Your comments below have nothing to do with what you said earlier. I appreciate the value of translation, and actually worked as a professional translator for twenty years. This is not about translation. You suggested companies pay the Foundation or (individuals) to translate articles about them. Once money changes hands over content, the question becomes whether the Foundation or the translator has a responsibility to ensure that the content is satisfactory to that client. The exchange of money can be viewed as a contractual agreement of sorts. Assuming we do that, it is the corporation that determines the content of the article, not the community. It is clear that this is a violation of NPOV.
In general, I am also opposed to people paying for articles. I think that this will be the first step toward a breakdown of a volunteer community. Imagine this scenario. If Danny is getting paid to translate or write articles, maybe I should too. Maybe I wont even write an article until I get paid for it.
In just four and a half years, we have been highly successful because we are a volunteer organization devoted to creating free content--not a translator's bulletin board. What you and Gerard are proposing will harm the volunteer spirit of the project by creating unnecessary hierarchies within it of paid writers and volunteers. This is completely against everything we have succeeded in doing so far.
Danny
In a message dated 8/18/2005 8:27:04 AM Eastern Daylight Time, sabine_cretella@yahoo.it writes:
If a company pays us to write or feature an article, does that mean that we are beholden to them to provide their POV as well?
no - since whoever wants such a translation knows that the article is already npov - so he wants this content translated and not re-written to his/her favour
What about if a political or religious group tries to do the same thing?
see above: any article for wikipedia is there to be improved - also the translated ones ...
To what degree will corporate or other moneys be used as leverage against NPOV.
I am confident that the community will reject this idea.
well ... see: if there is a translated article and you don't even know about this and then it is uploaded it is treated like any contribution - people will have a look at it and say it is fine or modify it
daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
Your comments below have nothing to do with what you said earlier. I appreciate the value of translation, and actually worked as a professional translator for twenty years. This is not about translation. You suggested companies pay the Foundation or (individuals) to translate articles about them. Once money changes hands over content, the question becomes whether the Foundation or the translator has a responsibility to ensure that the content is satisfactory to that client. The exchange of money can be viewed as a contractual agreement of sorts. Assuming we do that, it is the corporation that determines the content of the article, not the community. It is clear that this is a violation of NPOV.
In general, I am also opposed to people paying for articles. I think that this will be the first step toward a breakdown of a volunteer community. Imagine this scenario. If Danny is getting paid to translate or write articles, maybe I should too. Maybe I wont even write an article until I get paid for it.
In just four and a half years, we have been highly successful because we are a volunteer organization devoted to creating free content--not a translator's bulletin board. What you and Gerard are proposing will harm the volunteer spirit of the project by creating unnecessary hierarchies within it of paid writers and volunteers. This is completely against everything we have succeeded in doing so far.
Danny
Hoi, Your response proves that we do not talk about the same thing. Sabine does not suggest that the WMF should pay for content. What she already does is offer payment for particular articles that she is interested in. Articles where it is important for her to have translations in languages like Russian or Japanese or ... What she proposes is that outside of the WMF she offers a service where this is organised; people or organisations offer money or services for the translations of specific articles.
If you are interested in translating an article for money than you can but it will be only for the articles that a premium is offered for. In this proposal there is no involvement of the WMF, it is something that helps Sabine in her activities and it helps Free content as well. The quality of the articles have to be good in order for it to make sense to pay for but as far as anyone else is concerned this is something between the person who wants a translation and a person who is able to provide a translation.
Your assertion that this is about the WMF paying for content is wrong. However, your assertion that we are doing a great job for all people on this planet is very debatable. We have little or no content for many languages and I would think it a fallacy to reject paying for content in languages like Bambara or Ossetian out of hand just because we can get content in languages like English, Dutch or Plattdüütsch. The defenition of Wikipedia is: *"Wikipedia* is a project to build free encyclopedias in all languages of the world based on a neutral point of view." On http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia it does not say that we will always be a volunteer organisation. If anything, we are slowly getting more professionals in to make sure that what we do will grow and prosper. The discussion on paying for content has been going on for quite some time. Many people are really happy that there is some movement in getting content in languages like Bambara or Ossetian. In my opinion, it makes more sense to spend money on Bambara than on Plattdüütsch. Research on languages like Bambara are comparatively so underfunded.
It is great to see what we have achieved but there is so much more that we need to achieve to make our goals happen. It will take time effort and also money before we can truly say that we provide Free information to all the people of this world.
Thanks, GerardM
daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
In general, I am also opposed to people paying for articles. I think that this will be the first step toward a breakdown of a volunteer community. Imagine this scenario. If Danny is getting paid to translate or write articles, maybe I should too. Maybe I wont even write an article until I get paid for it.
I worry about this as well, but I do think it is worthwhile for us to have some experiments in seeding the work in languages where we currently have next to nothing. I do worry about the possibility of such work preventing or inhibiting the formation of a genuine community, so I'm cautious about it.
I don't think that work done for money in Bambara Wikipedia will cause anyone in English wikipedia to think "No fair, someone in Mali is making $10 a week writing wikipedia articles, where is my money?"
--Jimbo
In general, I am also opposed to people paying for articles. I think that this will be the first step toward a breakdown of a volunteer community. Imagine this scenario. If Danny is getting paid to translate or write articles, maybe I should too. Maybe I wont even write an article until I get paid for it.
I completely agree with you. The fact is that we don't really need to pay people for writing articles since the encyclopedias seem to fill up quite well...
why change anything and take the risk to lose our credibility or our reputation.
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