Dear Wiki*edians & especially polyglots :
In the spirit of Thanksgiving, being thankful as ever for these polylingual projects (I just won a bet with a Chilean about his home town, referencing spanish wp articles :), I would like to propose a new one (gasp!) : an all-language wiki devoted to language overviews, language proposals, interface localization (text, images, &c), and translations of core Wikimedia and MediaWiki messages. Similar proposals have been floated before, with little discussion; here is another attempt on the theme.
* Name : babel.wikimedia.org ? * Main Page : a list of languages by, say, # of native speakers/readers [1], with prominent links to other views (by language-cluster, by geographic region, by article-count, by reader popularity...), information on translators & translation, and language statistics [2]. * Content : All localizable MediaWiki strings, in 200+ languages [3]. Portals for each language, describing work being done to develop that language, with portal-content in a few core language + the lang in question. All localizable custom strings for Wikimedia projects, in those languages. Key strings and messages (such as site-wide notice templates) which are used regularly and needed in every language. Policy and discussion pages about new language creation. ** Optional content : Other translation efforts, such as global press releases, which work through a high volume of content (thousands of edits in dozens of languages) in a short period of time. ** Related project : a specific "interface-translation wiki" for the latest MediaWiki installation, which auto-updates the localizable strings in the latest MW version.[4]
Please comment or indicate support for the idea on meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_projects#Babel_Wiki
[1] Not just readers; if there's no written language, audio output and input are excellent ways to transfer information... we've been doing that for eons longer than we've been passing around printed bytes
[2] % completion of interface translation; # of self-identified 'translators' in and out of the lang; full list of wikimedia projects in that lang w/origin-dates, article and active-editor counts; links to key pages on target wikis
[3] Eventually significantly more than 200. [3'] It may be useful to have one template/page per string per language, to facilitate automatic conversion from wiki to other formats; multiple views of l10n strings (e.g., 2 langs side-by-side on one page as in Special:Allmessages). ~200 languages x (200 custom strings x 5 Wikimedia Projects + 1000 standard strings) = O(500K) pages, worth its own project.
[4] These ideas could be merged; or that project (say, at language.mediawiki.org) could offer ways to pull content from the appropriate section of the Babel wiki (and more security safeguards).
++SJ
Great idea
- Name : babel.wikimedia.org ?
- Main Page : a list of languages by, say, # of native
speakers/readers [1], with prominent links to other views (by language-cluster, by geographic region, by article-count, by reader popularity...), information on translators & translation, and language statistics [2].
I think that a list in such an order would be confusing without any soirt of qualification.
- Content : All localizable MediaWiki strings, in 200+ languages [3].
Portals for each language, describing work being done to develop that language, with portal-content in a few core language + the lang in question. All localizable custom strings for Wikimedia projects, in those languages. Key strings and messages (such as site-wide notice templates) which are used regularly and needed in every language.
The main problem with that would be: how many people are going to visit? Many people who have translated the interface or some other similar work at a Wiki would need to know that this Wiki existed, and further, they'd have to have incentive to come.
Mark
-- "Take away their language, destroy their souls." -- Joseph Stalin
On 11/29/05, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
- Name : babel.wikimedia.org ?
- Main Page : a list of languages by, say, # of native
speakers/readers [1], with prominent links to other views (by language-cluster, by geographic region, by article-count, by reader popularity...), information on translators & translation, and language statistics [2].
I think that a list in such an order would be confusing without any soirt of qualification.
Indeed. Maybe a dimensional-slider showing a number of views, across the top, would be best. There are many useful ways to view a list of hundreds of languages.
- Content : All localizable MediaWiki strings, in 200+ languages [3].
Portals for each language, describing work being done to develop that language, with portal-content in a few core language + the lang in question. All localizable custom strings for Wikimedia projects, in those languages. Key strings and messages (such as site-wide notice templates) which are used regularly and needed in every language.
The main problem with that would be: how many people are going to visit? Many people who have translated the interface or some other similar work at a Wiki would need to know that this Wiki existed, and further, they'd have to have incentive to come.
This would ideally be more immediately gratifying than other ways to do such translation; with helpful statistics also udpated as one works. And there should be simple upload functionality; at least a "send a text file to this email address and we'll load in your existing work" -- and it would be seeded with the current interface translations.
SJ
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