Hi,Wikimania website main page is changed to be more informative. Now thenew version is available in Chinese and English.It include a list of sponsors which many language versions lack nowregretfully. Check your language version and consider to match theEnglish one. The sponsor section is highly recommended to update assoon 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___________________________________________________________________________ Découvrez une nouvelle façon d'obtenir des réponses à toutes vos questions ! Profitez des connaissances, des opinions et des expériences des internautes sur Yahoo! Questions/Réponseshttp://fr.answers.yahoo.com
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 toachieve translation of all candidate's statements. Last time the statementswere *suggested* not to exceed 1,000 characters [1]. Some rules must bechanged.I suggest the following extra rules :* For the pre-(s)election candidates, only a *short presentation* (~50words) ; easy and fast to translate, even for many candidates. Thesestatements may be translated only in « big » languages, i.e. those of themost developed projects.* For the final candidates, *no more than 150 words*. These statementsshould be translated in as many languages as possible.* All statements *must* be written in simple words, simple sentences withoutany 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 arough translation by themselves that will be refined later than awell-written serious mistranslation.To the future candidates: respect the work of translators. Last time, somecandidates largely exceeded the characters limit. Their statements werehowever translated because the translators felt a moral obligation totranslate them. Though, such an attitude from candidates shows a disrespectto our volunteer translators. So, if you long to be a communityrepresentative, 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 aboutnewly launched volunteer team about public relation, original deliverydate was designed on April 2, seems to be stacked in some languages;or not.According to the status table, only English and French versions werepublished and the rest remains unpublished/unfinished.It could happen those language versions were already used forannouncement on the local projects/mailing lists and elsewhere, butsimply its delivery status hasn't been reflected to the meta statustable. Since this activity need a wide participation from manyprojects (press clipping in your country/languages, etc.), the widerdissemination is beneficial for the entire project.So, please check the page and fix the status page with which we cansee the real situation. If your language version need to be furtherworked, please help. Also your help for spreading the news to yourproject will be appreciated.URL is at:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Communication_Projects_Group/announcementCheers,-- 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...SJOn 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'sall about.I'm well aware that foundation-l has had a recent, er, "heateddiscussion" about internationalising the software with respect tostarting new wikis, and I'd rather not stir up a beehive with regardsto that.We've got some fantastic people working on the internationalisationfront for MediaWiki; credit must go to Niklas Laxström for hispatient, unending work in this field. I'd also like to mention RotemLiss, who has been providing updates for the Hebrew language for along period, now, as well as our volunteers giving us updates inGerman, Russian, Chinese and Japanese; a big, firm "thanks" is inorder.The problem is that we don't have all the bases covered; there arevast numbers of languages not being maintained, and that's a bit of aproblem for a software product that's supporting an organisation withinternational goals in mind.While individual communities can and do perform translations in theirMediaWiki namespaces, reliance on this means that each new wiki welaunch needs to perform this step, as opposed to having the interfaceavailable in their language, from the fore. I believe that not havingsoftware that speaks to you in your language is an immense barrier tocontribution.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 workon Betawiki (http://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/) means we will (Ihope) soon have a clean extension on the Wikimedia Incubator whichwill make this stuff easier; it's the same process as editing theMediaWiki namespace now, except what we get out of it allows us totweak and bundle up the translations into the right form for MediaWikito use.Of course, if you're able to get to grips with our message file formatand you can work a Subversion client, you are more than welcome toupdate the localisation for your language, or indeed, any otherlanguage you feel you can contribute to, and submit patches. If yousubmit on a consistent and regular basis, then commit access is alsoforthcoming - we're grateful for people who can speak languages wecan't, who can help us out in a major area.Contributions to MediaWiki internationalisation fall under the GNUGPL, which is for all intents and purposes, ideologically similar tothe GNU FDL. If you are the maintainer of a language, you will becredited for it, and you *will* have our immense respect andgratitude, as well as that of all our users.There's a guide to getting started with internationalisation athttp://nike.users.idler.fi/betawiki/Translating:Intro, and anyoneinterested 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 ChurchMediaWiki developer_______________________________________________foundation-l mailing listfoundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.orghttp://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hello there,New [[m:Translation requests]] is launched today (thank you for youradvice, the editors who advised me not to do on April 1st :) athttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TRThe 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 requestsfor translation]], which generates a list of requests byDynamicPageList Extension.-- All languages can have now their own translation request list. Ifyou 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]] willhave 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 newlylaunching portal: if you find it uncomfortable, sorry for yourinconvenience - but please turn it whatever you feel nice, it is awiki!Comments will be welcome on [[m:Talk:Translation requests]] as wellthis mailing list.Links mentioned on the above:TR:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TRTalk:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Translation requestsSubmission:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_requests/Request_submissionTranslations (all open requests should be found there):http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TranslationsFAQ:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_FAQTR/WMF:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TR/WMFCheers,-- 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 AMSubject: [Wikimania-l] Wikimania scholarshipsTo: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, wikipedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org,wikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.orgScholarships are available to help defray the costs of attendingWikimania 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/Scholarshipsand an application form here:http://wm07schols.wikimedia.org/apply.phpRegistration and our Call for Participation are also both open:http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Registrationhttp://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/CfPWikimania is the annual conference of the Wikimedia Foundation. Itprovides a chance to meet the global community of contributors to theWikimedia projects, share ideas and research, and make new friends.All are welcome to attend and present, but you must be a currenteditor of a Wikimedia project to qualify for a scholarship.Send questions to wikimania-scholarships(a)wikimedia.org orwikimania-info(a)wikimedia.org.Please translate and widely distribute this notice to your communities.thank you,Phoebe AyersWikimania 2007 scholarships committee and program committee_______________________________________________Wikimania-l mailing listWikimania-l(a)lists.wikimedia.orghttp://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l-- ~notafishNB. This address is used for mailing lists. Personal emails sent tothis address will probably get lost.NB. Cette adresse est utilisée pour les listes de diffusion. Toutemail personnel envoyé à cette adresse sera probablement perdu.