--- El lun 14-sep-09, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com escribió:
De: Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania 2011 Para: "Wikimania general list (open subscription)" wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: lunes, 14 de septiembre de 2009, 9:18 pm 2009/9/15 WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@googlemail.com:
1 Which languages have to be covered at every
Wikimania? The de-facto
minimum is probably now host country plus English, but
that might rise
in future.
We've only had the host language (if not English) represented once, I wouldn't say that is a de-facto minimum. It might become so, but it isn't yet.
I think we need to put the bilingual nature of the 2009 Wikimania in context.
First, in Argentina English is not as wide-spread as in Europe or other countries; Not having a English to Spanish in at least some of the presentations would have seriously limited the local assistance.
Secondly, being Spanish one of the most important languages in the world, and within Wikipedia with 20% of the total traffic[citation needed], having a number of Spanish speaking speakers made a lot of sense. Making them speak English to be then translated back to Spanish didn't make much sense, so we translated them to English.
I think all in all the translations back or forth worked pretty well in general.
As for the complains regarding the closing ceremony; it's true, Patricio Lorente gave the final thanking in Spanish, but it was actually directed to the local volunteers and associate organizations. I'm sorry if you felt excluded.
As for the party invitation; attendees were supposed to be aware of it as we informed it through several channels; Patricio was inviting all volunteers, associates and technical staff to join us.
Back to the topic; we can think of UN-style presentations with translations from and to 198 languages, but its usefulness is questionable.
For the time being, the use of translation in Wikimania will probably have to be studied on per-case bases, though a general consent on its usefulness could/should be agreed on before Gdansk.
Cheers/Saludos/Do widzenia, Mariano Cecowski
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