Hi folks,
On the 9th March 2007, at 8h00 UTC on #wikimedia-translation, wikimedians had a meeting about the translation in the Wikimedia projects and about the TransCom in particular. 13 people participated at the meeting, you can find the list of them on meta. [1] along with the log.
Many issues have been talked during this two hours, and in my opinion this kind of meeting is really productive. The issues were: *The Translation Request page reform. *The importance of translation among the projects communities *How to inform the community of related and relevant issues about WMF *Where to work? *Recruitment of new volunteers and local coordinator
I will summarize the meeting, but if you have any question about the meeting, the transcom or the translations, you're invited to join #wikimedia-translation channel on IRC (irc.freenode/net) and leave your question or to mail "translators-l [at] lists.wikimedia [dot] org".
== The Translation Request page reform ==
On the last transcom meeting it has been raised problems with the Translation Request page, next to this aphaia started to make a new one. She has made a great job and showed during the meeting what will probably be the future TR. We talked about the organisation of the page, what to add, remove, etc... the page is still under construction and will be set up within the next weeks.
== The importance of translation among the projects communities == We all agreed that the translation was important to get more local volunteers involved within the Wikimedia Foundation and the Chapters. We talked about how to get more people involved in the translations. There was many problems interdependent. First we are actually outnumbered and the translations of Press Statement take many days, when they're translated. So we need to have more translators, if we want more translators, we have to take time to communicate with the community. But we also need time to translate Press Statement.
== How to inform the community of related and relevant issues about WMF == So we have, and still are, talked on how to get more people involved. We have listed what's actually existing: LSS and the Wikizine. Actually none is mastered by a committee, we discussed on how to get the transcom more involved.
During the meeting schiste putted a stress on a test make on the french Wikipedia. Two announcement pages has been set up, one for the foundation and the second for the local chapter. As those pages have been created really recently and it needs a lot of time , we will see in few weeks how to enhanced the use of this kind of page.
== Where to work? == Actually the transcom does work on meta., and for translations it's enough. But an issue has been raised, can't the TransCom become the core committee between the different communities and the foundation. On a first time we can continue to translate the Press Statement, and the stuff from the foundations, I do believe this kind of translations needs to be easily reachable by the community. meta. is a mess, newcomers can't find anything. If we want to have more volunteers implicated in the foundation, we need to be attractive. To get people involved we need to provide a place where the community can find easily the main information, here comes the idea of a "translation wiki". It would be a wiki with important information, press statement, foundation announcement, chapters report, etc... translated in many languages. A wiki of this kind would be a way to tempt people, and get them involved either in the foundation or their chapter
== Recruitment of new volunteers and local coordinator == As written above, this is a more than important issue. In the next weeks the Translation Committee will communicate with the local projects in order to find new members and to involve some people as local coordinator. The TransCom needs to have more volunteers to translate statements faster, and to provide more information to the communities.
This is a quick summary of a meeting of two hours, we spoke of some other stuff, but there are the more important ones. I hope the transCom will soon have new members.
All the best
[1]http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans/meetings/2...
Good evening,
On 3/11/07, Christophe Henner christophe.henner@gmail.com wrote:
== Where to work? == Actually the transcom does work on meta., and for translations it's enough. But an issue has been raised, can't the TransCom become the core committee between the different communities and the foundation. On a first time we can continue to translate the Press Statement, and the stuff from the foundations, I do believe this kind of translations needs to be easily reachable by the community. meta. is a mess, newcomers can't find anything. If we want to have more volunteers implicated in the foundation, we need to be attractive. To get people involved we need to provide a place where the community can find easily the main information, here comes the idea of a "translation wiki". It would be a wiki with important information, press statement, foundation announcement, chapters report, etc... translated in many languages. A wiki of this kind would be a way to tempt people, and get them involved either in the foundation or their chapter
I don't see the problem with going on using meta for translation. If you think translations are difficult to find on meta, you can create a "translation portal" (it seems to me it already exists as [[m:TR]] but I may be wrong). We are precisely closing some "peripheral" wikis because information is split in many places and that makes it difficult to find it. Opening yet another wiki will not attract more people, but it is a damn good way to lose people on the road.
