[Foundation-l] Wikimedia announcements in various sizes

[Thomas Dalton]

2008/10/27 Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk at googlemail.com>:
> When translating the fundraiser 2008 announcement, I had again the
> impression that Wikimedia announcements are suitable for the context of
> English language, maybe a handful of other languages and their Wikipedia
> communities, but not for lesser resourced languages like Latin, Swahili or
> Dutch Low Saxon.
>
> First, it is often a large amount of text that needs hours or longer to
> translate. The workforce of small Wikipedia communities is limited, and the
> result is often that announcements are not translated and distributed at
> all. It is also a problem that e.g. the fundraising message referred to the
> Annual Report of WMF, which exists only in English or a limited number of
> languages.
>
> Second, the contenct of the announcements is directed to speakers of a
> language which is the main language of thoses speakers, or a language taught
> at ordinary schools and universities etc.
>
> Third, the Wikipedia/Wikimedia structure can differ, like the existence and
> strengh of a Wikimedia chapter.
>
> It might be considerable to have in future Wikimedia announcements in
> various sizes, like L, M and S. Then, a Wikipedia language edition community
> can choose which one to adopt.

That might be a good idea. An alternative would be for the local
communities to summarise announcements themselves, that way they can
be sure to include the parts that are most relevant to that community.
(Some announcements will lend themselves to such summaries more than
others.)