Hi,
Wikimania website main page is changed to be more informative. Now the
new version is available in Chinese and English.
It include a list of sponsors which many language versions lack now
regretfully. Check your language version and consider to match the
English one. The sponsor section is highly recommended to update as
soon as possible.
Cheers,
--
KIZU Naoko
Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
* habent enim emolumentum in labore suo *
Hello all,
Frankly I agree with Brion. You might argue with the way he has put his points, but the essence is right. There are some candidates who, just like ruaway trains, do not try to make their statements short. Such a candidate is also likely to waste a lot of committee time, which costs money. There is no harm in limiting the length of the statement, as a longer version can appear on the candidate's user page as you said.
Shortness does not mean conciseness, of course, that is an additional, but essential requirement. If it is easily understood it will be correctly translated.
I don't think it is fair for translators to decide for themselves which candidate they fancy to win an election and to choose accordingly. I am a fan of Erik, in spite of the fact that he did not answer my enquiry sent to him directly in an e-mail last year. However, I did not translate his enormous statement thereby punishing the other candidates by neglecting them. I have also found that some candidates cannot stop detailing at length all the good that they have done to Wikimedia.
I agree that some short statements are only short, because the candidate does not have many good ideas. This will be transparent, and the translation will also show it.
Summing it all: well done Brion. It is the first time that somebody has tried to reduce the blab.
We have copies of Brion's statement and of all the comments on this subject now, so I shall wipe them from my response. The title speaks for itself.
Kind regards to all, Louis
Errare humanum, et in errore perseverare stultum est
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Hello,
On 4/6/07, Brion Vibber <brion(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
>
> The voting period was long, but there was very little time between the
> finalization of candidates and the beginning of voting. One consequence
> of this was that translators had not completed translation of candidate
> statements at the time the voting began.
>
> There should be more time ahead to prepare.
Indeed. Though translators really do their best, it is very difficult to
achieve translation of all candidate's statements. Last time the statements
were *suggested* not to exceed 1,000 characters [1]. Some rules must be
changed.
I suggest the following extra rules :
* For the pre-(s)election candidates, only a *short presentation* (~50
words) ; easy and fast to translate, even for many candidates. These
statements may be translated only in « big » languages, i.e. those of the
most developed projects.
* For the final candidates, *no more than 150 words*. These statements
should be translated in as many languages as possible.
* All statements *must* be written in simple words, simple sentences without
any idioms.
* All candidates *must* write their statement in all languages they speak.
They know what they want to say better than anyone, so it's better to have a
rough translation by themselves that will be refined later than a
well-written serious mistranslation.
To the future candidates: respect the work of translators. Last time, some
candidates largely exceeded the characters limit. Their statements were
however translated because the translators felt a moral obligation to
translate them. Though, such an attitude from candidates shows a disrespect
to our volunteer translators. So, if you long to be a community
representative, first respect the community by following these simple rules.
Thanks.
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Election_candidates_2006/En
--
Guillaume Paumier
[[m:User:guillom]]
http://www.wikimedia.org
Hi there,
[[m:Communication Projects Group/announcement]], announcement about
newly launched volunteer team about public relation, original delivery
date was designed on April 2, seems to be stacked in some languages;
or not.
According to the status table, only English and French versions were
published and the rest remains unpublished/unfinished.
It could happen those language versions were already used for
announcement on the local projects/mailing lists and elsewhere, but
simply its delivery status hasn't been reflected to the meta status
table. Since this activity need a wide participation from many
projects (press clipping in your country/languages, etc.), the wider
dissemination is beneficial for the entire project.
So, please check the page and fix the status page with which we can
see the real situation. If your language version need to be further
worked, please help. Also your help for spreading the news to your
project will be appreciated.
URL is at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communication_Projects_Group/announcement
Cheers,
--
KIZU Naoko
Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
* habent enim emolumentum in labore suo *
Thanks for this great post, Rob. It would be cool to have an i18n
coordinator, though then he might have to start writing recommendations
for how to improve i18n, l10n, and translation across the projects...
SJ
On Mon, 2 Apr 2007, Rob Church wrote:
> Hello, bon jour, guten tag, saluton, etc.
I can't greet everyone fairly, because I don't speak 200-odd languages.
Unfortunately, MediaWiki doesn't, either, and that's what this email's
all about.
I'm well aware that foundation-l has had a recent, er, "heated
discussion" about internationalising the software with respect to
starting new wikis, and I'd rather not stir up a beehive with regards
to that.
