Hallo Tilman,
Am 13.04.2012 um 13:01 schrieb wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org:
please find below the WMF report for March 2012, in plain text.
Thanks for publishing the new report.
Since a few months, we have been publishing a separate "Highlights" summary. Please consider helping non-English-language communities to stay updated, by providing a translation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_March_2012 Many thanks to those who translated last month's "Highlights" into Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch and (partially) Arabic.
We have discussed this on the German Chapter's list recently. Most of those taking part in the discussion opined the Wikimedia Foundation provide translations of its documents into the most important languages. We touched upon the subject as WCA announced it will publish its reports in several languages. Translations should not be left to the community. It is not up to the community to get news from the Foundation, but it is rather up to the Foundation to get its message across to the community. Please note that only a minority of Wikipedians are able to understand your documents published in English. I would be quite grateful if we please could change this.
Regards, Jürgen.
I second this on behalf of Russian-speaking users.
Victoria
On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 12:29 PM, Juergen Fenn juergen.fenn@gmx.de wrote:
Hallo Tilman,
Am 13.04.2012 um 13:01 schrieb wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org:
please find below the WMF report for March 2012, in plain text.
Thanks for publishing the new report.
Since a few months, we have been publishing a separate "Highlights" summary. Please consider helping non-English-language communities to stay updated, by providing a translation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_March_2012 Many thanks to those who translated last month's "Highlights" into Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch and (partially) Arabic.
We have discussed this on the German Chapter's list recently. Most of those taking part in the discussion opined the Wikimedia Foundation provide translations of its documents into the most important languages. We touched upon the subject as WCA announced it will publish its reports in several languages. Translations should not be left to the community. It is not up to the community to get news from the Foundation, but it is rather up to the Foundation to get its message across to the community. Please note that only a minority of Wikipedians are able to understand your documents published in English. I would be quite grateful if we please could change this.
Regards, Jürgen.
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
As a matter of principle, I wholeheartedly agree. But principles only take you so far, and cost a great deal. I don't see much wrong with the communities translating reports, rather than have the WMF spend my donated money on translators.
On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Виктория mstislavl1@gmail.com wrote:
I second this on behalf of Russian-speaking users.
Victoria
On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 12:29 PM, Juergen Fenn juergen.fenn@gmx.de wrote:
Hallo Tilman,
Am 13.04.2012 um 13:01 schrieb wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org:
please find below the WMF report for March 2012, in plain text.
Thanks for publishing the new report.
Since a few months, we have been publishing a separate "Highlights" summary. Please consider helping non-English-language communities to stay updated, by providing a translation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_March_2012 Many thanks to those who translated last month's "Highlights" into Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch and (partially) Arabic.
We have discussed this on the German Chapter's list recently. Most of those taking part in the discussion opined the Wikimedia Foundation provide translations of its documents into the most important languages. We touched upon the subject as WCA announced it will publish its reports in several languages. Translations should not be left to the community. It is not up to the community to get news from the Foundation, but it is rather up to the Foundation to get its message across to the community. Please note that only a minority of Wikipedians are able to understand your documents published in English. I would be quite grateful if we please could change this.
Regards, Jürgen.
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Am 14. April 2012 14:03 schrieb Martijn Hoekstra martijnhoekstra@gmail.com:
As a matter of principle, I wholeheartedly agree. But principles only take you so far, and cost a great deal. I don't see much wrong with the communities translating reports, rather than have the WMF spend my donated money on translators.
May I remind you that in German Wikipedia so many contributors are concerned by exclusion from discussions and annoucements in English that the German chapter had to start a newsletter last autumn that is compiled weekly as a joint effort by chapter staff and volunteers in order to inform about recent events. However, this does not replace translations. In publishing its announcements in English only, the Wikimedia Foundation does exclude the majority of Wikipedians from direct participation which is an unfair and undemocratic way. Any money spent on improving participation is well spent, if it costs anything more at all.
Regards, Jürgen.
