2009/9/14 Galileo Vidoni
<galio2k@gmail.com>
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I would like to say that saying you wouldn't go somewhere because it has a bilingual program is plainly, blatantly stupid. I don't know if someone did effectively say that, and if someone did so he must have misunderstood something. What I did hear were thankful compliments from both local and foreign attendees praising the simultaneous translation service and the possibility of having people present or attend conferences in their native language. This last group is way bigger that, let's suppose, no more than five people that may have misunderstood the bilingual approach and avoided registering for this year (and I still don't get to know them).
Actually I think I was one of the people who said something along these lines, but there's of course more behind it. First of all, one should realize going to Wikimania is a huge investment of money and time. To me personally, the bilingualism was a down side of the program. This was not even so much because I thought there would be less English sessions because of that, but because I had the impression that it would give a certain atmosphere where there would be a clear division in the community between the Spanish speaking people not speaking English and the English speaking people not speaking Spanish. This would be enforced by the program being partially in Spanish. So yes, I found it as a down side, and even at the conference (in the end, I was able to go, and glad I went) I think that the bilingualism caused some trouble - for example because the announcements were made in Spanish at moments almost nobody carried a translation device, or because translation devices don't work perfectly.
So... I hope this doesn't make me plainly, blatantly stupid. You can agree or disagree, but please, people make their own choices, and might have actually reasons why they think something is important or not.
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Excuse me, but no one can reasonably state that he would not attend a conference because it is not English-only: he may just stay within the English language activities, which were plenty and most of them in Wikimania 2009, and so did many attendees without ever having to hear a word in Spanish! What is more, what would you say to the sizeable amount of people that just had the possibility of attending their first Wikimania because content was being held and translated into the sole language they speak? I must highlight that simultaneous translation worked not only for having English sessions in Spanish: all of the presentations in Spanish were translated into English, and I punctually remember Samuel Klein telling the audience during the Q&A session that he was glad of having had the possibility to attend some particular presentations (originally) in Spanish.
Sure, there are good reasons to /have/ bilingual sessions, and to have some Spanish sessions too. However, that does /not/ mean that other people can't estimate those arguments differently then you, and might find it no longer worth while to invest the time and money to go to Wikimania. And as I explained above, what you describe was actually part of my argument. There would be a separation of the present people into two groups, and for some part that is what happened. Now to make a good analysis of the pro's and con's for that, you should be open to cricism I think, even from the unreasonable people who did not attend for whatever reason. Most of the times they might say things you find stupid, but you'd be surprised that some of them actually have a reasoning behind it.
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I don't know if the Gdansk team has foreseen the possibility of having sessions in Polish for 2010 --I think they didn't, but I may be happily wrong--, but I would love for example to see a bilingual English-French conference in Montréal, and a tri, quatri, polilingual Wikimania some day in the future. I think most of you will agree with me here.
Well, I for sure do not agree here. There might be bilingual sessions for practical reasons, but I do not think it should be a goal on itself. Language is a mean, not a goal. In Europe there are plenty of multilingual meetings and we call that the European Parliament. Very expensive and tiring imho.
The only possiblity of thinking of bilingualism as something negative may have been this year's experience being a disaster, but thankfully I think that was not the case.
I think bilingualism always carries a risk and a down side. It doesn't have to destroy the conference, but it certainly doesn't have to improve it either. I can't tell from my position with the current information whether it was actually an improvement or not of the conference.
Best regards,
galio
(from the former WM2009 Organizing Team)
P.S.: You may excuse my English, I certainly go better with Spanish.