User talk:Lego - cashman

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[edit] Maracatu

Hi there! You commented on the maracatu page, saying that you figured the author of the page had used direct translations from Portuguese or stock text from the few sources available in English. I authored that article and in fact did it immediately after having written a 6,000-word essay on it when my head was full of it. For that essay I trolled not only as much of the Web as I possibly could over the course of a substantial period, in English and in Portuguese, I also used as many academic references as I could such as Philip Galinsky and Larry Crook's work. Some of the key writings in Portuguese I could not get hold of because I'm in New Zealand and it would have taken time and money. The text was a synthesis of lots of information from many sources, not a copying, although it certainly does rely on hearsay because I've never been to the Northeast. The Wikipedia article didn't previously exist so I thought, what the hell, I'll just create one and see who comes along and makes it better.

I did come across maracatu.net in the course of things, had already heard of you, and already know that you are a person who has spent a lot of time in the Northeast and devoted a lot of energies to maracatu. I have been hoping for a person like you, with direct experience, to come along and have a go at bringing the article up to standard. Please feel free to give it a good edit, fix what's off and add material. It certainly needs it.

Here in Auckland a maracatu group is being formed with some Northeasterners involved. I hope to learn lots off them. Perhaps you have some advice, as they have only really watched maracatu themselves (i.e. never really participated). Mona-Lynn 19:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi Mona-Lynn,

I am new to the whole Wiki thing and although I am not a graduate, I have a strong opinion on this subject; some say my opinion is too strong!

It is interesting to hear how other people deal with the translation of these folkloric traditions that are, essentially, so far from our own.

At the moment, I'm actually quite busy with the various projects that I've taken on, always too many things to do! However, I intend to expand upon the original article when I have more free time, this will include adding other pages that could be filed under Brazilian percussion in respect to the instrumentation.

I have found that there are many conflicting views amongst the groups in Recife as to the origins and meanings of their tradition, a difference of opinion that only serves to further alienate one group from another when they should be uniting (to a certain degree) for their collective good. I'm sure you encountered these differences along the course of your essay - it depends who you speak to (or read)!

I'll endeavour to let you know about the changes I will be making.

I hope I didn't cause offence by my comments on the discussion page. Forgive a Wiki newb!

cheers,

G

Hi again! Thanks for the response! I would be very interested in seeing some of what you have to say about how maracatu is differently perceived by the various groups involved and about ideologies surrounding the whole thing. This type of nuance largely escaped me because I really wrote my essay in total isolation with just some recordings and articles and Web pages, although I did find a bit of it. I did my best on that essay but access to the goods (as it were) was a problem. By the way, if you are really interested in how it gets filtered by people like me, I can e-mail you the full essay. It was a university essay and was read by only a couple people, but I felt I had done well considering the difficulty in getting info on the subject. (But if you can't read it, don't want to, don't have time or whatever, no offense and no worries!)

I'll take the opportunity to explain a couple Wikipedia related things to you:

1. When leaving a message for someone, the standard way of signing it is to type four tildes ~~~~. When you save the page it will turn into your linked user name and the day and time.
2. If you make changes in the future to the maracatu page, you don't need to tell me because I have it on my watchlist and can see when someone makes a change.
3. In general when responding to someone who has left you a message, you should do it on their talk page rather than yours, because they are unlikely to have your talk page on their watchlist. On the other hand a message will be posted saying there are new messages on their talk page next time they log in. I did put your talk page on my watchlist because I figured you didn't know, since you're new, but normally I wouldn't have any individuals' talk pages saved. Or you do it on the talk page of the article in question.
4. You generally reply underneath the message that was left for you with indentations. You indent using one colon, or two, or three, depending on how in far the previous message was indented.

Also, a word of advice. Watch out for Wikipedia. It can be a real time sucker and I have figured out that it is largely not worth the time in the grand scheme of things, particularly if you are working on subjects that don't really matter to you. I generally dig in only when I have insomnia! That being said, I think it *is* worth the time when it comes to things that are truly close to our hearts because Wikipedia is widely consulted these days and we don't want crap propagated about things that we consider important. People like you as a specialist, and me as a student of ethnomusicology, can really help provide perspective where we find biased points of view, uninformed syntheses, instances of insensitivity or disrespect to others whose points of view have not taken into consideration, and inaccurate or starkly incomplete information.

So when you get to the maracatu article, I encourage you to rip it right up. I'm probably one of the only people out there with it on my watchlist and you won't offend me. Good luck with your projects! Mona-Lynn 04:01, 3 February 2006 (UTC)