[Foundation-l] Translatewiki illustrates how low internationalisation is in the priorities of the Wikimedia Foundation

[Amir E. Aharoni]

2011/1/27 Teofilo <teofilowiki at gmail.com>:
> Before Translatewiki existed it was possible for Wikimedia/Wikipedia
> users to improve the translation of the Mediawiki software's message
> used on their project into their own language.
>
> It is no longer possible now,

As Chad said, it's still possible and it's often done in many wikis.

> because Translatewiki exists, and there
> is a powerful Translatewiki lobby within the local Wikipedia/Wikimedia
> communities which actively fights against the translation of messages
> on-wiki, and compells users to open a user account on Translatewiki
> (1).

It's "powerful" simply because it makes sense not to duplicate the
effort by translating messages on-wiki. If a certain message makes
sense for MediaWiki in general, but not for Wikipedia, then it can and
should be changed on-wiki after community discussion. The existence of
a whole page devoted to such discussions in the French Wikipedia is a
proof that this system works.

> * Let awkward translations go on being displayed on their language
> version of Wikipedia

... Or discuss changing them and ask the admins to implement the decision.

If you think that changing that particular message in fr.wikipedia
should be done locally and not in Translatewiki.net, express your
opinion there.

> * Or open an account on a non-Wikimedia project, which means providing
> non-Wikimedia managers access to your personal data. That means you
> are loosing the guarantees of
> http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_policy (the guarantee that
> your data are accessed only exceptionally and in such exceptional
> cases, always handled by people trusted by the Wikimedia Foundation)

Translatewiki.net has a privacy policy, too.

> I ask the Wikimedia Foundation to protect its users from the
> aggressions of non-Wikimedia projects. And to implement a set of
> policies to prevent this sort of non-Wikimedia project lobbying.

This is not aggression. Even though it's not officially connected to
the WMF, the people operating Translatewiki.net are important
contributors to Wikimedia projects and to MediaWiki. Thanks to
Translatewiki.net localization became simpler and faster. It's true
that the WMF could have made it, but the WMF didn't do it, and
Translatewiki.net did and it fit pretty well into the way MediaWiki is
developed.

> I ask the Wikimedia Foundation to support people involved in
> translation work, rather than expell them to non-Wikimedia projects.

I do hope that the collaboration between Translatewiki.net and the WMF
will become tighter, but there's nothing terribly broken in the way
things work now.