Mailing List Archive: Wikimedia announcements in various sizes

Wikimedia announcements in various sizes

Oct 27, 2008, 8:33 AM

Post #1 of 3 (773 views)

When translating the fundraiser 2008 announcement, I had again the
impression that Wikimedia announcements are suitable for the context of
English language, maybe a handful of other languages and their Wikipedia
communities, but not for lesser resourced languages like Latin, Swahili or
Dutch Low Saxon.

First, it is often a large amount of text that needs hours or longer to
translate. The workforce of small Wikipedia communities is limited, and the
result is often that announcements are not translated and distributed at
all. It is also a problem that e.g. the fundraising message referred to the
Annual Report of WMF, which exists only in English or a limited number of
languages.

Second, the contenct of the announcements is directed to speakers of a
language which is the main language of thoses speakers, or a language taught
at ordinary schools and universities etc.

Third, the Wikipedia/Wikimedia structure can differ, like the existence and
strengh of a Wikimedia chapter.

It might be considerable to have in future Wikimedia announcements in
various sizes, like L, M and S. Then, a Wikipedia language edition community
can choose which one to adopt.

Ziko van Dijk

--
Ziko van Dijk
NL-Silvolde
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Re: Wikimedia announcements in various sizes [ In reply to ]

thomas.dalton at gmail

Oct 27, 2008, 8:37 AM

Post #2 of 3 (723 views)

Permalink

2008/10/27 Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk@googlemail.com>:
> When translating the fundraiser 2008 announcement, I had again the
> impression that Wikimedia announcements are suitable for the context of
> English language, maybe a handful of other languages and their Wikipedia
> communities, but not for lesser resourced languages like Latin, Swahili or
> Dutch Low Saxon.
>
> First, it is often a large amount of text that needs hours or longer to
> translate. The workforce of small Wikipedia communities is limited, and the
> result is often that announcements are not translated and distributed at
> all. It is also a problem that e.g. the fundraising message referred to the
> Annual Report of WMF, which exists only in English or a limited number of
> languages.
>
> Second, the contenct of the announcements is directed to speakers of a
> language which is the main language of thoses speakers, or a language taught
> at ordinary schools and universities etc.
>
> Third, the Wikipedia/Wikimedia structure can differ, like the existence and
> strengh of a Wikimedia chapter.
>
> It might be considerable to have in future Wikimedia announcements in
> various sizes, like L, M and S. Then, a Wikipedia language edition community
> can choose which one to adopt.

That might be a good idea. An alternative would be for the local
communities to summarise announcements themselves, that way they can
be sure to include the parts that are most relevant to that community.
(Some announcements will lend themselves to such summaries more than
others.)

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Re: Wikimedia announcements in various sizes [ In reply to ]

erik at wikimedia

Oct 27, 2008, 10:53 AM

Post #3 of 3 (722 views)

Permalink

2008/10/27 Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk@googlemail.com>:
> It might be considerable to have in future Wikimedia announcements in
> various sizes, like L, M and S. Then, a Wikipedia language edition community
> can choose which one to adopt.

It would help, I think, if we would associate certain processes with
these levels of importance, e.g.:

* high importance: announcement in meta site-notice, posting on
foundation-l and translators-l, biweekly updates on translators-l
* medium importance: posting on translators-l
* low importance: add language link examples to document & purely rely
on self-organization to achieve translations.

For projects like the survey, we've effectively already followed the
"high importance" process above.

Separately, it remains the case that coordinating translations is a
very serious, dedicated piece of work. If the organization could
afford it, it would be lovely to have a full-time translation
coordinator who worries about no other problem. As is, we've on a
case-by-case basis allocated staff time to coordinate translations,
and relied on some very active volunteers (yay Casey!) to help
throughout the process.

--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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