Mailing List Archive

At least the term base should be translated.
John

Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Hoi,
> I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam about making
> their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an important
> collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a rich
> collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about 100.000
> images.
>
> The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come with unique
> identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and it will come
> with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I understand it the
> equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial translation
> in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
>
> The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of museums in the
> Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more museums in
> Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German .... While we
> aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not provide
> language support. Language support will help people find pictures in their
> language and will help the matching of categories into other languages.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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Hoi,
Why should the term base be translated ? Is it not more important to be
gained by getting all this material in the public domain ??

I do however agree with you. All the material that is about Indonesia should
be translated to Indonesian. For them it is very much the opening up of
material that is part of their cultural history. Translating it into English
does not make it easier for Indonesians to find this material.
Thanks,
GerardM

2009/7/15 John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no>

> At least the term base should be translated.
> John
>
> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam about making
> > their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an important
> > collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a rich
> > collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about 100.000
> > images.
> >
> > The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come with
> unique
> > identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and it will
> come
> > with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I understand it the
> > equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial
> translation
> > in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
> >
> > The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of museums in
> the
> > Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more museums
> in
> > Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German .... While
> we
> > aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not provide
> > language support. Language support will help people find pictures in
> their
> > language and will help the matching of categories into other languages.
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Gerard
Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Why should the term base be translated ? Is it not more important to be
> gained by getting all this material in the public domain ??
>
> I do however agree with you. All the material that is about Indonesia should
> be translated to Indonesian. For them it is very much the opening up of
> material that is part of their cultural history. Translating it into English
> does not make it easier for Indonesians to find this material.
> Thanks,
> GerardM

Well, in the 21st century a good deal more Indonesians speak English
than Dutch, and if translation to English is relatively easy, this
will probably facilitate translation to Indonesian also.

Thanks,
Pharos

> 2009/7/15 John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no>
>
>> At least the term base should be translated.
>> John
>>
>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>> > Hoi,
>> > I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam about making
>> > their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an important
>> > collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a rich
>> > collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about 100.000
>> > images.
>> >
>> > The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come with
>> unique
>> > identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and it will
>> come
>> > with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I understand it the
>> > equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial
>> translation
>> > in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
>> >
>> > The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of museums in
>> the
>> > Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more museums
>> in
>> > Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German .... While
>> we
>> > aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not provide
>> > language support. Language support will help people find pictures in
>> their
>> > language and will help the matching of categories into other languages.
>> > Thanks,
>> > GerardM
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > foundation-l mailing list
>> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Gerard
Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Why should the term base be translated ? Is it not more important to be
> gained by getting all this material in the public domain ??
>
> I do however agree with you. All the material that is about Indonesia should
> be translated to Indonesian. For them it is very much the opening up of
> material that is part of their cultural history. Translating it into English
> does not make it easier for Indonesians to find this material.
> Thanks,
>      GerardM
>
> 2009/7/15 John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no>
>
>> At least the term base should be translated.
>> John
>>
>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>> > Hoi,
>> > I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam about making
>> > their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an important
>> > collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a rich
>> > collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about 100.000
>> > images.
>> >
>> > The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come with
>> unique
>> > identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and it will
>> come
>> > with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I understand it the
>> > equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial
>> translation
>> > in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
>> >
>> > The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of museums in
>> the
>> > Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more museums
>> in
>> > Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German .... While
>> we
>> > aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not provide
>> > language support. Language support will help people find pictures in
>> their
>> > language and will help the matching of categories into other languages.
>> > Thanks,
>> >       GerardM
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > foundation-l mailing list
>> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

There is certainly a value to having things in English. It aids translation into
more languages. It's a lot harder to find people who speak Dutch and Spanish,
French and Russian or Greek and Japanese. You're more likely to find people
who speak English in addition to their native tongue, which allows them to
translate it.

-Chad

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Hoi,
How does it help to find material in Commons when you do not know English ??
Practically it is nice that we spend money on improving the upload facility
of MediaWiki. In the end it makes no difference when you cannot find the
images. Functionally Commons is useless as a consequence to all the people
who do not speak English.

