[Foundation-l] Wiki Translations of Greek/Roman/XYZ classics

Mon Dec 20 23:58:47 UTC 2004

Hi,

>As much as people can't agree on the content of _one_ encyclopedia article? 
>Sorry, I have to object. The genial thing about wikis is that it allows 
>people to work in cooperation on one translation and improve it as best as 
>possible.

well, here we disagree. To me, an encyclopedia article and a translation are 
inherently different. The one's a definition and rather a science, the other 
one rather an art. Just because one thing works, you can of course *try* it 
with other things, too, but you can't possibly say: It *will* work.

Did you ever do a translation of a *belletristic* work? You see, with 
technical articles, it would be probably no problem to agree on a simple, 
understandable translation. With literature and philosophy, it's impossible. 
There are strict translations, free translations, congenial translations. 
While on each of these fields people can collaborate and cooperate, they're 
as different as rock music and classical music, or as Dutch painting of the 
16th century and Picasso. And every style has its right to exist! You can't 
judge which is the best one, as you can't find an objective winner between 
music styles. It's just a matter of taste. That's the genial thing about 
art. At least in my opinion. Whereas an encyclopedia article should contain 
only checkable facts, and you can well discuss about facts.

>Implementing features to create  several translation versions means wasting 
>the central advantage of a wiki: collaboration.

No. There can be lots of people who collaborate for one style of 
translation. If that were wasting of ressources, wouldn't maintaining Wikis 
for languages which only very few people speak be a much bigger waste? The 
authors could be writing for more widespread languages... but they don't, 
and they're perfectly right: They can decide where to spend their time. The 
same holds for translations.

>In my experience, waiting for the perfect software is the wrong way to go. 
>Nobody is going to program stuff for a project which might or might not 
>take off. There are more pressings things needed for the existing ones...

Well, I don't blame someone if he doesn't want to do so or has no time. I 
have no time either, at least not at the moment, as I have lots to do for 
other free projects... I just hoped to find someone who is also fascinated 
by an idea like this. You're right, starting is better than waiting... but, 
if I had to start something now and had enough time, I'd probably try to 
patch the Wiki source or do the whole thing manually by coordinating people 
in good old mailing lists like in the times before...

Greetings,
Viktor.