[Foundation-l] Localisation of MediaWiki

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
I agree that it is unfair. I am asking others to help with the localisation.
I do ask the Spanish Wikimedians to do the localisation for their language.

Where I disagree is that it is unreasonable to require the full localisation
for any subsequent project to start. It is one of the few mechanisms that
the language committee has to ensure that projects in a language will be a
success. We require localisation and we require sufficient quality content
and sufficient activity so that we can prevent the failure of the many
projects we have seen in the past. When the localisation is done and the
project fails anyway there is at least something to show for the effort.

For another second project, one with little or no localisation, we got the
complaint that there may be no people that CAN do the localisation. The
person indicated that he is only a level-1 speaker of the language ... what
I ask myself is what the quality of the existing project is.

In a perfect world the localisation of MediaWiki is continuously maintained.
In this way a new project does not have to put effort to fulfill this
requirement. Some languages like Arab, Farsi, Dutch, Croat, Slovak, Upper
Sorbian to name only a few it is a perfect world.
Thanks,
      GerardM

On Jan 13, 2008 2:04 PM, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello there,
>
> On Jan 13, 2008 7:17 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > When a second or subsequent project is requested for a langauge, there
> is a
> > requirement for a full localisation of the User Interface. This does
> benefit
> > all people who use their language in projects like Commons, Meta.. The
> full
> > localisation means all MediaWiki messages and all the messages of
> extensions
> > used in the Wikimedia Foundation.
> >
> > In the request for the Japanese Wikiversity, there were complaints that
> it
> > is unreasonable for the people requesting a new project to have to do
> this
> > work. It is indeed not fair.
>
> Sorry, I disagree. For the record, I was the person who commented
> about this point, but you missed my second argument. Other language
> without full localization has its own Wikiversity. And at least one of
> them, Spanish, has less number of localized MediaWiki messages
> according to the stats on Betawiki. Regardless if your first point is
> valid, unequal treatment per se is unfair in my opinion.
>
> > It is for this reason that I ask all Wikimedia
> > editors to help out with the missing localisations. There are few
> moments
> > when we can make requirements and thereby ensure the quality of the
> > localisation. This helps our readers, our editors in doing what we all
> want
> > them to do; read and create good free content.
>
> Also, since they are the second (or third or ... whatever) project,
> why not ask the existing community to localize, not put the task on
> newly coming people whose population is ordinary smaller the sum of
> existing ones?
>
> > Thanks,
> >      GerardM
> >
> > * BetaWiki <http://translatewiki.net>
> > * Statistics of the localisation per
> > language<http://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Group_statistics>
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>
>
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