When you reply PLEASE remember what the Wikimedia Foundation is there for..
Thanks,
GerardM

2009/7/15 Chad <innocentkiller@gmail.com>

> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Gerard
> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > Why should the term base be translated ? Is it not more important to be
> > gained by getting all this material in the public domain ??
> >
> > I do however agree with you. All the material that is about Indonesia
> should
> > be translated to Indonesian. For them it is very much the opening up of
> > material that is part of their cultural history. Translating it into
> English
> > does not make it easier for Indonesians to find this material.
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
> >
> > 2009/7/15 John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no>
> >
> >> At least the term base should be translated.
> >> John
> >>
> >> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >> > Hoi,
> >> > I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam about
> making
> >> > their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an important
> >> > collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a rich
> >> > collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about
> 100.000
> >> > images.
> >> >
> >> > The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come with
> >> unique
> >> > identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and it
> will
> >> come
> >> > with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I understand it
> the
> >> > equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial
> >> translation
> >> > in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
> >> >
> >> > The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of museums in
> >> the
> >> > Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more
> museums
> >> in
> >> > Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German ....
> While
> >> we
> >> > aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not
> provide
> >> > language support. Language support will help people find pictures in
> >> their
> >> > language and will help the matching of categories into other
> languages.
> >> > Thanks,
> >> > GerardM
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > foundation-l mailing list
> >> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> > Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >> >
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> foundation-l mailing list
> >> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> There is certainly a value to having things in English. It aids translation
> into
> more languages. It's a lot harder to find people who speak Dutch and
> Spanish,
> French and Russian or Greek and Japanese. You're more likely to find people
> who speak English in addition to their native tongue, which allows them to
> translate it.
>
> -Chad
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Gerard
Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> How does it help to find material in Commons when you do not know English ??
> Practically it is nice that we spend money on improving the upload facility
> of MediaWiki. In the end it makes no difference when you cannot find the
> images. Functionally Commons is useless as a consequence to all the people
> who do not speak English.
>
> When you reply PLEASE remember what the Wikimedia Foundation is there for..
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> 2009/7/15 Chad <innocentkiller@gmail.com>
>
>> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Gerard
>> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hoi,
>> > Why should the term base be translated ? Is it not more important to be
>> > gained by getting all this material in the public domain ??
>> >
>> > I do however agree with you. All the material that is about Indonesia
>> should
>> > be translated to Indonesian. For them it is very much the opening up of
>> > material that is part of their cultural history. Translating it into
>> English
>> > does not make it easier for Indonesians to find this material.
>> > Thanks,
>> >      GerardM
>> >
>> > 2009/7/15 John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no>
>> >
>> >> At least the term base should be translated.
>> >> John
>> >>
>> >> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>> >> > Hoi,
>> >> > I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam about
>> making
>> >> > their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an important
>> >> > collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a rich
>> >> > collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about
>> 100.000
>> >> > images.
>> >> >
>> >> > The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come with
>> >> unique
>> >> > identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and it
>> will
>> >> come
>> >> > with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I understand it
>> the
>> >> > equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial
>> >> translation
>> >> > in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
>> >> >
>> >> > The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of museums in
>> >> the
>> >> > Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more
>> museums
>> >> in
>> >> > Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German ....
>> While
>> >> we
>> >> > aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not
>> provide
>> >> > language support. Language support will help people find pictures in
>> >> their
>> >> > language and will help the matching of categories into other
>> languages.
>> >> > Thanks,
>> >> >       GerardM
>> >> > _______________________________________________
>> >> > foundation-l mailing list
>> >> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> >> > Unsubscribe:
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> foundation-l mailing list
>> >> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>> >>
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > foundation-l mailing list
>> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>> >
>>
>> There is certainly a value to having things in English. It aids translation
>> into
>> more languages. It's a lot harder to find people who speak Dutch and
>> Spanish,
>> French and Russian or Greek and Japanese. You're more likely to find people
>> who speak English in addition to their native tongue, which allows them to
>> translate it.
>>
>> -Chad
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

And when something is uploaded in Dutch, how do you expect this to
help Spanish speakers? Or Japanese speakers? When you translate
to English, you facilitate translation into other languages too. I'm not
saying translate to English and let it be, I'm saying translate it to
English to aid in retranslation.

-Chad

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Hi,

I think the questions to ask are:

* How many Indonesians speak Dutch, compared to those that speak English?

* When you try to translate to Indonesian (a laudable goal), will you
have more chances to find translators with Dutch and English, rather
than with just Dutch?

The (obvious) answers aside, if this is going to be a bulk upload,
maybe it should be planned:
* Gather all images, descriptions, and metadata on a (private) machine
* Find a distinct set of often used key terms / tags
* Translate those into English (and Indonesian, if you have a translator ready)
* Assign (English) categories to tags
* Build image descriptions for upload with both Dutch and English terms

I got another, loosely idea: Could we use the language templates in
the descriptions to build a "missing matrix" of translations, for
translators? I speak English and German; I would like to see images
that only have a German description, and translate it to English. A
special site (toolserver?) could show me the image and the German
description, I enter the English one in a text box, and go to a page
with everything prepared for me, just click save and be done.

