GerardM said:
It is abundantly true that we need better support
for the localisation
of our project and of our software. There is a subcommittee that deals
with communication and translation. I am sure that they were consulted
before these punitive measures were enacted.
Sorry, what subcommittee? The meta subcommittee that is completely
divorced from commons? (I'm not saying that's their fault or the
Commons' fault, but it's a fact)
folengo said:
The issue has
been discussed on the English speaking village pump of Commons.
But should we consider the English speaking village pump of
Commons as an authoritative voice in a multilingual project, which
includes tiny minority languages, and also somewhat less tiny
minority languages yet less active and dynamic than the English
speaking community (and represented there mostly by bilingual
people, non bilingual people being almost absent and
underrepresented if not unrepresented) ?
What is the alternative???? How do you honestly propose that we
communicate with all these monolingual people?
As you know Teofilio I have supported some of your measures (like the
&uselang links one) and disagreed with others (parallel category
structures), and as it happens I disagree with the "hiding" links
approach of Arnomane. Although the Arabic front page is quite
appalling: literally one paragraph. It is the *only* page in
[[Category:Commons-ar]]. I did suggest to an admin candidate who spoke
Arabic that they might like to update it substantially. But if native
speakers are not interested in maintaining their translations what
exactly are us non-speakers supposed to do about it? We cannot force
them. They have to take the initiative. But they are more interested
in their Wikipedia or other projects - of course! The vast majority of
English and German speakers are too, actually. These projects are just
lucky enough to have a "surplus of interest" to allow something
resembling a Commons community to exist.
Realistic, workable, technically-feasible ideas to promote
multilinguality, I will always support. But it is unrealistic to
expect the people who are interested in the Commons to consult over
100 different language groups on ANYTHING let alone EVERYTHING.
Look at the Village Pumps - look at how active they are.
(als) Commons:Brünnele No topics.
(ar?) Commons:قهوهخانه One line, not even set up. Should probably be deleted.
(bg) Commons:Разговори One topic in October 2005.
(ca?) Commons:La taverna 6 topics, last active November 2005.
(de) Commons:Forum Active.
(en) Commons:Village pump Active.
(es) Commons:Café Active.
(fi) Commons:Kahvihuone No topics.
(fr) Commons:Bistro Maintained, but not very active (6 topics).
(gl) Commons:A Taberna Maintained, not very active (9 topics).
(he) Commons:המזנון 1 topic, unanswered.
(hu) Commons:Kocsmafal One line, no topics.
(it) Commons:Bar italiano Moderately active, seems to be maintained by
our one native Italian speaking admin.
(ja) Commons:井戸端 Moderately active. I see the most recent discussion
concerns Captchas - another technical limitation we never asked for
but had to work around (and I recall being accused of "English
villainy" on this occasion too)
(lb) Commons:Stamminet No topics.
(nl) Commons:De Kroeg 4 topics, remarkably unused considering the
NL.wp controversy. (We can never solve problems on Commons if they are
not discussed there...)
(no) Commons:Tinget Maintained, not very active (7 topics).
(pl) Commons:Bar Surprisingly inactive, 4 topics.
(pt) Commons:Esplanada Maintained, moderately active (24 topics).
(ru) Commons:Форум 2 topics, seems to be unmaintained and inactive.
(sl) Commons:Pod lipo No topics.
(sv) Commons:Bybrunnen Moderately active/active, maintained.
(zh-hans) Commons:互助客栈 4 topics, but basically unused.
(zh-hant) Commons:互助客棧 No topics.
So of the 20-odd groups, there are not even ten that have any decent
amount of activity. Realistically, what do you propose we do? How
should we conduct discussions?
To me the bottom line is that the whole thing is volunteer, just like
everything else. That means people only translate if they are
interested. We can't force them.
As you criticise us, please consider coming and helping us improve. It
is hard for us to be everything to everyone when very few people want
to devote much time to maintaining or improving the place.
Help us harass the developers for automatic translation of templates,
automatic language selection based on browser settings and/or
drop-down menu for language choice on the main page, for adoption of
Duesentrieb's proposed category translation scheme via interwikis.
These are just a few of the proposals that we dream of being
implemented but have no idea if it will ever happen.
Join the Commons mailing list and start throwing out proposals:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l
Brianna
[[user:pfctdayelise]]
Hoi,
I hoped for a reaction and I am pleased with what I got. The problem is
one of communication. A decision is made in Commons for all the best
intended reasons and it is implemented. Great. Well, actually yes and
no. Yes because something happens and, no because the communication is
sadly lacking. Why you are talking about a meta-subcommittee I wonder, I
was thinking more in terms of the communication committee and its
translation subcommittee. With the new structures that are put in place,
there are new opportunities to find ways of getting your message out.
As to your request to harass developers for automatic translation .. a
large part of what needs doing is called
and we
are getting towards the point where we can do some good. Another part of
making Commons more relevant is called InstantCommons and we are waiting
for the special projects committee to finally inform us that we can
start coding. You may also know that we are coding Multilingual
MediaWiki, this will help Commons in its quest for multi linguality.
So yes, we do try to get things done. We will get you the functionality
that will allow a 7 year old to find her picture of a "chien" or a
"cheval". But please do communicate big things, do use the Foundation or
the Wikipedia list for things that are profound. It is the lack of
communication that creates resentment it is not the fact that things are
done.
Thanks,
GerardM