[Foundation-l] A simple question on languages.

[Thomas Dalton]

On 24/01/2008, cohesion <cohesion at sleepyhead.org> wrote:
> On Jan 24, 2008 2:46 PM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I don't think its useful to look at limiting languages in terms of
> > 'resources' available for providing Wikimedia projects. As Aphaia and
> > Gerard point out, what we're dealing with is volunteer resources -
> > which cost the Foundation nothing and can't be required or redirected
> > in any case.
>
>
> I don't know if that's entirely true. I mean, it's nice if volunteers
> can translate everything. But it's certainly conceivable that the
> Foundation might want to issue press releases or statements or
> something in these N languages regardless of volunteer support, even
> if that means paying for an occasional translation.
>
> The answer to this question would conceivably be very useful, I don't
> see any reason to discourage people from finding it.

If the WMF wants to translate things, the number of languages would be
much smaller than the numbers we're talking about. I can see the WMF
paying for translations into major languages, or languages used by
people directly affected by what the press release is about, but
translating into even just dozens of languages would be prohibitively
expensive.