Cheers,
Magnus



On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Gerard
Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> How does it help to find material in Commons when you do not know English ??
> Practically it is nice that we spend money on improving the upload facility
> of MediaWiki. In the end it makes no difference when you cannot find the
> images. Functionally Commons is useless as a consequence to all the people
> who do not speak English.
>
> When you reply PLEASE remember what the Wikimedia Foundation is there for..
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> 2009/7/15 Chad <innocentkiller@gmail.com>
>
>> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Gerard
>> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Hoi,
>> > Why should the term base be translated ? Is it not more important to be
>> > gained by getting all this material in the public domain ??
>> >
>> > I do however agree with you. All the material that is about Indonesia
>> should
>> > be translated to Indonesian. For them it is very much the opening up of
>> > material that is part of their cultural history. Translating it into
>> English
>> > does not make it easier for Indonesians to find this material.
>> > Thanks,
>> >      GerardM
>> >
>> > 2009/7/15 John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no>
>> >
>> >> At least the term base should be translated.
>> >> John
>> >>
>> >> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>> >> > Hoi,
>> >> > I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam about
>> making
>> >> > their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an important
>> >> > collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a rich
>> >> > collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about
>> 100.000
>> >> > images.
>> >> >
>> >> > The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come with
>> >> unique
>> >> > identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and it
>> will
>> >> come
>> >> > with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I understand it
>> the
>> >> > equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial
>> >> translation
>> >> > in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
>> >> >
>> >> > The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of museums in
>> >> the
>> >> > Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more
>> museums
>> >> in
>> >> > Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German ....
>> While
>> >> we
>> >> > aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not
>> provide
>> >> > language support. Language support will help people find pictures in
>> >> their
>> >> > language and will help the matching of categories into other
>> languages.
>> >> > Thanks,
>> >> >       GerardM
>> >> > _______________________________________________
>> >> > foundation-l mailing list
>> >> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> >> > Unsubscribe:
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> foundation-l mailing list
>> >> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>> >>
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > foundation-l mailing list
>> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>> >
>>
>> There is certainly a value to having things in English. It aids translation
>> into
>> more languages. It's a lot harder to find people who speak Dutch and
>> Spanish,
>> French and Russian or Greek and Japanese. You're more likely to find people
>> who speak English in addition to their native tongue, which allows them to
>> translate it.
>>
>> -Chad
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
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>

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Hoi,
The current practice is to upload large collections with a category that is
specific to the material it came from. New categories are matched to
existing categories and they are merged. So uploading them as they are IS
nothing new. The problem is that when material is included that is not
English, it means that it originates from outside of the Anglo Saxon world
and thereby helps address the existing bias towards the anglo saxon world.

While material in Dutch does not help the English, the Spanish, the
Japanese, it only means that people that only speak Spanish or Japanse will
find that to them Commons does not provide any service, add any value.
Thanks,
GerardM

2009/7/15 Chad <innocentkiller@gmail.com>

> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Gerard
> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > How does it help to find material in Commons when you do not know English
> ??
> > Practically it is nice that we spend money on improving the upload
> facility
> > of MediaWiki. In the end it makes no difference when you cannot find the
> > images. Functionally Commons is useless as a consequence to all the
> people
> > who do not speak English.
> >
> > When you reply PLEASE remember what the Wikimedia Foundation is there
> for..
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
> >
> > 2009/7/15 Chad <innocentkiller@gmail.com>
> >
> >> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Gerard
> >> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Hoi,
> >> > Why should the term base be translated ? Is it not more important to
> be
> >> > gained by getting all this material in the public domain ??
> >> >
> >> > I do however agree with you. All the material that is about Indonesia
> >> should
> >> > be translated to Indonesian. For them it is very much the opening up
> of
> >> > material that is part of their cultural history. Translating it into
> >> English
> >> > does not make it easier for Indonesians to find this material.
> >> > Thanks,
> >> > GerardM
> >> >
> >> > 2009/7/15 John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no>
> >> >
> >> >> At least the term base should be translated.
> >> >> John
> >> >>
> >> >> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >> >> > Hoi,
> >> >> > I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam about
> >> making
> >> >> > their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an
> important
> >> >> > collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a
> rich
> >> >> > collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about
> >> 100.000
> >> >> > images.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come with
> >> >> unique
> >> >> > identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and it
> >> will
> >> >> come
> >> >> > with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I understand
> it
> >> the
> >> >> > equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial
> >> >> translation
> >> >> > in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of museums
> in
> >> >> the
> >> >> > Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more
> >> museums
> >> >> in
> >> >> > Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German ....
> >> While
> >> >> we
> >> >> > aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not
> >> provide
> >> >> > language support. Language support will help people find pictures
> in
> >> >> their
> >> >> > language and will help the matching of categories into other
> >> languages.
> >> >> > Thanks,
> >> >> > GerardM
> >> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> >> > foundation-l mailing list
> >> >> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> >> > Unsubscribe:
> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >> _______________________________________________
> >> >> foundation-l mailing list
> >> >> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> >> Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >> >>
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > foundation-l mailing list
> >> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> > Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >> >
> >>
> >> There is certainly a value to having things in English. It aids
> translation
> >> into
> >> more languages. It's a lot harder to find people who speak Dutch and
> >> Spanish,
> >> French and Russian or Greek and Japanese. You're more likely to find
> people
> >> who speak English in addition to their native tongue, which allows them
> to
> >> translate it.
> >>
> >> -Chad
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> foundation-l mailing list
> >> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> And when something is uploaded in Dutch, how do you expect this to
> help Spanish speakers? Or Japanese speakers? When you translate
> to English, you facilitate translation into other languages too. I'm not
> saying translate to English and let it be, I'm saying translate it to
> English to aid in retranslation.
>
> -Chad
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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Magnus Manske <magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:

