Only if the information is not a pack of lies. Which on a smaller wiki it probably will
be. And, as I pointed out 4 posts ago, it's more valuable for Mr Botswana in English
anyway.
CM
Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.
Date: Mon, 1 Dec 2008 00:07:24 +0100
From: gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com
To: moreschiwikiman(a)hotmail.co.uk
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing
Hoi,
You did not get my point. The point is that inform ation in a native language is valuable
by objective standards.
Thanks,
Gerard
2008/12/1 Christiano Moreschi <moreschiwikiman(a)hotmail.co.uk
Have you forgotten that these are WIKIS we are talking about? It's not just a matter
of translation: the technology isn't there to do it automatically and we don't
have the manpower do it manually. Even if the technology were there, it's a WIKI.
Unlike your friend's translations, our content can drastically deteriorate and become
useless overnight if nobody's watching it.
CM
Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:58:54 +0100
From: gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com
To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are
failing
Hoi,
EMC2 is a company who sells storage solutions to big
companies. I was at a
presentation of their documentation manager. He
informed his audience that
the people who buy their products invariably state
that they prefer the
English documentation. They always get the
translations as well. The benefit
to EMC2 is that they sell more products. The
translation of their
documentation adds pennies to the pound in costs,
costs that are easily
offset by the increased sales.
The point is that people understand things better when
they are addressed in
their own language EVEN when they can read the
language that is foreign to
them.
Thanks,
GerardM
> 2008/11/30 geni <geniice(a)gmail.com
> 2008/11/30 effe iets anders
<effeietsanders(a)gmail.com>om>:
> > Because bear in mind, especially in those
languages, a complemented work
> of
> > human knowledge really adds something. In
the large languages, we already
> > had encyclopediae and dictionaries of good
quality. Wikipedia is better
> > sure, and has improved our lives. But now
just imagine that you are
> living
> > in Botswana, and on school (if you're
lucky) there is very little
> material
> > available... and now there is an
encyclopedia... In YOUR language!
>
> English is an official language of Botswana.
Quite a lot of African
> countries move to English or French for education
above a certain
> level.
>
> >Even if
> > it only contains 1000 articles,
>
> ~102 articles currently.
>
> > you can already learn a lot from it. You can
> > improve your knowledge, and increase the
odds in competition with the
> > western world.
>
> What is Tswana for mass spectrometry (looking at
the translations for
> that term across European languages is mildly
amusing) ? There are
> large areas where if you don't speak english
you can't operate in that
> area. There is nothing wikimedia can do about
this. Highly
> questionable if we would even want to.
>
> This doesn't mean we should give up on many
languages but it does mean
> that we have to accept that the educated people
from those countries
> may not want to use them and there is a
significant risk of them
> becoming POV forks.
>
>
>
> --
> geni
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
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