Talk:Post-literacy

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cleanup[edit]

As this article is facing deletion as a long personal essay, I'm going to try and clean this up into an encyclopedia article. This means: the term will be defined. The expansion of it I will leave to others. The existing article is, frankly, crap. None of the online references even use the term "post literacy". They are of poor quality (an undergrad philosophy term paper? A note on how CIA country data is compiled? a web page giving a potted history of European languages in a thousand words?), not about this subject, and they have to go.

Googling the term comes up with a couple of things like this, but mostly literacy education program studies on what to teach after basic literacy.

I'm going to begin working through now, but if this is controversial, please let's try and develop a consensus here. Honestly, I can't see any other action than blanking this that will save this from imminent topic deletion. T L Miles (talk)

  • Dear god: "As with other topics that might have an impact on the development of the concept of post literacy..." I will now include a paragraph about X, a completely tangential subject the sources for which never mention my concept of "Post literacy". Just awful, unsalvageable personal speculation. 90% or more of this has to go.

Complete teardown[edit]

I'll include below the only refs I can find to "Post literacy" as an anthropological/cybernetics concept. This appears to a Neologism. For our policy on this, see: Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms. All I can find is a undergrad course by Michael Ridley "Chief Information Officer & Chief Librarian", University of Guelph, which he induced his student s to publish, but (according to their own page) was rejected by a newspaper, and published in a student publication (complete with mis-spelled title, apparently) as

  • "At a Loss for Words: An Introduction to Post-Literacy" ACCESS Summer 2007 (Vol. 13. No. 4), pp. 18-21. An article authored by the students of the Winter 2007 class, Beyond Litearcy (sic): Are Reading and Writing Doomed.?

There's one speech by Ridley

  • Michael Ridley Chief Information Officer & Chief Librarian, University of Guelph Post-Literacy: The Past and Future of Ideas. Author(s): Michael Ridley (University of Guelph) Topics: Information Literacy Origin: EDUCAUSE Annual Conferences (10/20/2004) Type: Presentations/Speeches October 20, 2004


"Just as literacy has displaced oral cultures, this presentation will speculate about the nature and characteristics of a "post-literate" capability that would displace literacy. Post-literacy will be imagined in terms of the development of new tools as well as the evolution of humans and human capabilities."

And his class notes:

The only other such usage I can find is in the title, but ONLY in the title, of 1992 book review:

  • Aycock, Alan. Review Essay: Post-Literacy (Review of: Tuman, Myron, ed. Literacy Online: The Promise (and Peril) of Reading and Writing with Computers. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1992. Postmodern Culture Volume 3, Number 1, September 1992

In short, this was a personal essay, and until other independent researchers start using this term the way Ridley has proposed, it is not an appropriate usage in a tertiary source such as Wikipedia. T L Miles (talk) 16:20, 27 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 22 September 2020[edit]

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Consensus to move to Post-literacy. (closed by non-admin page mover) SITH (talk) 12:36, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]


Post literacy → Postliteracy – Not two words. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 03:06, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 23:18, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Kj cheetham and 207.161.86.162: queried move request Anthony Appleyard (talk) 23:19, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I thought it should be hyphenated. -Kj cheetham (talk) 07:58, 22 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to Post-literacy. "Post-literacy" seems to be the most common form per the Google Ngrams. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:57, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – @Kj cheetham and Rreagan007: Is it possible that the inclusion of the hyphen is a function of the language variant, with hyphens tending to be preferred in American English more often than in British English? (CCing SMcCandlish, who I know has been involved in WP:ENGVAR discussions before and who would probably be more knowledgable here than I am.) 207.161.86.162 (talk) 06:06, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Not impossible, I've not looked into it in that detail, but I'd still argue hyphenated is the most common form overall. -Kj cheetham (talk) 09:01, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to Post-literacy. The nom is correct that post- in this sense is a prefix, not a stand-alone word. However, English does not fully fuse compounds of this sort until they become universally recognizable; hyphenation is used any time the result is likely to be unfamiliar to the average reader. See MOS:HYPHEN, and any mainstream style guide, such as The Chicago Manual of Style and New Oxford Style Manual (AKA New Hart's Rules).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:23, 23 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose—if it weren't for the jostling t and l in the middle (which are very hard to read), jamming together might be a thinkable option. But the hyphen would still be the correct way. Tony (talk) 00:20, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    @Tony1: Is that to say you would support hyphenating it over the current title? I'm not picky as long as we get rid of the space. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 02:33, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I would indeed. But for that to happen, you'd need to start a second RFC just below here, pointing out that participants have the choice. Have you thought of registering with WP, to gain an account, with username and userpage? We welcome new editors. Tony (talk) 03:56, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Seeing as it seems everyone would prefer a hyphen, and my feelings aren't super strong on it, could I withdraw the RM and we could just move the page as an uncontested technical request? 207.161.86.162 (talk) 04:09, 24 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There's no need to withdraw it. Tony is mistaken when he says that a second discussion would be required. If consensus is reached in this RM for the hyphenated alternative, then that is where the article will be moved to. Just let this RM run its course. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:55, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Tony (talk) 03:24, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it should have a hyphen too. Tony (talk) 03:25, 28 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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