[Foundation-l] Localisation of MediaWiki

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
Localisation is best done centrally. Localisation of a project locally
should only be done on those messages that are distinctly different from
what is valid for other projects. These are messages that have to do with
local policies.

When you are of the opinion that the requirements for first projects and
subsequent projects should be the same, you are arguing for a substantial
increase to the entry level for a project because from my point of view we
would demand full localisation of both MediaWiki messages and extensions of
the WMF. This is in my opinion not reasonable. I agree with you that
localisation should be a continuous process. It is for this reason that only
for subsequent projects full localisation is required.

All messages localised in BetaWiki are available in all Wikimedia Foundation
projects. Consequently localisation in BetaWiki will improve the experience
in Commons or Meta. It is how I know how to navigate on projects that are
totally foreign to me like the Japanese projects.

With localisation in BetaWiki the total effort involved in localisation is
effectively reduced and the effectiveness improved. Britty, it is sad but
true; localising any other project then BetaWiki is effectively a waste of
time including the time spend on the localisation of Commons, Meta and other
internal projects. With full localisation any new project request will *only
* have to change the local policy specific messages.

In conclusion, we are experiencing some pain from the fact that we are
transitioning to a new policy. This whole issue of localisation for new
projects will go away when we all concentrate our localisation work at
BetaWiki. We will in the end spend less time and be more productive.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On Jan 15, 2008 12:02 PM, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:

> > On Jan 15, 2008 6:55 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > > I hope you will appreciate that this policy only aims to improve the
> > > localisation in all languages for us all. If anything the policy and
> the
> > > hard work at BetaWiki have shown to have a good effect. Things have
> already
> > > improved quite substantially over the last few months.
>
> As I said before, I have been granted sysopship on two Japanese projects.
> And generally Japanese are eager to localize messages.
> I am talking here as an individual, as a normal editor, not Transcom
> Chair nor former Board Election Comittee Chair but I am strongly
> convinced all my colleagues both past and present may witness how I
> put my energy for multilingualism and getting the global community
> involved into Wikimedia movement through activities in their own
> langauges.
> And as a sysop, unless I am very occupied, I've been tried to respond
> localization requests from the community who granted me the access.
>
> As such I daresay, if there is unlocalized message in Japanese
> setting, it reflects no one interested in that, no one feels the needs
> to localize it, no one think it hinders his activities in his own
> language. And I repeat here Japanese are not so much good in English.
> The localization get people involved into Wikimedia project? Simply
> no, I say from my experience. In the past Wikimedia elections since
> 2004, I was getting involved into boardwiki related messages
> localization from the beginning, and sure all messages were localized
> but it can be hardly said to get jawiki people involved into
> Foundation matters. In my case, it could be a factor but rather the
> emergence of *not yet localized* Japanese Wikiquote may have affect my
> involvement greatly, so I don't agree demanding full localization is
> the absolute requirement for project progression.
>
> Let us summarize: it is no factual argument the reason required
> localization is a must for a project. Rather I agree with Cormac.
> There would be better to no difference between first project and
> later. The community knows what their language community needs in
> their linguistic circumstance. Far better than you, Gerald.
>
>
> --
> KIZU Naoko
> http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
> Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
>
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