Dienstag, 6. März 2012

Why, o why, o Wikimedia Foundation?

Can't you just hire somebody/ get somebody who is able to translate your messages to the German community into German? You know, as a German I would feel so much more loved and appreciated, and as a member of the second largest community (from where a lot of donor money comes also) it would just give me an impression, that you care about something else than en.wikipedia.

Really. You know. With about 100 employees, and translations being cheap, it just looks so sad and so not-caring that you can't even talk to the people you are supposed to care about.

It just looks a bit like you just don't really care.

Auslöser: Können Sie uns helfen mit einer Übersetzung. Und wie üblich frage ich mich, ob es sinnvoll ist, daran teilzunehmen, oder ob die Ergebnisse dann eh nur dazu dienen, längst beschlossene Programme "durch den Communitywillen" zu legitimieren.

8 Kommentare:

Jon Harald Søby hat gesagt…

What is it you want us to translate? The message asking for translation into German?

That is an area we are improving on, and if you join the mailing list translators-l you can help too.

We are also working on a new notification and signup system for translators, which will hopefully make things even better. But in an international movement like ours there is always going to be some level of communication going on that is not in your language (but hopefully as little as possible).

Anonym hat gesagt…

Also, c'mon... we asked for help from the German community and nobody stepped up to complete the translation.

We tried. The German community didn't respond. So rather than leave you out of the loop entirely, we posted a message in English. I'm sorry, but I fail to see how the Foundation dropped the ball on this one.

Nearly 20 languages managed to get things translated for this. But the German community didn't.

Anonym hat gesagt…

Last post was by me.

Philippe Beaudette
Director, Community Advocacy
Wikimedia Foundation.

Anonym hat gesagt…

"we asked for help from the German community and nobody stepped up to complete the translation"

this is exactly the point: why not just simply pay some professional translator to do the job?

poupou

Marcus Cyron hat gesagt…

As Poupou (and even Southpark before - you all at WMF should leard to read texts!) said: the WMF earned a lot of money in germany - for a very small part of this money the Foundation could let translate their texts for the second-greatest comunity of the movement. But it's like so often. In Frisco you all understand nothing. You don't want to understand, you can't look over the en:WP und US edge. This is not good for such an international movement.

Every post (even here) brings bigger frustration. We're not the en:WP, we're not the "Global south", so it seems, we're nothing worth, only as milk cow. Collecting money here seems to be OK for the Foundation. But investing money here...

H-stt hat gesagt…

Für Übersetzungen von projektinternen Nachrichten aus dem Englischen Geld ausgeben?

Das können wir selbst und das machen wir selbst.

Anonym hat gesagt…

@h-stt

wie gesehen können wir es eben manchmal nicht. und anstatt dann über die deutsche community rumzunölen bzw. diese inhaltlich im unklaren zu lassen, wäre es imho zielführend, die information ernsthaft zu vermitteln, indem man sie dann eben professionell übersetzen lässt.

poupou

dirk franke hat gesagt…

Hi Jon Harald and Philippe,

thank you for reading and your answers. This special message about the survey is of course not really the reason for my statement, just the occasion.

I was just wondering. Normally when I want something from people (like: please answer my questionnaire) I try to be polite, and one way to be polite, is to adress people in their native language. Of course there are limits and I won't expect you to post in Volapük - but if at Wikimedia you don't use German, what other language differentfrom English do you use at all?

And while I was reading the message I was wondering, why actually there exists no reliable procedure for the foundation to contact the German community in German. (or, as far as I know) to contact any community other than en: in a language in which the community actually feels at home. Communicating in English large parts of the community will always have the feeling that they at a disadvantage and in an inferior position.

When there are ~100 employees in San Francisco and ~25 in Berlin, why is it that there seems to exist no working procedure to get this reliable done? Shouldn't communication with the community be a high high priority of Foundation and Verein?

And yes, I do think the obligation to get this done lies primarily at the Foundation; it is not primarily at the community (who should be busy writing anencyclopedia..) to try to catch up with the foundation.