Mattis Manzel wrote:
I'd like to propose a new Wikipedia:
"the multilingual wikipedia"
Some ideas about how to do that are on
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Multilingual_communication
I would be very interested in getting the multilingual features of
oddmuse (the colored background, the language filters) ported to
Mediawiki and then start working on two things:
A) Elaborate the engine to make it work for multilingual pages:
language filters also in the edit mode, inclusion of automatic
pretranslation in a new translate-mode, etc.
B) Start making the "multilingual wikipedia". Kinda getting people
into the fun of translation.
Hopefully this wouldn't require a fork of Mediawiki. Unfortunately I
have a vage feeling that it does. In that case I propose as a name
for the multilingual Mediawiki engine: MMediawiki ;)
But who knows? Maybe things are easier than I think?
Or more difficult. I think the idea is full of naïve optimism about
translation in general, and machine translation in particular. Begin
with an English text and translate it into another language. Have
someone else, who cannot see the original, translate it back into
English. Compare the two English versions. The difference can be
amazing.
On another level, articles on the same subject are often separately
developed in each language. This can often result in having stable
NPOVs in each language that are different, frequently in the wake of
careful negotiation over the exact meaning of a word. Reconciling
these could be extremely difficult. I can easily imagine that
attitudes toward US foreign policy might not be as conflicted when
written in many languages other than English.
Ec
So, is it multiple worlds or do we live in one world? Do the elections
in the US concen us here in Europe or do they not? Does it makes sense
to effecivate wiki by making it a global thing instead of the thing of
a signle langage pool like English or German or not? When we can (try)
so?
So does NPOV existt at all or is it but a crusaders dream? Multiple
point of view. MPOV, Coexistance and collaboration. ;) In short: terms
wiki.