On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 10:59 AM, gopher65 gopher65@hotmail.com wrote:
You know, I've actually been recently considering an idea for combining all of the Wikinews language editions into a single project. However, the code required to accomplish this in a reasonable fashion does not currently exist, and I don't think that anyone at the foundation would be willing to jump in and volunteer the significant amount of dev time that would be necessary to make such a project possible from a technical perspective... even though I can see Wikipedia benefiting immensely from the same tech.
Imagine going onto a single, non-language specific Wikipedia, simply selecting your language from a list, and having every major article appear in your selected language. You switch to another language, the same article appears, with the same text, merely having been translated by users.
Translation is MUCH easier than writing a Featured Article quality article from scratch (FA articles take a surprising amount of effort and time to write),
Then you don't know what translation is, or just you are no translator at all. It is bridging one culture to another, and as creative and productive as writing from scratch. I think I don't need to speak how it is time-consuming work.
so this would significantly decrease the current duplication of
effort that is taking place in the "separate but equal" multiple-languages version of the mediawiki software that we currently use. In such a model of Wikipedia much more emphasis would be placed on the translation of other language's articles into every language than is currently the case. (For instance, a while ago I was looking up some special type of Russian Perogie. The article I wanted doesn't exist on English Wikipedia, but it does exist on Russian Wikipedia... which was useless to me, because I don't speak Russian. Thankfully Google Translate came to the rescue... sorta.) ;-)
Back to Wikinews and the issue at hand. As a Wikinews specific example of how this could eventually work: you have an article about something that happened in France, investigated by French Wikinewies, originally written in French, and then translated into Dutch, English, German, and Mandarin by other Wikinewsies. That type of coordination is currently *possible*, but it's much more difficult to manage than it would be in a better designed, multi-frontpage, auto-language selection multi-lingual site (based on your preferences for logged in users, or a per-visit dropdown language selection system (for non-logged in users)). Right now if you try to do that kind of thing you're attempting to coordinate 20 different people spread across 10 different sites; it's nigh-on impossible in practice, unfortunately.
Because of the technical issues that would need to be addressed, at the present time I'd have to say that a multi-lingual version of Wikinews simply isn't practical. Combining the efforts of Wikinewies everywhere and reducing our duplication of effort via translation of locally investigated and written articles would be a great idea, but it's not something that will happen soon. That's something for the far future (10 or 15 years from now maybe), not for the immediate future. Wikinews as a whole has bigger things to worry about than that, for the moment.
Maybe though, Wikipedia doesn't?
Gopher65
From: "Milos Rancic" millosh@gmail.com Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2010 11:32 AM To: "Wikinews mailing list" wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org; "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikinews-l] Discussion about proposal for multilingual Wikinews
I am cleaning Requests for new languages [1] at Meta. Some of the requests are clearly out of the Language committee scope, and they need wider discussion for concluding them.
One of such requests is for multilingual Wikinews [2]. Please, discuss here (at foundation-l; I am sending this message to wikinews-l to poke those who are not at foundation-l) or on wiki at the page [2].
[1] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages [2] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikinews_multiling...
Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
Whilst the idea of having a truly multi-lingual Wikinews with articles published in numerous languages is a good one, I fear that the practicalities make this somewhat idealistic. I think infact we should actually be rather proud that we manage to get so many articles published in so many articles as it is, which given the circumstances is rather amazing.
As someone who is multilingual and used to be pretty active on Wikinews (regretfully temporarily taking a break), I have been asked to translate articles from time to time. On the rare occasion that I have had the time _in addition_ to writing my own articles, it has been time consuming to say the least, and on most occasions I have had to decline requests to translate other people's articles because I simply didn't have the time to write my own.
It should not be forgotten that contrary to other sister projects where time is not a factor, it is a major one for Wikinews, where news that is over three days old is not published.
Finally the number of Wikinewsies is _incredibly_ small and we truly bi-, tri- and quadri-lingual Wikinewsies are a very rare breed indeed.
User:AlexandrDmitri on all Wikimedia Foundation projects
cc Foundation list per initial email as the replies seem only to be going to the Wikinews list
2010/3/1 Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com
On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 10:59 AM, gopher65 gopher65@hotmail.com wrote:
You know, I've actually been recently considering an idea for combining
all
of the Wikinews language editions into a single project. However, the
code
required to accomplish this in a reasonable fashion does not currently exist, and I don't think that anyone at the foundation would be willing
to
jump in and volunteer the significant amount of dev time that would be necessary to make such a project possible from a technical perspective... even though I can see Wikipedia benefiting immensely from the same tech.
Imagine going onto a single, non-language specific Wikipedia, simply selecting your language from a list, and having every major article
appear
in your selected language. You switch to another language, the same
article
appears, with the same text, merely having been translated by users.
Translation is MUCH easier than writing a Featured Article quality
article
from scratch (FA articles take a surprising amount of effort and time to write),
Then you don't know what translation is, or just you are no translator at all. It is bridging one culture to another, and as creative and productive as writing from scratch. I think I don't need to speak how it is time-consuming work.
so this would significantly decrease the current duplication of
effort that is taking place in the "separate but equal"
multiple-languages
version of the mediawiki software that we currently use. In such a model
of
Wikipedia much more emphasis would be placed on the translation of other language's articles into every language than is currently the case. (For instance, a while ago I was looking up some special type of Russian
Perogie.
The article I wanted doesn't exist on English Wikipedia, but it does
exist
on Russian Wikipedia... which was useless to me, because I don't speak Russian. Thankfully Google Translate came to the rescue... sorta.) ;-)
Back to Wikinews and the issue at hand. As a Wikinews specific example of how this could eventually work: you have an article about something that happened in France, investigated by French Wikinewies, originally written
in
French, and then translated into Dutch, English, German, and Mandarin by other Wikinewsies. That type of coordination is currently *possible*, but it's much more difficult to manage than it would be in a better designed, multi-frontpage, auto-language selection multi-lingual site (based on
your
preferences for logged in users, or a per-visit dropdown language
selection
system (for non-logged in users)). Right now if you try to do that kind
of
thing you're attempting to coordinate 20 different people spread across
10
different sites; it's nigh-on impossible in practice, unfortunately.
Because of the technical issues that would need to be addressed, at the present time I'd have to say that a multi-lingual version of Wikinews
simply
isn't practical. Combining the efforts of Wikinewies everywhere and
reducing
our duplication of effort via translation of locally investigated and written articles would be a great idea, but it's not something that will happen soon. That's something for the far future (10 or 15 years from now maybe), not for the immediate future. Wikinews as a whole has bigger
things
to worry about than that, for the moment.
Maybe though, Wikipedia doesn't?
Gopher65
From: "Milos Rancic" millosh@gmail.com Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2010 11:32 AM To: "Wikinews mailing list" wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org; "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wikinews-l] Discussion about proposal for multilingual Wikinews
I am cleaning Requests for new languages [1] at Meta. Some of the requests are clearly out of the Language committee scope, and they need wider discussion for concluding them.
One of such requests is for multilingual Wikinews [2]. Please, discuss here (at foundation-l; I am sending this message to wikinews-l to poke those who are not at foundation-l) or on wiki at the page [2].
[1] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages [2] -
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_new_languages/Wikinews_multiling...
Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
-- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
Wikinews-l mailing list Wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org