--- GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
I have had the privilege to learn first hand how this can be done in a pilot project. In this project Wikimedians were in charge of a translation project where English featured articles were translated in Persian. The list of articles that were to be translated was presented before the work started to prevent the notion that an American POV was pushed out. Several articles were removed as a result. We have learned a lot from this project and, are now able to do a similar project where a mix of translation and original articles can be written.
Important is that the articles selected are the ones that will have relevance. This is why a theme of "background articles to the news" was extremely valid. It is these articles that are found to be most read; the Gerald Ford article was read a lot after his death. By consistently focusing on the background information to the news, you create the relevance that will attract other people to enrich the project with other content. Things that are in the news have a tendency to get back into the news... :)
Having a mix of translations and new articles is better also because the English featured articles are overdeveloped. It is much better for the creation of a community to create a tapestry of linked articles that provide a start. Many people have a fear of starting articles. There are with some regularity opportunities for projects like this. Of importance is that they are managed well and that the core values of our projects are respected this can be ensured by having established Wikimedians play a role in this.
I have wondered that it would be better to encourage translations to purposely "stubify" articles rather than focus on full Featured Article translations. This would give the less developed langages something where they see a need to "edit", eliminate most cultural bias without a detailed study, and make the limited translation reasources go farther to creating a interlinked web of articles. This idea was brought up in BOF at Wikimania but I do not know if anything was ever done in this line of thinking.
BirgitteSB
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