> [...]
> I got another, loosely idea: Could we use the language templates in
> the descriptions to build a "missing matrix" of translations, for
> translators? I speak English and German; I would like to see images
> that only have a German description, and translate it to English. A
> special site (toolserver?) could show me the image and the German
> description, I enter the English one in a text box, and go to a page
> with everything prepared for me, just click save and be done.

Go ahead: Toolserver's Templatetiger database has - though
rather raw - data for Commons (cf.
<URI:http://toolserver.org/~kolossos/templatetiger/tt-table4.php?template=Information&lang=commonswiki&where=&is=>).
Problems I see:

- Tagging those pictures where the language of the descrip-
tion is not specified (cf. [[File:Quail1.PNG]] (English)
vs. [[File:Helsinkitram.jpg]] ((probably :-)) German).
- Dealing with all the pictures that do not use
{{Information}}.

Tim


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This is pictures right? I fail to see how pictures aren't useable to everyone, as they are universal.




________________________________
From: Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:23:36 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] A heads up

Hoi,
The current practice is to upload large collections with a category that is
specific to the material it came from. New categories are matched to
existing categories and they are merged. So uploading them as they are IS
nothing new. The problem is that when material is included that is not
English, it means that it originates from outside of the Anglo Saxon world
and thereby helps address the existing bias towards the anglo saxon world.

While material in Dutch does not help the English, the Spanish, the
Japanese, it only means that people that only speak Spanish or Japanse will
find that to them Commons does not provide any service, add any value.
Thanks,
GerardM

2009/7/15 Chad <innocentkiller@gmail.com>

> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Gerard
> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > How does it help to find material in Commons when you do not know English
> ??
> > Practically it is nice that we spend money on improving the upload
> facility
> > of MediaWiki. In the end it makes no difference when you cannot find the
> > images. Functionally Commons is useless as a consequence to all the
> people
> > who do not speak English.
> >
> > When you reply PLEASE remember what the Wikimedia Foundation is there
> for..
> > Thanks,
> > GerardM
> >
> > 2009/7/15 Chad <innocentkiller@gmail.com>
> >
> >> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Gerard
> >> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Hoi,
> >> > Why should the term base be translated ? Is it not more important to
> be
> >> > gained by getting all this material in the public domain ??
> >> >
> >> > I do however agree with you. All the material that is about Indonesia
> >> should
> >> > be translated to Indonesian. For them it is very much the opening up
> of
> >> > material that is part of their cultural history. Translating it into
> >> English
> >> > does not make it easier for Indonesians to find this material.
> >> > Thanks,
> >> > GerardM
> >> >
> >> > 2009/7/15 John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no>
> >> >
> >> >> At least the term base should be translated.
> >> >> John
> >> >>
> >> >> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> >> >> > Hoi,
> >> >> > I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam about
> >> making
> >> >> > their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an
> important
> >> >> > collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a
> rich
> >> >> > collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about
> >> 100.000
> >> >> > images.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come with
> >> >> unique
> >> >> > identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and it
> >> will
> >> >> come
> >> >> > with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I understand
> it
> >> the
> >> >> > equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial
> >> >> translation
> >> >> > in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
> >> >> >
> >> >> > The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of museums
> in
> >> >> the
> >> >> > Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more
> >> museums
> >> >> in
> >> >> > Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German ....
> >> While
> >> >> we
> >> >> > aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not
> >> provide
> >> >> > language support. Language support will help people find pictures
> in
> >> >> their
> >> >> > language and will help the matching of categories into other
> >> languages.
> >> >> > Thanks,
> >> >> > GerardM
> >> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> >> > foundation-l mailing list
> >> >> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> >> > Unsubscribe:
> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >> _______________________________________________
> >> >> foundation-l mailing list
> >> >> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> >> Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >> >>
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > foundation-l mailing list
> >> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> > Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >> >
> >>
> >> There is certainly a value to having things in English. It aids
> translation
> >> into
> >> more languages. It's a lot harder to find people who speak Dutch and
> >> Spanish,
> >> French and Russian or Greek and Japanese. You're more likely to find
> people
> >> who speak English in addition to their native tongue, which allows them
> to
> >> translate it.
> >>
> >> -Chad
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> foundation-l mailing list
> >> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
>
> And when something is uploaded in Dutch, how do you expect this to
> help Spanish speakers? Or Japanese speakers? When you translate
> to English, you facilitate translation into other languages too. I'm not
> saying translate to English and let it be, I'm saying translate it to
> English to aid in retranslation.
>
> -Chad
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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Hoi,
OK, there are *many* pictures of a marc'h on Commons... Now pretend that you
cannot find what this is in English. Try to find it on Commons.
Alternatively, you might want to look for a picture of a ლომი. There are
only 4,742,435 files at Commons, so just looking at the next random file
will help you at some stage.
Thanks,
Gerard