On 11/03/07, Guillaume Paumier guillom.pom@gmail.com wrote:
Good evening,
On 3/11/07, Christophe Henner christophe.henner@gmail.com wrote:
== Where to work? == Actually the transcom does work on meta., and for translations it's enough. But an issue has been raised, can't the TransCom become the core committee between the different communities and the foundation. On a first time we can continue to translate the Press Statement, and the stuff from the foundations, I do believe this kind of translations needs to be easily reachable by the community. meta. is a mess, newcomers can't find anything. If we want to have more volunteers implicated in the foundation, we need to be attractive. To get people involved we need to provide a place where the community can find easily the main information, here comes the idea of a "translation wiki". It would be a wiki with important information, press statement, foundation announcement, chapters report, etc... translated in many languages. A wiki of this kind would be a way to tempt people, and get them involved either in the foundation or their
chapter
I don't see the problem with going on using meta for translation. If you think translations are difficult to find on meta, you can create a "translation portal" (it seems to me it already exists as [[m:TR]] but I may be wrong). We are precisely closing some "peripheral" wikis because information is split in many places and that makes it difficult to find it. Opening yet another wiki will not attract more people, but it is a damn good way to lose people on the road.
-- Guillaume Paumier [[m:User:guillom]] http://www.wikimedia.org _______________________________________________ Translators-l mailing list Translators-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/translators-l
As you can read on the very first lign of this section meta. is enough for translations :)
What I'm speaking about is wider. Actually we have big communities, but what about a core Community. Are we enough volounteer? No we're not. Is it easy for volounteers to get involved? Not at all. What I'm speaking about is linking the communities.
This part is the long term part of the meeting. It's not something to do tommorrow but something we have to begin to set up.
This part was "start reflexion", and I will continue to push it forward with the recruitment of the volounteer coordinator. We need more internal communication, and meta. is not right for this, it will be easier to have a main community wiki and then guide them where they can help.
On 3/11/07, Christophe Henner christophe.henner@gmail.com wrote:
As you can read on the very first lign of this section meta. is enough for translations :)
You are the one talking about a "translation wiki".
What I'm speaking about is wider. Actually we have big communities,
but what about a core Community. Are we enough volounteer? No we're not. Is it easy for volounteers to get involved? Not at all. What I'm speaking about is linking the communities.
This part is the long term part of the meeting. It's not something to do tommorrow but something we have to begin to set up.
This part was "start reflexion", and I will continue to push it forward with the recruitment of the volounteer coordinator. We need more internal communication, and meta. is not right for this, it will be easier to have a main community wiki and then guide them where they can help.
Could you just explain *once* *why* meta is not "right for this"? Meta is our central coordination wiki. Linking the communities is one of its goals. If meta fails in that, improve it, it is a wiki.
2007/3/11, Christophe Henner christophe.henner@gmail.com:
To get people involved we need to provide a place where the community can find easily the main information, here comes the idea of a "translation wiki".
If one does want a separate "translation wiki", couldn't this be achieved by a navigation template on all translation related pages? What difference would it make to be on another wiki? Maybe Meta is scary - yes it is. I hesitate to create pages there. So maybe we need to learn to be bold, and teach others to be bold, on meta.
To get more people involved in translation, IMHO the answer is to do it on a wiki that people visit for other reasons, i.e. for instance a Wikipedia. When translating these pages with (for me) very difficult American business terms and titles, I need to ask people who knows about such things about terminology. Since I translate to Swedish, I find them on the biggest Swedish-language project, Swedish Wikipedia. If the translation takes place on Meta, then they will probably answer my question on my svwiki talk page. Since we moved the translations to Swedish Wikipedia, however, these are more likely to insert their terminology direct in the translation. Having the translation page on the "home wiki" means one notices when new translations have been started on the usual watchlist, etc.
/habj
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