- Dear Prof. Visser, Dr. Dlali, Mr. Mavela and Mrs. Sijadu, and hello David. :)
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- I am so grateful that David has asked you all for your help. :)
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Just so you know, the Wikimedia Foundation, is a not-for-profit, charitable organization that relies on the goodwill of our users, volunteers, and friends. We have a very specific goal: to develop and maintain our suite of online, free, open content encyclopedias and other websites in all the languages of the world which are distributed free of charge to everyone. This is how we hope to help people improve their lives and change their world.
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We hope to bring Wikipedia to greater prominence in Africa. One of the ways in which we are attempting to do so is through VisualEditor. VisualEditor is what David mentioned: new software that will allow people to edit Wikipedia pages without having to learn complex computer coding language. It is a WYSIWYG-style interface and rich text editor that is as intuitive to use as an email application or word processing program. It will make it so much simpler for isiXhosa speakers to contribute content to Xhosa Wikipedia. And Xhosa Wikipedia desperately needs more contributors. There are only 156 articles in the entire encyclopedia and the more than 7 million mother tongue speakers are represented by essentially only 2 active users. And that is even in the month since Nelson Mandela's death.
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The VisualEditor software is ready to go, but at the moment, the instructions are completely in English. With 285 languages to deploy to, we cannot hire translators, we must reply on volunteers.
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If you know any students who are able to volunteer as translators, the sooner they can start, the better! (And if you would like to try your hand at translating, we'd love to have your help, too!) :)
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- As David mentioned, it is the Wikipedia interface, i.e. the buttons, menus and instructions, that need translating. Presently 0% of the interface has been translated into isiXhosa (citation: here), and deployment is set for just one week from now: 13 January 2014 (citation: here).
- The good news is, there are only 147 words and phrases to translate! The most time-consuming thing is waiting for admin approval of a TranslateWiki account...
- I outlined a short to-do list for translators in my Community Portal post called "Translators Needed". But the most important things to do right now are:
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- If translators have questions, they can message me on my talk page on XH.WP or EN.WP, they can message me on Facebook, or they can email me at akoval@wikimedia.org.
- I thank you so all much! :)
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- Yours sincerely,
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- Anna
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Community Advocate
Wikimedia Foundation