Questions and answers
Good questions about CIRCLE.
A few plain answers about what CIRCLE is, who runs it, and how it treats the language and the people in it.
What is CIRCLE?
CIRCLE is a CMS for northern dialects and media content, wholly managed by the Native Communications Society of the NWT. It powers learning tools built for and by the Society.
Who manages it?
The Native Communications Society of the NWT. The library, the content in it, and who can use it are all managed by the Society.
How do people sign in?
There is no public sign-up. Accounts are provisioned by an administrator, and everyone signs in with a one-time magic link sent to their email. No passwords are used or stored.
How is the content organized?
Each entry begins with an English anchor word, with the dialect and community renditions gathered around it: the local spelling and the recorded voice, each credited to the community and the person it came from.
How does content get published?
Nothing goes live the moment it is typed. New words, spellings and recordings are submitted, then become part of the library only once a reviewer approves them.
Who owns a recording?
A recording belongs to the community and the person who gave it. Consent is captured with the recording, it is credited to its source, and it can be withdrawn.
Where is the data kept?
The library and its recordings are hosted in Canada. There is no advertising, no tracking, and no third-party analytics.
Is any of this used to train AI?
No. Content is gathered for the language, and nothing else. Where machines help at all, it is kept to the English side; Indigenous spellings and voices are always authored by a person.
How do I get in touch?
Reach the Native Communications Society of the NWT through ncsnwt.com.
How do I raise a concern about something in CIRCLE?
If you think a word, picture, or recording in CIRCLE shouldn't be there, for example because it uses someone's work without permission, email support@NCSNWT.com. Tell us what it is, where you saw it, and how to reach you. A CIRCLE admin can hold it, so it stops showing in the games and on public pages while we look into it. We'll let you know what we did.