2009/7/15 Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd@yahoo.com>

> This is pictures right? I fail to see how pictures aren't useable to
> everyone, as they are universal.
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:23:36 PM
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] A heads up
>
> Hoi,
> The current practice is to upload large collections with a category that is
> specific to the material it came from. New categories are matched to
> existing categories and they are merged. So uploading them as they are IS
> nothing new. The problem is that when material is included that is not
> English, it means that it originates from outside of the Anglo Saxon world
> and thereby helps address the existing bias towards the anglo saxon world.
>
> While material in Dutch does not help the English, the Spanish, the
> Japanese, it only means that people that only speak Spanish or Japanse will
> find that to them Commons does not provide any service, add any value.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> 2009/7/15 Chad <innocentkiller@gmail.com>
>
> > On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Gerard
> > Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Hoi,
> > > How does it help to find material in Commons when you do not know
> English
> > ??
> > > Practically it is nice that we spend money on improving the upload
> > facility
> > > of MediaWiki. In the end it makes no difference when you cannot find
> the
> > > images. Functionally Commons is useless as a consequence to all the
> > people
> > > who do not speak English.
> > >
> > > When you reply PLEASE remember what the Wikimedia Foundation is there
> > for..
> > > Thanks,
> > > GerardM
> > >
> > > 2009/7/15 Chad <innocentkiller@gmail.com>
> > >
> > >> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Gerard
> > >> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> > Hoi,
> > >> > Why should the term base be translated ? Is it not more important to
> > be
> > >> > gained by getting all this material in the public domain ??
> > >> >
> > >> > I do however agree with you. All the material that is about
> Indonesia
> > >> should
> > >> > be translated to Indonesian. For them it is very much the opening up
> > of
> > >> > material that is part of their cultural history. Translating it into
> > >> English
> > >> > does not make it easier for Indonesians to find this material.
> > >> > Thanks,
> > >> > GerardM
> > >> >
> > >> > 2009/7/15 John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no>
> > >> >
> > >> >> At least the term base should be translated.
> > >> >> John
> > >> >>
> > >> >> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> > >> >> > Hoi,
> > >> >> > I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam
> about
> > >> making
> > >> >> > their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an
> > important
> > >> >> > collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a
> > rich
> > >> >> > collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about
> > >> 100.000
> > >> >> > images.
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> > The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come
> with
> > >> >> unique
> > >> >> > identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and
> it
> > >> will
> > >> >> come
> > >> >> > with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I
> understand
> > it
> > >> the
> > >> >> > equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial
> > >> >> translation
> > >> >> > in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> > The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of
> museums
> > in
> > >> >> the
> > >> >> > Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more
> > >> museums
> > >> >> in
> > >> >> > Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German ....
> > >> While
> > >> >> we
> > >> >> > aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not
> > >> provide
> > >> >> > language support. Language support will help people find pictures
> > in
> > >> >> their
> > >> >> > language and will help the matching of categories into other
> > >> languages.
> > >> >> > Thanks,
> > >> >> > GerardM
> > >> >> > _______________________________________________
> > >> >> > foundation-l mailing list
> > >> >> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > >> >> > Unsubscribe:
> > >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >> >> >
> > >> >>
> > >> >> _______________________________________________
> > >> >> foundation-l mailing list
> > >> >> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > >> >> Unsubscribe:
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >> >>
> > >> > _______________________________________________
> > >> > foundation-l mailing list
> > >> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > >> > Unsubscribe:
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >> >
> > >>
> > >> There is certainly a value to having things in English. It aids
> > translation
> > >> into
> > >> more languages. It's a lot harder to find people who speak Dutch and
> > >> Spanish,
> > >> French and Russian or Greek and Japanese. You're more likely to find
> > people
> > >> who speak English in addition to their native tongue, which allows
> them
> > to
> > >> translate it.
> > >>
> > >> -Chad
> > >>
> > >> _______________________________________________
> > >> foundation-l mailing list
> > >> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > >> Unsubscribe:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >>
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > foundation-l mailing list
> > > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> > >
> >
> > And when something is uploaded in Dutch, how do you expect this to
> > help Spanish speakers? Or Japanese speakers? When you translate
> > to English, you facilitate translation into other languages too. I'm not
> > saying translate to English and let it be, I'm saying translate it to
> > English to aid in retranslation.
> >
> > -Chad
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > foundation-l mailing list
> > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
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I wrote:

