On 06/22/2010 08:07 PM, Magnus Manske wrote:
I would consider this state as a poor reflection on Commons' accessibility.
Especially as Google image search (imho, the likeliest avenue of searching for images) gives 130 000 pictures of horses on Commons if searched in English, zero if searched in Estonian ("hobu"), and while it gives 160 000 results for a Hungarian search ("ló") on the first page only one of it is an image that resembles a horse.
Here's a thought: Enter "hobu" into translate.google.com, leave "source language" on automatic and target on "English", and it will happily translate it into "horse". Could we offer a "translation" link in search? As in, "translate my query into English and try again"? I'm sure we can come to an arrangement with Google (or someone else).
I already made something similar: http://toolserver.org/~nikola/mis.php