scott@sage.uchicago.edu (Scott Deerwester) (08/03/90)
I'm considering starting a multilingual computing mailing list, and I'd like some feedback on whether folks would be interested, would want to participate, etc. It could also be done as a (perhaps moderated, perhaps not) newsgroup, with a call for votes, etc., but there are a lot of people that I've bumped into who are doing great work in the area who aren't on usenet, but who might be coerced into participating in a mailing list. This doesn't yet constitute a committment to actually form the mailing list, but if you're interested, or think it's a terrible idea or whatever, please let me know. Please respond by email, and I'll summarize to the net if there's enough to summarize. The mailing list will be called polyglot. Requests for subscription should go to polyglot-request@tira.uchicago.edu. Scott Deerwester | Internet: scott@tira.uchicago.edu Center for Information and | Phone: 312-702-6948 Language Studies | 1100 E. 57th, CILS University of Chicago | Chicago, IL 60637
scott@sage.uchicago.edu (Scott Deerwester) (08/07/90)
It looks like I've backed myself into a committment to moderate a mailing list on multilingual computing. I've gotten 40 or so subscription requests since posting an article last week. The response was almost unanimous (one person didn't think that it was necessary). A few people (three, I think) said that they would prefer a news group, were there sufficient demand for it -- sci.lang.comp was suggested. Although that sounds like a wonderful idea (I'd prefer comp.polyglot, personally), one of the major reasons for making this a mailing list is that the multilingual computing community is sufficiently far flung that there are important segments of it that don't have access to news. There is also ample precedent for feeding a mailing list into a news group or vice versa if both exist. I also received mail from a few people who thought that a "multi- lingual mailing list", i.e. a mailing list in which people can contribute in other languages than English, is a great idea. I think so too, but this mailing list is devoted to discussing the use of computers to deal with other, and especially multiple languages. Sorry for the ambiguity. Maybe we should all just switch to Loglan and be done with it. So, the mailing list will be called Polyglot. It will be a moderated digest (as opposed to a simple reflector). The addresses are: For contributions polyglot@tira.uchicago.edu Everything else polyglot-request@tira.uchicago.edu The first few issues will focus on descriptions of existing work. There are some very interesting groups out there, doing some very interesting work, and I've asked some of them to write a few paragraphs on what they do. I'll also probably write up what we're doing at the University of Chicago. The normal range of topics will be covered -- announcements, questions about software, discussion about anything related to multilingual computing, etc. Now I'm going to have to learn MH and deliver so I can deal with all of this traffic... ------- Scott Deerwester | Internet: scott@tira.uchicago.edu Center for Information and | Phone: 312-702-6948 Language Studies | 1100 E. 57th, CILS University of Chicago | Chicago, IL 60637