>> [...]
>> I got another, loosely idea: Could we use the language templates in
>> the descriptions to build a "missing matrix" of translations, for
>> translators? I speak English and German; I would like to see images
>> that only have a German description, and translate it to English. A
>> special site (toolserver?) could show me the image and the German
>> description, I enter the English one in a text box, and go to a page
>> with everything prepared for me, just click save and be done.

> Go ahead: Toolserver's Templatetiger database has - though
> rather raw - data for Commons (cf.
> <URI:http://toolserver.org/~kolossos/templatetiger/tt-table4.php?template=Information&lang=commonswiki&where=&is=>).
> Problems I see:

> - Tagging those pictures where the language of the descrip-
> tion is not specified (cf. [[File:Quail1.PNG]] (English)
> vs. [[File:Helsinkitram.jpg]] ((probably :-)) German).
> - Dealing with all the pictures that do not use
> {{Information}}.

BTW, it would be awesome for traceability if this transla-
tion thingy (and similar Toolserver tools like the Interwi-
ki-Link-Checker) could execute those edits using the login
credentials of the user who supplied the translation. (Yes,
that's a bad idea if interpreted as written - I'm thinking
of some JavaScript gadget that fires up an edit window for a
random page from the hidden [[Category:Needs Language Tag-
ging]] or [[Category:Has German and needs English Transla-
tion]] followed by another gadget that positions the cursor
in the sourcecode field accordingly and presets the summary
line with "Added English translation.".)

Tim


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On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 4:21 PM, Geoffrey Plourde<geo.plrd@yahoo.com> wrote:
> This is pictures right? I fail to see how pictures aren't useable to everyone, as they are universal.

files*

It's not about *using* the files, it's about *using* Wikimedia
Commons. It's great that we can use pictures because they
"universal", but people can't find them unless they speak English
(categories, picture names, a lot of captions are only in English). I
think this is what Gerard is saying.

--
Casey Brown
Cbrown1023

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If I understand you correctly this is a term base with fixed terms used
to describe the images. Such term bases are very common in archives, and
often they are standardized.

Often it is possible to translate between two sets of terms, that is
some terms will match with our categories, but if this is not possible
it is better to be able to search the terms as they are. If the terms
are in Dutch they will not be available for searching in the language of
choice for the most users.

There will be a very moderate a mouth of work to run the term base
through Google translate and manually check the result, and then make a
script to translate the term base into alternate languages. This will
greatly extend the availability of the images.

It is not unlikely the term base already relates to some other public
term base, perhaps it is a good idea to check it out. It would anyhow be
interesting to make provisions to map term bases from Dublin Core and
IPTC, probably also others, as an integral part of Commons.

