[Foundation-l] Transparency

[Aphaia]

On Jan 14, 2008 7:05 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:
> > Actually, we must also realize that many (if not the majority) of the
> > editors of even big wp projects like French, Japanese, or Russian, do not
> > speak English or do not feel themselves confident enough in English. This
> > means that they get all the messages about WMF through their own wp
> > project (through the people who speak both languages, are involved somehow
> > on a broader scope, and just select the material to be translated). For
> > instance, there is no chance they can read this list, possibly they would
> > even never know  that the (open) list exists. I just do not see how the
> > volunteer coordinator idea would work for these people. Unless, of course,
> > we find the translators - but then, again, this is not the only point
> > where translators are needed, and I just do not see how this could be
> > done. In the end of the day, participants of even bigger projects feel
> > disconnected from all decisions done at the WMF level, and do not feel
> > like they influenced these decisions at all.
> Very much so.  The United Nations has from the beginning limited its
> list of official languages.  Is the EU any better off if it translates
> long reports on narrowly focused topics from one obscure language into
> another?  It may not be politically appealing for a Chechen to
> communicate in Russian, or for a Quechua to communicate in Spanish, but
> unless the speakers of those languages are able to provide translator
> services will remain limited.  The most we can hope for is service in a
> limited number of widely used languages, or languages with a high
> on-line population like Japanese.  Maltese may be official in the EU but
> we can't realistically do anything about that.

Exactly. And that is why Transcom set the priorities between targeting
languages. Now we are going to make its annual and first update. I am
happy to invite you to review the current scheme.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communications_subcommittees/Trans/core_langs

You are welcome to give an opinion or feedback of our activity on that talk.

I set it mainly to determine which language translation should be
taken care to accomplish it      with our limited resources (mainly
manpower and time). It works like as triage of medical staff in a
critical moment. We welcome all languages, but you may agree we need
to take first "major" languages on the project (like French) rather
than small languages (imagine if there are two unfinished translation
of Finnish and Spanish, not related to any specific regional concerns
and you can afford only five minutes, which language translator would
you like to seek for?).

A slightly off-topic, as for Japanese I would love to add it has a
larger native speaking population than German or French according to
Ethnologue. (See also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers#30_to_60_million_native_speakers)




-- 
KIZU Naoko
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD