If the people creating the basic encyclopaedic terminology and style in the language are native speakers, then it would not be a thing imposed from outside. It would be a development within the language, just like it was with the languages that already have encyclopaedias. The basic encyclopaedic terminology and style in languages that have then also had to be created before it existed, it just happened earlier. Living languages evolve to deal with the realities of the present. Those which don’t, tend to die out as they become less useful. Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Vi to Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2018 1:43 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid translation
I see Amir's points, which are pretty reasonable, but I fear this would suit languages with a significant presence on the web.
Among them I agree with points 1, 3 and 4 while I'm not sure about #2 "creating basic encyclopedic terminology and style in that language", if we want to preserve a language we shouldn't create a thing.
By the way I was wondering my concerns about cultural colonization may be addressed -for wikis which has some contents (let's say at least 1000 articles)- by starting expanding existing articles instead of translating new ones. This would solve the problem of choosing what to translate though would leave problems about the perspective contents are created.
Vito
2018-02-27 12:31 GMT+01:00 Amir E. Aharoni amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il:
2018-02-27 13:00 GMT+02:00 mathieu stumpf guntz < psychoslave@culture-libre.org>:
Le 24/02/2018 à 18:08, Vi to a écrit :
*finally I think paid translators would hardly turn into stable Wikipedians.
I think this misses an important point that is, we don't need the
initial
translator to turn into a sustaining editor, we need the article to
evolve
with call to action incentives. And articles which don't exist at all – even as a stub – or don't meet an audience of potential contributors will never catch such an evolving cycle.
This is one of the issues with what I alluded to in my earlier email in this thread: the privilege that the "big" languages have. It's the privilege of already having other encyclopedias, textbooks, public education, etc., in this language. A lot of languages don't have these things. When you speak a language that has had these things before Wikipedia came along, it's hard to perceive the world like a person who speaks a language that doesn't perceives it.
If you define the purpose of paying somebody to translate as "turning the paid translator" into a sustaining editor, then this is indeed likely to fail.
But if you define the purpose differently, it may succeed. For example, you may define the purpose as one or more of the following:
- Demonstrating that it's possible to write an encyclopedia in that
language
- Creating basic encyclopedic terminology and style in that language
- Creating a bunch of basic articles that would appear in
interlanguage links in Wikipedias from bigger languages (English, French, etc.)
- Creating a bunch of basic articles that would appear in search
results from internet search engines
The existence of these things may bring in people who will become volunteer sustaining editors.
-- Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי http://aharoni.wordpress.com “We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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