If increasing global reach and participation is part of our strategy, then it is important to communicate in the principal languages and engage with new people. Certainly, communities can help to translate. But the Foundation can leave that work only to the communities. What if nobody in the Chinese, Spanish or Arabic communities of speakers is able to do a decent work translating? Well, we leave billions of people outside and our expansion in developing countries will be affected. Also, it is important to have a coherent message across the world, without misspellings or uncomplete translations that can hurt it. Volunteers do a great job, but not the professional one we expect from the WMF. Every respected international organization publishes in different languages... when will the Wikimedia Foundation start doing it?
Osmar Valdebenito Gaete
Presidente de Wikimedia Chile
2012/4/16 Juergen Fenn schneeschmelze@googlemail.com
Am 14. April 2012 14:03 schrieb Martijn Hoekstra < martijnhoekstra@gmail.com>:
As a matter of principle, I wholeheartedly agree. But principles only take you so far, and cost a great deal. I don't see much wrong with the communities translating reports, rather than have the WMF spend my donated money on translators.
May I remind you that in German Wikipedia so many contributors are concerned by exclusion from discussions and annoucements in English that the German chapter had to start a newsletter last autumn that is compiled weekly as a joint effort by chapter staff and volunteers in order to inform about recent events. However, this does not replace translations. In publishing its announcements in English only, the Wikimedia Foundation does exclude the majority of Wikipedians from direct participation which is an unfair and undemocratic way. Any money spent on improving participation is well spent, if it costs anything more at all.
Regards, Jürgen.
Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
On Mon, Apr 16, 2012 at 3:20 PM, Osmar Valdebenito osmar@wikimediachile.cl wrote:
If increasing global reach and participation is part of our strategy, then it is important to communicate in the principal languages and engage with new people. Certainly, communities can help to translate. But the Foundation can leave that work only to the communities. What if nobody in the Chinese, Spanish or Arabic communities of speakers is able to do a decent work translating? Well, we leave billions of people outside and our expansion in developing countries will be affected. Also, it is important to have a coherent message across the world, without misspellings or uncomplete translations that can hurt it. Volunteers do a great job, but not the professional one we expect from the WMF. Every respected international organization publishes in different languages... when will the Wikimedia Foundation start doing it?
For what it's worth, translating Wikimedia stuff is _not easy_, especially for a professional translator who has (at least at the beginning) no experience whatsoever with the Wikimedia world. My take would be that a joint effort of volunteers and paid translators would be an idea to explore, as my experience with both all volunteer and all paid translation on things Wikimedia is pretty... well, let's say interesting (and just for the record, I hate doing translations and I am really bad at them, but proofreading something already translated is, at least for me, much easier).
On another note, the same way that Wikimedia Deutschland has started the Wikimedia Woche (a "Wikimedia international highlights" of sorts), I think chapters should help with this, by trying to find good resources (both paid and volunteers) to help translate the important things.
On yet another note, I don't think that _everyone_ is looking for _exactly_ the same information, and as a person involved in many different parts of the movement across the world, I think it might also be worth brainstorming about what exactly needs to be translated and how. The Wikimedia Woche in that regard is interesting in that it does not translate stuff from A to Z, but rather tries to give pointers to things that might interest the German community.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see more stuff translated (from the foundation as well as from anyone else, chapters, community reports, the Signpost, the Kurier, etc.), but I don't think it's all a black and white thing, starting of course with the difficult answer to the question "which are the major languages?" ;) (yeah, I know, Spanish is top of the list :P).
Best,
Delphine
Hallo Juergen, On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 1:29 PM, Juergen Fenn juergen.fenn@gmx.de wrote:
Hallo Tilman,
Am 13.04.2012 um 13:01 schrieb wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org:
please find below the WMF report for March 2012, in plain text.
Thanks for publishing the new report.
Glad you found it useful, and feedback is always appreciated.
Since a few months, we have been publishing a separate "Highlights" summary. Please consider helping non-English-language communities to stay updated, by providing a translation: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_March_2012
And translations continue to be welcome for the new issue as well: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012
Many thanks to those who translated last month's "Highlights" into Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch and (partially) Arabic.
