[Wikimedia-l] Translations of WMF documents [was: Re: Wikimedia Foundation Report, March 2012 [was: Re: Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 97, Issue 43]]

Wed May 16 15:40:52 UTC 2012

Hallo Juergen,
On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 1:29 PM, Juergen Fenn <juergen.fenn at gmx.de> wrote:
> Hallo Tilman,
>
> Am 13.04.2012 um 13:01 schrieb wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org:
>>
>> please find below the WMF report for March 2012, in plain text.
>
> Thanks for publishing the new report.
Glad you found it useful, and feedback is always appreciated.
>
>> Since a few months, we have been publishing a separate "Highlights"
>> summary. Please consider helping non-English-language communities to
>> stay updated, by providing a translation:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_March_2012
And translations continue to be welcome for the new issue as well:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012

>> Many thanks to those who translated last month's "Highlights" into
>> Danish, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch and
>> (partially) Arabic.
>
> We have discussed this on the German Chapter's list recently. Most of those taking part in the discussion opined the Wikimedia Foundation provide translations of its documents into the most important languages.

I absolutely support the goal of making it easier for Wikimedians who
cannot read English to inform themselves about important news in the
movement.  The Foundation is certainly moving in the direction of
providing more translations.  For example, the last WMF annual report
saw professional translations into six languages for the first time
(https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Annual_Report#Translations - by
the way, if anyone needs printed copies of these for outreach or other
purposes, feel free to contact us) and recently we started to
experiment with translations of blog postings
(https://blog.wikimedia.org/tag/multilingual-post/ ). And during the
terms of use update process, the WMF legal and community advocacy team
has procured professional translations as well.

I happen to be subscribed to the German chapter's mailing list and had
read the thread you mentioned. I noticed that it didn't really result
in an answer to the central, most tricky question of how to designate
those "most important languages". (An ad hoc suggestion for six
priority languages for the Highlights on the Translators-l list last
fall wasn't very well received.)

> We touched upon the subject as WCA announced it will publish its reports in several languages.
I wasn't aware of such a concrete commitment by the WCA (besides the
interim steering committee's announcement that it "will publish its
resolutions in Esperanto to aid in translating into other languages."
- https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Establishment_of_the_Chapter_Council_Steering_Committee
).  But perhaps the WMF will indeed be able to learn from the WCA in
this respect. Do you happen to know which core languages (besides
Esperanto) it is committing to translate to, and could you tell me
(perhaps offlist) which translation companies the WCA is contracting?
Right now it seems that for the translation of the WCA founding
documents, the exact same volunteer-based system on Meta is used to
which you objected in case of the Wikimedia Highlights:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AMessageGroupStats&x=D&group=agg-Wikimedia_Chapters_Association&suppressempty=1

> Translations should not be left to the community. It is not up to the community to get news from the Foundation, but it is rather up to the Foundation to get its message across to the community.

Although I agree with your emphasis on making such information
accessible, I struggle to understand the logic behind this statement.

First, I would not see the Wikimedia Highlights as transporting "the
Foundation's message" - e.g. half of the non-data items concern not
activities of the Foundation, but of chapters and of the project
communities: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_April_2012#Other_movement_highlights
. (That being said, I sympathize with the argument that if an
organization sends out a message whose main purpose it is to advance
what it sees as its particular interests in a movement-wide debate, it
might consider paying for those translations instead of asking
volunteers, and indeed I recall a similar case a few months ago.)

Secondly, while I am much encouraged (even flattered) by the fact that
you are regarding the Wikimedia Highlights as essential information
for community members, and translating them as a vital task, it is not
a given that all vital tasks must be left to paid workers. Work like
proactively removing copyright violations or processing OTRS emails is
also essential for the movement (or more narrowly, the Foundation's
operation), yet it is largely done by unpaid volunteers.

Third, even accepting that you want to see more donation money
directed towards paid translations of the Highlights, I hope that you
at least appreciate that the preparation of the Wikimedia Highlights
themselves already represents a significant amount of paid work
(mostly mine) toward that goal - facilitating translation was a main
goal when we introduced the shortened Highlights version, after the
full monthly report had seen virtually no translations for over a year
despite a conspicuous notice at the top inviting them.

> Please note that only a minority of Wikipedians are able to understand your documents published in English.
Just out of curiousity, could you point me to the research that this
statement was based on? It stands in contrast to the recent editor
survey among active Wikipedians in 17 languages, where 86 percent said
they (sometimes) read the English Wikipedia
(https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/04/27/nine-out-of-ten-wikipedians-continue-to-be-men/
). Again, this is not to deny the existence of a significant number of
Wikipedians who cannot read English at all, or that those who can read
English still might prefer to read a translation in their own
language, or that providing translations will help our strategic goal
of increasing global reach (as Osmar points out). But I think it is
important to conduct this debate based on facts rather than hearsay or
personal impressions, before spending large amounts of donation money.

> I would be quite grateful if we please could change this.

All that being said, we are certainly open to the idea of spending
some money on such translations of the Wikimedia Highlights and have
indeed considered that before. It's just that weighing the downsides
and advantages is a bit more complicated than you make it appear. In
the end, it is important to be aware that the translation work will be
powered by voluntary contributions either way - be it volunteer
translators donating their time, or volunteer donors contributing
their money.

-- 
Tilman Bayer
Movement Communications
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB