[Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing

[Christiano Moreschi]

Have you forgotten that these are WIKIS we are talking about? It's not just a matter of translation: the technology isn't there to do it automatically and we don't have the manpower do it manually. Even if the technology were there, it's a WIKI. Unlike your friend's translations, our content can drastically deteriorate and become useless overnight if nobody's watching it.

CM

Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.



> Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:58:54 +0100
> From: gerard.meijssen at gmail.com
> To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] 80% of our projects are failing
> 
> Hoi,
> EMC2 is a company who sells storage solutions to big companies. I was at a
> presentation of their documentation manager. He informed his audience that
> the people who buy their products invariably state that they prefer the
> English documentation. They always get the translations as well. The benefit
> to EMC2 is that they sell more products. The translation of their
> documentation adds pennies to the pound in costs, costs that are easily
> offset by the increased sales.
> 
> The point is that people understand things better when they are addressed in
> their own language EVEN when they can read the language that is foreign to
> them.
> Thanks,
>         GerardM
> 
> 2008/11/30 geni <geniice at gmail.com>
> 
> > 2008/11/30 effe iets anders <effeietsanders at gmail.com>:
> > > Because bear in mind, especially in those languages, a complemented work
> > of
> > > human knowledge really adds something. In the large languages, we already
> > > had encyclopediae and dictionaries of good quality. Wikipedia is better
> > > sure, and has improved our lives. But now just imagine that you are
> > living
> > > in Botswana, and on school (if you're lucky) there is very little
> > material
> > > available... and now there is an encyclopedia... In YOUR language!
> >
> > English is an official language of Botswana. Quite a lot of African
> > countries move to English or French for education above a certain
> > level.
> >
> > >Even if
> > > it only contains 1000 articles,
> >
> > ~102 articles currently.
> >
> > > you can already learn a lot from it. You can
> > > improve your knowledge, and increase the odds in competition with the
> > > western world.
> >
> > What is Tswana for mass spectrometry (looking at the translations for
> > that term across European languages is mildly amusing) ? There are
> > large areas where if you don't speak english you can't operate in that
> > area. There is nothing wikimedia can do about this. Highly
> > questionable if we would even want to.
> >
> > This doesn't mean we should give up on many languages but it does mean
> > that we have to accept that the educated people from those countries
> > may not want to use them and there is a significant risk of them
> > becoming POV forks.
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > geni
> >
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> >
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