Hoi,
A well reasoned and rounded argument about the pros and cons of a
translation service at a conference does not make you anti multilingualism.
I admit to having had reservations about multi language conferences because
for me a conference is very much a place where I meet people and develop new
and existing relations. When I meet too many people who do not speak a
shared language tolerably well, it removes a large part of the rationale for
going to a conference.
Now there are other parts to making use of a translation service, a
translation service is excellent for people who consider themselves not
competent enough to follow the speaker in the other language. It also may be
because the speaker is not confident in speaking in English. As long as
there is some ability to speak a shared language, the building of relations
will still work fine.
PS I was at Wikimania, and I was happy with the translators.. They did a
good job and I found that my experience of Wikimania did not suffer at all.
Wikimania 2009 is certainly one of the best Wikimanias I have been to.
Thanks,
GerardM
2009/9/14 effe iets anders <effeietsanders(a)gmail.com>
Hi,
2009/9/14 Galileo Vidoni <galio2k(a)gmail.com>
<snip>
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.
<snip>
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.
<snip>
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.
Oh, your English is just fine, don't you worry :)
Best, Lodewijk
PS: I realize that not being very pro multilingualism is considered
politically incorrect, rude and stupid to do in public. I'll just apologize
in advance for this ;-)
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