Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
Actually, we must also realize that many (if not the majority) of the editors of even big wp projects like French, Japanese, or Russian, do not speak English or do not feel themselves confident enough in English. This means that they get all the messages about WMF through their own wp project (through the people who speak both languages, are involved somehow on a broader scope, and just select the material to be translated). For instance, there is no chance they can read this list, possibly they would even never know that the (open) list exists. I just do not see how the volunteer coordinator idea would work for these people. Unless, of course, we find the translators - but then, again, this is not the only point where translators are needed, and I just do not see how this could be done. In the end of the day, participants of even bigger projects feel disconnected from all decisions done at the WMF level, and do not feel like they influenced these decisions at all.
Very much so. The United Nations has from the beginning limited its list of official languages. Is the EU any better off if it translates long reports on narrowly focused topics from one obscure language into another? It may not be politically appealing for a Chechen to communicate in Russian, or for a Quechua to communicate in Spanish, but unless the speakers of those languages are able to provide translator services will remain limited. The most we can hope for is service in a limited number of widely used languages, or languages with a high on-line population like Japanese. Maltese may be official in the EU but we can't realistically do anything about that.
Ec