[Foundation-l] Translations fundraising.wikimedia.org

Gary Kirk gary.kirk at gmail.com
Fri Dec 22 15:12:51 UTC 2006


I also see on the page (forget the URL currently, but it's the one
DavidStrauss/Fundraising redirects to) there is an archive section.
What could be useful for the next time is for boilerplate-style copy
to be taken from this, which could be easily adapted. Just an idea.

On 12/22/06, David Strauss <david at fourkitchens.com> wrote:
> The system FundCORE replaced was English-only, so I saw no harm in
> implementing it with English first and adding translations shortly
> after. Now in the case of the other side of the fundraising effort (site
> notices and fundraising submission pages), I agree that more
> organization ahead of time would have smoothed things along.
>
> Gary Kirk wrote:
> > I think what should be taken from all this is that translation
> > requests should be made and publicised *well* before the whatever
> > we're translating about happens - for stuff we know about obviously -
> > like the Fundraiser. 'The Fundraiser starts tomorrow' is not much
> > notice, is it?
> >
> > On 12/22/06, habj <sweetadelaide at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> 2006/12/22, Sam Korn <smoddy at gmail.com>:
> >>
> >>> I doubt that will make a difference, as I only used the notes that
> >>> were in English to help me.  Provided that a Thai dictionary, for
> >>> instance, has similar quality notes (and this is a good but not
> >>> exceptional dictionary) I see no reason why this should be impossible.
> >>>
> >>> Yes, a knowledge of the language and culture is helpful.  But it's not
> >>> completely impossible to manage without for these simple phrases.
> >> IMHO we are splitting hairs. Of course there exists lists of words
> >> that are simple enough that they can be translated with only a
> >> dictionary! (and some context, or you can not use the explanation and
> >> notes in your dictionary). The question is how common these cases are,
> >> and I'd say that partly depends on how afraid you are of silly
> >> mistakes. One might realise that when put in context, the simple word
> >> has the wrong grammatical form... since the language one translates
> >> from does not distinguish between these two etc. etc. ad nauseam.
> >>
> >> I've translated MediaWiki messages "blindly". It often worked OK, some
> >> had to be tweaked when we discovered where they were used. That was no
> >> big deal. In PR material, such as this fundraising stuff, silly
> >> mistakes look much worse. I think this discussion still somehow hovers
> >> around the topic of C.O.R.E. and to me it is clear that a translation
> >> with just a dictionary would be less satisfactory, so that correct
> >> English in most cases is a better alternative.
> >>
> >> /habj
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> >>
> >
> >
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-- 
Gary Kirk



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