We've got some fantastic people working on the internationalisation
front for MediaWiki; credit must go to Niklas Laxström for his
patient, unending work in this field. I'd also like to mention Rotem
Liss, who has been providing updates for the Hebrew language for a
long period, now, as well as our volunteers giving us updates in
German, Russian, Chinese and Japanese; a big, firm "thanks" is in
order.
The problem is that we don't have all the bases covered; there are
vast numbers of languages not being maintained, and that's a bit of a
problem for a software product that's supporting an organisation with
international goals in mind.
While individual communities can and do perform translations in their
MediaWiki namespaces, reliance on this means that each new wiki we
launch needs to perform this step, as opposed to having the interface
available in their language, from the fore. I believe that not having
software that speaks to you in your language is an immense barrier to
contribution.
I'd therefore like to rally a call to arms; we need translators!
Thanks to (again, what an i18n legend this dude is) Nikerabbit's work
on Betawiki (http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/) means we will (I
hope) soon have a clean extension on the Wikimedia Incubator which
will make this stuff easier; it's the same process as editing the
MediaWiki namespace now, except what we get out of it allows us to
tweak and bundle up the translations into the right form for MediaWiki
to use.
Of course, if you're able to get to grips with our message file format
and you can work a Subversion client, you are more than welcome to
update the localisation for your language, or indeed, any other
language you feel you can contribute to, and submit patches. If you
submit on a consistent and regular basis, then commit access is also
forthcoming - we're grateful for people who can speak languages we
can't, who can help us out in a major area.
Contributions to MediaWiki internationalisation fall under the GNU
GPL, which is for all intents and purposes, ideologically similar to
the GNU FDL. If you are the maintainer of a language, you will be
credited for it, and you *will* have our immense respect and
gratitude, as well as that of all our users.
There's a guide to getting started with internationalisation at
http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Translating:Intro, and anyone
interested in helping out is strongly recommended to contact (look,
shall we just make him the official i18n co-ordinator?) Nikerabbit;
who can often be found on IRC (#mediawiki, irc.freenode.net).
Thank you for your attention, and I apologise for cross-posting,
Rob Church
MediaWiki developer
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hello there,
New [[m:Translation requests]] is launched today (thank you for your
advice, the editors who advised me not to do on April 1st :) at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TR
The newly introduced features are including:
- Submission page and instruction, which would make your submission easier.
- [[m:Translations]] page integrated completely.
-- All coming requests will be put into [[m:cateogory:Open requests
for translation]], which generates a list of requests by
DynamicPageList Extension.
-- All languages can have now their own translation request list. If
you don't find your favorite language list on
[[m:Translations#Requests by language]], please add it :)
-- [[m:Translation FAQ]] is now available ... your input will be welcome.
Some templates like [[m:Template:Translation requests/curreqs]] will
have been unused. TR subpages for special interests including
[[TR/WMF]] will be gradually reformed and turned into sorts of portal.
But those are not fixed, and always open for your ideas.
There might be still something to fix. Please help improving the newly
launching portal: if you find it uncomfortable, sorry for your
inconvenience - but please turn it whatever you feel nice, it is a
wiki!
Comments will be welcome on [[m:Talk:Translation requests]] as well
this mailing list.
Links mentioned on the above:
TR: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TR
Talk: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Translation requests
Submission: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/Request_submission
Translations (all open requests should be found there):
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translations
FAQ: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_FAQ
TR/WMF: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TR/WMF
Cheers,
--
KIZU Naoko
Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
* habent enim emolumentum in labore suo *
I didn't see this come your way.
Please translate, send to lists, village pumps and the lot.
Thank you!
Delphine
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki(a)gmail.com>
Date: Apr 1, 2007 1:57 AM
Subject: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania scholarships
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org,
wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Scholarships are available to help defray the costs of attending
Wikimania 2007, which will be held in Taipei, Taiwan from August 3-5.
The deadline for scholarships has been extended to April 15, 2007;
please apply soon.
You can find more information here:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships
and an application form here:
http://wm07schols.wikimedia.org/apply.php
Registration and our Call for Participation are also both open:
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registrationhttp://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/CfP
Wikimania is the annual conference of the Wikimedia Foundation. It
provides a chance to meet the global community of contributors to the
Wikimedia projects, share ideas and research, and make new friends.
All are welcome to attend and present, but you must be a current
editor of a Wikimedia project to qualify for a scholarship.
Send questions to wikimania-scholarships(a)wikimedia.org or
wikimania-info(a)wikimedia.org.
Please translate and widely distribute this notice to your communities.
thank you,
Phoebe Ayers
Wikimania 2007 scholarships committee and program committee
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~notafish
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