Thanks to everyone who helped - the translations completed so far are announced at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaannounce-l/2011-October/000265... .
On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il wrote:
I'm really not talking about Hebrew or smaller languages. I understand that it's not important to translate everything into all languages, even though it would be nice.
It's about choosing the right major languages. Most speakers of Hebrew know some English; a Hebrew-speaking person who doesn't know English very well will still be able to read that report in English with a bit of motivation. This cannot be said about Russian speakers and AFAIK, about Chinese, too. The Indonesian situation is probably different, but it's an important second language for many millions.
I get the point about Hebrew speakers being (possibly) more fluent in English on the average, but it has to be said that this kind of argument has its limits. For example, it could also very well be made about German speakers. However, recently there were a lot of complaints from German Wikimedians about information not being accessible in German (e.g. http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/vereinde-l/2011-September/subject.html#... ).
On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 1:56 PM, Emanuele Raoli e.r@live.it wrote: And, the traslation into italian of https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Highlights,_September_2...
don't need? Of course the Italian version was very welcome too, I included it in the announcement.
On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 12:05 PM, George Mel georgemelber@gmail.com wrote:
Hello, I see why we need those languages, but in my opinion, it is not a good idea to ignore Russian and Chinese languages.
On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 5:36 PM, Анастасия Львова stasielvova@gmail.com wrote:
But it is very strange for people from Russia. The attitude is not surprise, but it leaves nasty feeling; it's so great for the volunteer community.
Apologies, there was no intention to ignore or denigrate the Russian or Chinese communities, just the (maybe wrong) notion that this first, experimental request for translations for the "Highlights" should not be too ambitious. I will include both languages next time. Actually, Russian was added as a translation request on Meta on October 17, but no Russian speaker has taken it up yet.
On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 4:33 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Amir E. Aharoni, 15/10/2011 14:56:
..
Well, probably yes, and the same goes for Italian, but the question is which languages should the Foundation prioritize when soliciting translators.
From another age: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Transcom#Core_set_of_languages
Interesting link! See also the (partial) list of "big languages" by the fundraiser team recently posted on this list: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/translators-l/2011-August/001728.html