[Foundation-l] Localisation of MediaWiki

[Andrew Whitworth]

On Jan 16, 2008 4:25 PM, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild)
<pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:
> Cormac raises a valid concern about the difficulty of localization
> alongside all the other tasks of opening a new wiki, but the new
> requirements actually mean less work is needed for the first project.
> The previous requirements called for the translation of around 1400
> messages for the first wiki, and around 200 messages for the second
> wiki. The new requirements only call for the translation of 500
> messages for the first wiki, and 1700 before the second wiki is
> approved (by which time many messages have usually been translated
> over time by the first wiki's community).

One idea that still kicks around in my head is the idea that a
language's first project should not be a "wikipedia" or a "wikibooks",
but instead an undifferentiated, general-purpose wiki that can be used
to encompass all the various projects. For instance, you start out
with a project on which you can write articles/books/quotes/news/etc.
Once you reach certain goals, you will be allowed to differentiate
certain projects: A wikipedia, then a wikinews, a wikibooks,
wiktionary, etc. In this way, speakers of a foreign language have the
capability to write books/articles/news/quotes/dictionaries/etc all at
once. Think of it like an incubator for a single language.

If this project cannot accomplish enough translation to create a
differentiated project within a certain period of time (say, 500
messages per year or something), it gets shut down and shipped back to
the global incubator. By doing this, we don't create projects for
which there is no support, we don't create projects without proper
localization, we are able to monitor the progress of localization
efforts, and we don't put unnecessary restrictions on what kinds of
materials the speakers of a language can generate.

--Andrew Whitworth