he joined
the Viet Minh resistance, first as a guerilla fighter and then as a
member of various arts units whose mission was to entertain and
inspire the soldiers. In this period he wrote patriotic songs, such
as “Xu?t Quвn” (“Bringing Out the Troops”), songs in folk
style, such as “Ru Con” (“Lullaby”), and songs of romantic
yearning, such as “Bкn C?u Biкn Gi?i” (“By the Border
Bridge”). These songs all achieved instant popularity. It was in
this period also that he met and married the singer and actress Thбi
H?ng (the sister of the song-writer Ph?m Рмnh Chuong and the
singer Thбi Thanh), with whom he had eight children, six of whom, Duy
Quang, Duy Minh, Duy Hщng, Duy Cu?ng, Thбi Hi?n, and Thбi
Th?o, became well-known musicians in their own right. With much
regret, he left the Vi?t Minh at the end of 1950 to escape
ideological control, and settled in Sаi Gтn early in 1951. Toward
the end of 1951, he and two other musicians, Tr?n Van Tr?ch, and
Lк Thuong, were arrested and confined to a cell in the Catinat
prison for 120 days. Some jealous musicians with connections to the
police had accused them of being Vi?t Minh sympa thizers. For the
next twenty-four years he dominated the muscial scene in the south.
He was instrumental in establishing the Thang Long singers, perhaps
the most professional of the many performance groups that appeared in
the south in this era. He excelled both in writing lyrics and in
setting poems written by others. He was active in film-making in the
50s and 60s; and in the 60s did much to promote public awareness of
indigenous folk music. In the late 1960s, he spearheaded the Du Ca
or “Troubadour” movement, the aim of which was to combat
commercialism in popular music by involving college students in the
creation and performance of songs. Over the course of his career, he
made hundreds of foreign songs available to Vietnamese audiences by
providing them with sets of Vietnamese lyrics. He escaped to U.S. in
1975, just before the fall of the south, and, after about two years
in Florida, settled in Midway City, California, next to Little
Saigon. An especially inventive and ambitious composer, he is the
author of about two dozen song-cycles on varied themes, each bound up
in some way with the culture, history, or fate of Vi?t Nam. Two of
the most well-known of these are Con Рu?ng Cai Quan or “The
Mandarin Road” and M? Vi?t Nam or “Mothers of Vietnam.”
Subsequent to 1975, he wrote several dozen songs reflecting the
refugee experience as well as song cycles based on the poems of Hoang
C?m (a close friend of his from his period with the Viet Minh),
Nguy?n Chн Thi?n, and Hаn M?c T?. In the late 1990s he began
writing Minh Ho? Ki?u or “Illustrations of Ki?u” using as
texts excerpts from Nguy?n Du’s celebrated poem. Throughout the
period from1975 to1999, he went on international tours as a lecturer,
singer, and guitarist to promote his song cycles. In 2000, at the age
of 79, he began making return trips to Vi?t Nam, where he was warmly
welcomed everywhere by private people and government figures, though
the Vietnamese socialist regime had banned the public performance of
his music ever since 1975. In May, 2005, he returned to Vietnam for
good, and the government began the process of lifting restrictions on
the performance of his music. He is the author of a four-volume set
of memoirs, a guitar method, and numerous articles and book-length
studies on musical topics, including (in English) Musics of Vietnam,
Southern Illinois University Press, 1975.
Eric Henry henryhme at bellsouth.net
Sun Mar 18 04:43:13 PDT 2007
Dear VSG-ers: Sorry, I meant to send my previous message to Dan Duffy
alone, but perhaps a few of you may find something of interest in the
article on Pham Duy that it contains. -- Eric Henry
Diane Fox (dnfox) dnfox at hamilton.edu
Sun Mar 18 09:31:53 PDT 2007
Dear Eric,
I for one am grateful for your mistake, which told me more than I knew about someone whose name I had frequently heard.
thanks,
Diane
Philip Arthur Moore <philip.arthur.moore@gmail.com>
date Mar 16, 2007 1:15 PM
subject [Vsg] A Note About Wikivietlit
As the techie behind Wikivietlit, I thought it might be a good idea to
send out a brief email to the VSG about some wiki particulars (my
apologies in advance if this is not the appropriate forum):
1) Wikivietlit is built on the open source software package MediaWiki.
What this means is that for those of you who have a high level of
familiarity with the mega-website Wikipedia, you should have no
problem transitioning over to Wikivietlit.