John

Gerard Meijssen wrote:
> Hoi,
> Why should the term base be translated ? Is it not more important to be
> gained by getting all this material in the public domain ??
>
> I do however agree with you. All the material that is about Indonesia should
> be translated to Indonesian. For them it is very much the opening up of
> material that is part of their cultural history. Translating it into English
> does not make it easier for Indonesians to find this material.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> 2009/7/15 John at Darkstar <vacuum@jeb.no>
>
>> At least the term base should be translated.
>> John
>>
>> Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>> Hoi,
>>> I have been in discussion with the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam about making
>>> their material available on Commons. The Tropenmuseum has an important
>>> collection on the colonial past of the Netherlands and contains a rich
>>> collection on Suriname and Indonesia. The initial talks are about 100.000
>>> images.
>>>
>>> The annotations of this material is all in Dutch. It will come with
>> unique
>>> identifiers back to the physical object in the Tropenmuseum and it will
>> come
>>> with the termbase for the images; this termbase is as I understand it the
>>> equivalent of our categories. Some of the material has a partial
>> translation
>>> in English and, this can be provided to us as well.
>>>
>>> The key issue I want to raise is that there are hundreds of museums in
>> the
>>> Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname all using Dutch there are more museums
>> in
>>> Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein who speak German .... While
>> we
>>> aim to improve our front end to allow for easy uploads, we do not provide
>>> language support. Language support will help people find pictures in
>> their
>>> language and will help the matching of categories into other languages.
>>> Thanks,
>>> GerardM
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> foundation-l mailing list
>>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-l mailing list
>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

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On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Gerard
Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> OK, there are *many* pictures of a marc'h on Commons... Now pretend that you
> cannot find what this is in English. Try to find it on Commons.

Noone disputes that this is a problem. And if we had an unlimited
number of volunteers fluent in all languages adding descriptions to
images, it would easily be fixed. But if that were the case, we
wouldn't have this discussion in the first place.

Image descriptions are, first and foremost, limited by the languages a
user (who is willing to write these descriptions) speaks. Of all these
languages, the user will (if he has time and ability to write one or
two descriptions) chose maybe his native one, and the one that will be
useful for most people - English. (And yes, more people speak Chinese,
but few Commons editors do).

Once again, ugly reality triumphs over wishful thinking. At least
until we can get some 10K Indonesian-speaking editors.

Magnus

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On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 9:02 AM, Magnus
Manske<magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Gerard
> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hoi,
>> OK, there are *many* pictures of a marc'h on Commons... Now pretend that you
>> cannot find what this is in English. Try to find it on Commons.
>
> Noone disputes that this is a problem. And if we had an unlimited
> number of volunteers fluent in all languages adding descriptions to
> images, it would easily be fixed. But if that were the case, we
> wouldn't have this discussion in the first place.
>
> Image descriptions are, first and foremost, limited by the languages a
> user (who is willing to write these descriptions) speaks. Of all these
> languages, the user will (if he has time and ability to write one or
> two descriptions) chose maybe his native one, and the one that will be
> useful for most people - English. (And yes, more people speak Chinese,
> but few Commons editors do).
[snip]

I have tried to advance the idea that some amount of description
translations should be a requirement for featured/quality images on
commons (also geocoding, as applicable and possible), with the notion
that providing great metadata is part of what commons offers at it's
best and that we'll get more translations if we make sure our high
profile images have them (ModelBehavior).

Sadly, no one else has seemed to like the idea.

I've made sure that descriptions are provided in multiple languages on
my own featured images, for example
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ferrofluid_large_spikes.jpg

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On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 6:15 AM, Gregory Maxwell<gmaxwell@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 9:02 AM, Magnus
> Manske<magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Gerard
>> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hoi,
>>> OK, there are *many* pictures of a marc'h on Commons... Now pretend that you
>>> cannot find what this is in English. Try to find it on Commons.
>>
>> Noone disputes that this is a problem. And if we had an unlimited
>> number of volunteers fluent in all languages adding descriptions to
>> images, it would easily be fixed. But if that were the case, we
>> wouldn't have this discussion in the first place.
>>
>> Image descriptions are, first and foremost, limited by the languages a
>> user (who is willing to write these descriptions) speaks. Of all these
>> languages, the user will (if he has time and ability to write one or
>> two descriptions) chose maybe his native one, and the one that will be
>> useful for most people - English. (And yes, more people speak Chinese,
>> but few Commons editors do).
> [snip]
>
> I have tried to advance the idea that some amount of description
> translations should be a requirement for featured/quality images on
> commons (also geocoding, as applicable and possible), with the notion
> that providing great metadata is part of what commons offers at it's
> best and that we'll get more translations if we make sure our high
> profile images have them (ModelBehavior).
>
> Sadly, no one else has seemed to like the idea.
>
> I've made sure that descriptions are provided in multiple languages on
> my own featured images, for example
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ferrofluid_large_spikes.jpg

It's not common, but I've occasionally encountered images that had
such a large number of long translations that it was a usability
problem. As currently constructed, image description translations are
often presented as a wall of text that can be difficult if more than a
few translations are present. I'd give Anime_Girl.svg [1] as a
convenient recent example, though it is far from the worst of such
images.

