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