We have discussed this on the German Chapter's list recently. Most of those taking part in the discussion opined the Wikimedia Foundation provide translations of its documents into the most important languages.
I absolutely support the goal of making it easier for Wikimedians who cannot read English to inform themselves about important news in the movement. The Foundation is certainly moving in the direction of providing more translations. For example, the last WMF annual report saw professional translations into six languages for the first time (https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report#Translations - by the way, if anyone needs printed copies of these for outreach or other purposes, feel free to contact us) and recently we started to experiment with translations of blog postings (https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/multilingual-post/ ). And during the terms of use update process, the WMF legal and community advocacy team has procured professional translations as well.
I happen to be subscribed to the German chapter's mailing list and had read the thread you mentioned. I noticed that it didn't really result in an answer to the central, most tricky question of how to designate those "most important languages". (An ad hoc suggestion for six priority languages for the Highlights on the Translators-l list last fall wasn't very well received.)
We touched upon the subject as WCA announced it will publish its reports in several languages.
I wasn't aware of such a concrete commitment by the WCA (besides the interim steering committee's announcement that it "will publish its resolutions in Esperanto to aid in translating into other languages." - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Establishment... ). But perhaps the WMF will indeed be able to learn from the WCA in this respect. Do you happen to know which core languages (besides Esperanto) it is committing to translate to, and could you tell me (perhaps offlist) which translation companies the WCA is contracting? Right now it seems that for the translation of the WCA founding documents, the exact same volunteer-based system on Meta is used to which you objected in case of the Wikimedia Highlights: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AMessageGroupStats&...
Translations should not be left to the community. It is not up to the community to get news from the Foundation, but it is rather up to the Foundation to get its message across to the community.
Although I agree with your emphasis on making such information accessible, I struggle to understand the logic behind this statement.
First, I would not see the Wikimedia Highlights as transporting "the Foundation's message" - e.g. half of the non-data items concern not activities of the Foundation, but of chapters and of the project communities: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012#Other_movem... . (That being said, I sympathize with the argument that if an organization sends out a message whose main purpose it is to advance what it sees as its particular interests in a movement-wide debate, it might consider paying for those translations instead of asking volunteers, and indeed I recall a similar case a few months ago.)
Secondly, while I am much encouraged (even flattered) by the fact that you are regarding the Wikimedia Highlights as essential information for community members, and translating them as a vital task, it is not a given that all vital tasks must be left to paid workers. Work like proactively removing copyright violations or processing OTRS emails is also essential for the movement (or more narrowly, the Foundation's operation), yet it is largely done by unpaid volunteers.
Third, even accepting that you want to see more donation money directed towards paid translations of the Highlights, I hope that you at least appreciate that the preparation of the Wikimedia Highlights themselves already represents a significant amount of paid work (mostly mine) toward that goal - facilitating translation was a main goal when we introduced the shortened Highlights version, after the full monthly report had seen virtually no translations for over a year despite a conspicuous notice at the top inviting them.
Please note that only a minority of Wikipedians are able to understand your documents published in English.
Just out of curiousity, could you point me to the research that this statement was based on? It stands in contrast to the recent editor survey among active Wikipedians in 17 languages, where 86 percent said they (sometimes) read the English Wikipedia (https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/27/nine-out-of-ten-wikipedians-continue-t... ). Again, this is not to deny the existence of a significant number of Wikipedians who cannot read English at all, or that those who can read English still might prefer to read a translation in their own language, or that providing translations will help our strategic goal of increasing global reach (as Osmar points out). But I think it is important to conduct this debate based on facts rather than hearsay or personal impressions, before spending large amounts of donation money.
I would be quite grateful if we please could change this.
All that being said, we are certainly open to the idea of spending some money on such translations of the Wikimedia Highlights and have indeed considered that before. It's just that weighing the downsides and advantages is a bit more complicated than you make it appear. In the end, it is important to be aware that the translation work will be powered by voluntary contributions either way - be it volunteer translators donating their time, or volunteer donors contributing their money.
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