What this means for those of you who have a rudimentary level of
expertise with this type of software is that there is tons of
documentation around on how to edit pages and interact with the
community on websites like Wikivietlit. Your first stop should be at
the following URL:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_edit_a_page
2) Anybody is free to register with Wikivietlit. Dan has mentioned a
few times that there are some controversial topics on the website.
For those of you who take issue with any of the materials presented on
the website, you need to first register and then click on the
"Discussion" tab on the article pages that you would like to discuss.
The Discussion area of each article is where you need to justify any
major changes that you have made to an article or refute any
information that you disagree with. For the casual visitor, it might
be a bit jarring to see an article completely altered on a second or
third visit to Wikivietlit. Each article possesses the capability to
lock itself down when changes get too frequent and/or wild, so the
discussion page is where major changes need to be suggested.
This will probably be the last time the VSG hears from me about
Wikivietlit, as I tend to shift towards the background of what's going
on. If there are any major issues that you face when trying to access
Wikivietlit, edit pages, or the like, feel free to email me
(philip.arthur.moore@gmail.com). I'll do my best to get away from the
full-time gig that puts food on the table and take care of your needs
with Wikivietlit.
Cheers,
Philip
Dan Duffy <dduffy@email.unc.edu>
date Mar 19, 2007 6:05 AM
subject [Vsg] a wikipedia problem
Hi all,
The Wikipedia administrators deleted an article about Wikivietlit one
half-hour after posting. Linh Dinh inquired, and was told that we were
deleted under the following policy:
"Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content. An article
about a real person, group of people, band, club, company, or web
content that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject."
It has been my job for a long time to listen to administrators explain
to me how unimportant Vietnamese literature is. Rarely do they spell it
out so plainly.
So I'll ask Michele as VSG/AAS president to write someone a letter about
how important Vientamese literature, as soon as I find someone to write
to. If you want to join in, please get in touch at editor@vietnamlit.org
Dan
"Ogburn, Robert W" <OgburnRW@state.gov>
date Mar 19, 2007 6:41 PM
subject RE: [Vsg] a wikipedia problem
If Pham Duy is unremarkable as a musician/poet/inspiration of a
generation, I can't even begin to describe what Justin Timberlake or
Brittney are like...
Robert o.
Dan Duffy <dduffy@email.unc.edu>
date Mar 21, 2007 4:33 AM
subject [Vsg] Wikivietlit/Wikipedia
Thanks, Joe, those are numbers I should have anyways.
The matter seems to be resolved. Now for instance I can write an
article about the Journal of Vietnamese Studies for Wikivietlit, and
then contribute one to Wikipedia on the same topic, citing Wikivietlit
as a well-known authority.
After all, Wikivietlit is in Wikipedia. All Vietnamese studies scholars
can follow the same process to bypass structural racism at Wikipedia.
I used to write reference books for a living, whence I acquired my
contempt for the citation of authority. George Gissing wrote an utterly
dispiriting novel, New Grub Street, about the life, which hasn't changed
since Victorian times.
Nicholas Slonimsky's classic introduction to his edition of the Grove
music dictionary describes the social process of citation in
excruciating detail. A Russian speaker, he coined the useful word
"nebulitsa" for the errors and mirages that creep in as we constantly
refer to print matter for truth.
Really, I thought we got over that with Vesalius' critique of Galen.
Anyways. Thanks for all the good words. This one seems to have worked out.
Dan
Dan Duffy dduffy at email.unc.edu
Tue Mar 20 08:39:31 PDT 2007
Hi all,
Thanks for the many offers of support and calm advice.
I've been in discussion with a Wikipedia administrator, and have arrived
at an understanding that what we need to keep an entry on Wikivietlit at
Wikipedia is "verifiable notability" of Wikivietlit.
You can review the discussion at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:ChrisGriswold#Wikivietlit
With that in mind, Linh Dinh re-posted his original entry. It was soon
flagged for "speedy deletion" for lack of "assertion of importance."
So I expanded on the article with assertions of importance, especially a
summary of a favorable notice of Wikivietlit at the Tien Ve website.
The article, still marked for speedy deletion, is at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikivietlit
My defense of it is on the talk page, at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikivietlit
Anyone who can strengthen the entry, especially in a way that is
verifiable by another published document, or can chime in on the
discussion page in a calm and persuasive manner, is welcome.
But there is no need to pile on. These people have seen it all. They
want what they want.
I was delighted to learn in reading the Tien Ve notice that they propose
the VN for "wiki" as "khai to^/c"
Dan