Personally, I'd like to see Commons make more use of language
filtering so that image descriptions in languages other than a user's
interface preference were subordinated in some way (such as by being
collapsed, or moved lower in the page). Beyond Commons itself, I'd
think this could be particularly valuable to local wikis using Commons
as a shared repository since even IP visitors can usually be assumed
to have a language preference based on the wiki they are reading.
Obviously one would need a strategy for graceful language fallbacks
when a user's preference was unavailable, but we have to do that in
many other scenarios anyway.

Making many languages available is a good thing, but formatting the
page to highlight a user declared preference would usually also be a
good thing.

-Robert Rohde

[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anime_Girl.svg

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2009/7/16 Robert Rohde <rarohde@gmail.com>:
> Making many languages available is a good thing, but formatting the
> page to highlight a user declared preference would usually also be a
> good thing.

Agreed. I have recently prepared a simple JS script to hide other
languages in the {{Picture of the day}} template. (You can test it at
e.g. http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Neutrophil_with_anthrax_copy.jpg&withJS=MediaWiki:Collapse-Potd.js
– I plan to move it to Common.js soon, if no problems are reported.) I
believe similar behavior should be introduced to many other templates.
Obviously, in a perfect world, this would be a built-in behaviour of
MediaWiki, but unfortunately, I don’t think it is really feasible in a
foreseeable future…

-- [[cs:User:Mormegil | Petr Kadlec]]

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Hoi,
Annotating material is important at the same level as providing citations in
our text. Annotation provides provenance and why should we believe the
"truth" in a picture on Commons. Even the Commons picture of the year has
been heavily photoshopped. It is only a credible picture because of the
annotation.

Adding annotations like GIS info is great, even important, we should aim to
get this information but we should not make it compulsory. Anyway, dealing
with language and searching is a much more pressing issue but it does not
need to be solved in a serial way.

NB there is no multi lingual solution when it does not involve searching
pictures in that language. Because the problem with language is first and
foremost finding the pictures in Commons.
Thanks,
GerardM


2009/7/16 Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell@gmail.com>

> On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 9:02 AM, Magnus
> Manske<magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Gerard
> > Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Hoi,
> >> OK, there are *many* pictures of a marc'h on Commons... Now pretend that
> you
> >> cannot find what this is in English. Try to find it on Commons.
> >
> > Noone disputes that this is a problem. And if we had an unlimited
> > number of volunteers fluent in all languages adding descriptions to
> > images, it would easily be fixed. But if that were the case, we
> > wouldn't have this discussion in the first place.
> >
> > Image descriptions are, first and foremost, limited by the languages a
> > user (who is willing to write these descriptions) speaks. Of all these
> > languages, the user will (if he has time and ability to write one or
> > two descriptions) chose maybe his native one, and the one that will be
> > useful for most people - English. (And yes, more people speak Chinese,
> > but few Commons editors do).
> [snip]
>
> I have tried to advance the idea that some amount of description
> translations should be a requirement for featured/quality images on
> commons (also geocoding, as applicable and possible), with the notion
> that providing great metadata is part of what commons offers at it's
> best and that we'll get more translations if we make sure our high
> profile images have them (ModelBehavior).
>
> Sadly, no one else has seemed to like the idea.
>
> I've made sure that descriptions are provided in multiple languages on
> my own featured images, for example
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ferrofluid_large_spikes.jpg
>
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Hoi,
The most important part of the multi lingual problem is not in the
description but is in finding a picture of a subject. It means that we have
to have a functional and searchable termbase. The key to enabling the use of
Commons is help in finding pictures on a subject. This does not need much
translation effort because you need to add the word Pferd only once.
Thanks,
GerardM

2009/7/16 Magnus Manske <magnusmanske@googlemail.com>

> On Wed, Jul 15, 2009 at 10:13 PM, Gerard
> Meijssen<gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hoi,
> > OK, there are *many* pictures of a marc'h on Commons... Now pretend that
> you
> > cannot find what this is in English. Try to find it on Commons.
>
> Noone disputes that this is a problem. And if we had an unlimited
> number of volunteers fluent in all languages adding descriptions to
> images, it would easily be fixed. But if that were the case, we
> wouldn't have this discussion in the first place.
>
> Image descriptions are, first and foremost, limited by the languages a
> user (who is willing to write these descriptions) speaks. Of all these
> languages, the user will (if he has time and ability to write one or
> two descriptions) chose maybe his native one, and the one that will be
> useful for most people - English. (And yes, more people speak Chinese,
> but few Commons editors do).
>
> Once again, ugly reality triumphs over wishful thinking. At least
> until we can get some 10K Indonesian-speaking editors.
>
> Magnus
>
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