Florence Devouard wrote:
Brianna Laugher wrote:
Philippe, my message was about the Board (WMF)
and the not the
Election Committee, which I think did a very good job in difficult
circumstances.
So, if I read you well, you consider that the fact the notices were not
translated in languages such as arabic and chinese, should be blamed on
the board.
I do not agree with that in the least, but in the spirit of making
things better next time, I would like to ask you to go beyond the
criticism and the blame and tell us what we should do in the future to
improve that.
Absolutely. There are certainly observations of things that didn't go
right in the elections. Translations into Arabic, Turkish (not
Chinese), and other languages are clearly something worth looking at,
but not with a view of blaming anyone for whatever might have gone
wrong. Some interesting problems have already been mentioned.
The board delegated organizing the elections to a
committee. The
committee begged to have more translators, and the COMMUNITY (not the
board) failed to provide appropriate translators. The elections are to
populate the board, but these elections are to elect people from the
community. Just how much is the community responsible to make sure
everyone votes ? to make sure everyone is informed ?
There are some very important but somewhat subtle points at play here.
Last summer Brad made a very important point about the relative roles of
the WMF and the projects. There needs to be a decent separation between
the two, and it makes me cringe when the community expects something
from the Board that it should be doing itself.
We've come a long way from the time whenWMF was firs set up and only two
of five Board members were from the community, and the situation was
stacked so that the community representatives could not change this by
themselves at all.
Just before this election finished some people expressed concern that
the Board might not appoint the elected candidates, but it did.
Whether the candidate that concerned so many people would have been
appointed doesn't matter because he was not one of the top three. This
really is a matter of fundamental trust. For now I would prefer to wait
until there is more reality behind the idea before becoming overly
concerned about this.
I find it a little bit too easy here to blame it on the
board. You are a
responsible citizen yourself. Why did not you go yourself ask arabic
wikipedians to translate the notice ? Why is it necessarily the job of
the board ? Don't you think that ANY wikipedian who knows arabic editors
is more appropriate and efficient to ask help locally ?
I don't think it was the Board's job either. This doesn't diminish the
challenge of the task. No other website operates in so many different
languages. As a whole we face challenges for which there is no
precedent. The democratic growth of a community depends on its
population accepting full responsibility for what happens within it, and
if that requires translation, some member of that linguistic
sub-community is going to pick up the ball and do what needs to be
done. It may not be necessary to reproduce every bit of drivel which
the candidates produce as a part of their campaign, but one does one's
best while exercising judgement about what is important.
What do you suggest that the board does in the future
?
Leave it for members of a linguistic sub-community to find their own
translator.
Delegate organization of the elections to another group
of people, with
better abililites to beg ?
No.
That the board goes itself begging for more translators
in Arabic (a job
that has been delegated to the election committee) ?
No.
That the board learns arabic and chinese before next
elections in order
to translate itself ?
No.
That the board pays translators ?
No.
Delegate translation to Brianna ?
If it's so important to her, I'm sure she can do her share.
Please, if you blame, provide suggestions of how things
can be improved
next time. As a board member, I would consider totally excluded that I
learn arabic to provide translation. I would also consider totally
excluded that I go to EACH language in turn to beg for translation.
Already overworked, I am not sure it is making the best use of my time.
I also think that if the board makes the decision to hire translators,
there will be a HUGE uproar of complaints, because we indeed have the
resources internally.
Anglo-centrism can be a giant problem, both here and elsewhere. We also
have many people dedicated to the prionciple that we are creating a free
encyclopedia in every language that wants it, but not to the extent
that we will foist it upon them whether they want it or not. The harsh
reality with some of these languages is that if the people directly
concerned don't do anything it ain't gonna happen. This may even mean
that some languages will become extinct; that's life.
Ec
