[Foundation-l] A heads up

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
The current practice is to upload large collections with a category that is
specific to the material it came from. New categories are matched to
existing categories and they are merged. So uploading them as they are IS
nothing new. The problem is that when material is included that is not
English, it means that it originates from outside of the Anglo Saxon world
and thereby helps address the existing bias towards the anglo saxon world.

While material in Dutch does not help the English, the Spanish, the
Japanese, it only means that people that only speak Spanish or Japanse will
find that to them Commons does not provide any service, add any value.
Thanks,
      GerardM

2009/7/15 Chad <innocentkiller at gmail.com>

> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Gerard
> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > How does it help to find material in Commons when you do not know English
> ??
> > Practically it is nice that we spend money on improving the upload
> facility
> > of MediaWiki. In the end it makes no difference when you cannot find the
> > images. Functionally Commons is useless as a consequence to all the
> people
> > who do not speak English.
> >
> > When you reply PLEASE remember what the Wikimedia Foundation is there
> for..
> > Thanks,
> >     GerardM
> >
> > 2009/7/15 Chad <innocentkiller at gmail.com>
> >
> >> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Gerard
> >> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Hoi,
> >> > Why should the term base be translated ? Is it not more important to
> be
> >> > gained by getting all this material in the public domain ??
> >> >
> >> > I do however agree with you. All the material that is about Indonesia
> >> should
> >> > be translated to Indonesian. For them it is very much the opening up
> of
> >> > material that is part of their cultural history. Translating it into
> >> English
> >> > does not make it easier for Indonesians to find this material.
> >> > Thanks,
> >> >      GerardM
> >> >
> >> > 2009/7/15 John at Darkstar <vacuum at jeb.no>
> >> >
> >> >> At least the term base should be translated.
> >> >> John
> >> >>
> >> >> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >> >> > Hoi,
> >> >> > I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam about
> >> making
> >> >> > their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an
> important
> >> >> > collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a
> rich
> >> >> > collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about
> >> 100.000
> >> >> > images.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come with
> >> >> unique
> >> >> > identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and it
> >> will
> >> >> come
> >> >> > with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I understand
> it
> >> the
> >> >> > equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial
> >> >> translation
> >> >> > in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of museums
> in
> >> >> the
> >> >> > Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more
> >> museums
> >> >> in
> >> >> > Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German ....
> >> While
> >> >> we
> >> >> > aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not
> >> provide
> >> >> > language support. Language support will help people find pictures
> in
> >> >> their
> >> >> > language and will help the matching of categories into other
> >> languages.
> >> >> > Thanks,
> >> >> >       GerardM
> >> >> > _______________________________________________
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> >>
> >> There is certainly a value to having things in English. It aids
> translation
> >> into
> >> more languages. It's a lot harder to find people who speak Dutch and
> >> Spanish,
> >> French and Russian or Greek and Japanese. You're more likely to find
> people
> >> who speak English in addition to their native tongue, which allows them
> to
> >> translate it.
> >>
> >> -Chad
> >>
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>
> And when something is uploaded in Dutch, how do you expect this to
> help Spanish speakers? Or Japanese speakers? When you translate
> to English, you facilitate translation into other languages too. I'm not
> saying translate to English and let it be, I'm saying translate it to
> English to aid in retranslation.
>
> -Chad
>
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