<div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>As a somewhat regular translator, I would like to say something.<br></div><div>My gut feeling is that we shouldn't separate the wiki into different ones, but I can say there are some considerable issues on the model we have right now.<br>
</div><div><br>Often when I am going to translate an article, I try to improve it, but because the english article is considered the "main" one, I end up having to improve the english article as well. This can be a big productivity killer.<br>
</div><div>At the very least, when the page is about a key specific to my country, I can just stick a {{Translate from Portuguese}} template on the english page.<br></div><div><br>I also take issue with the namespacing as it is.<br>
</div><div>The page for the key highway=* is "Key:highway" in english, but it is "Pt:Key:highway" in portuguese. <br>Just imagine what a portuguese speaker thinks when he sees something like that and doesn't know what it means.<br>
By reading the page's content, he can understand what "highway" means, because the generous translators explained, but what about "Pt:Key" ?<br></div><div>I know what it means, that's just an example.<br>
</div><div>Things like "Talk:" and "User:" prefix can be uncomfortable to some users too.<br><br></div><div>I have to say that it wasn't intuitive to understand that, linking to other wiki page from a page in portuguese will link to an english page unless I stick a "Pt:" prefix before it.<br>
</div><br></div><div>These are some of the issues I can remember right now.<br></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">2014-07-24 18:50 GMT-03:00 Frederik Ramm <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:frederik@remote.org" target="_blank">frederik@remote.org</a>></span>:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hi,<br>
<div class=""><br>
On 07/24/2014 11:05 PM, François Lacombe wrote:<br>
> According to you, we'd better split OSM in several projects, one for<br>
> each country and data consumers will do the rest.<br>
<br>
</div>This would be interesting but it is not what I said. I said, let's have<br>
different Wikis for different languages.<br>
<br>
It is simply a more holistic approach to the concept of "translation". I<br>
don't believe in the kind of page-by-page, sentence-by-sentence, even<br>
word-by-word translation that some people seem to advocate. If we're<br>
after that, just dump all non-English content and use Google translate.<br>
<br>
If we want high-quality documentation for users of different languages,<br>
which will also often be people with wildly different cultural<br>
backgrounds, then that has to be written from scratch - perhaps<br>
"informed" by material in other languages but likely not "translated".<br>
<br>
Using the same Wiki with language namespacing implements the concept of<br>
very close translations - the structure is the same for everyone, and<br>
the translator is just expected to fill in the blanks. I don't believe<br>
that this will lead to high-quality documentation; I believe this will<br>
be at best a little better than automatic translation.<br>
<br>
I think that the evolution of the project is replayed in different<br>
countries at different times. Speaking simplistically, the community in<br>
a country where OSM is just taking off might be better off with the kind<br>
of documentation available to OSM in France when the project was at the<br>
same state, rather than the sophisticated detail that is available today.<br>
<br>
If I am in a country where we have barely mapped the major road network,<br>
am I really interested in translations of turn lane relations and TMC<br>
information, or will such detail perhaps discourage me?<br>
<br>
You seem to be mainly equating the Wiki with a catalogue of tags but I<br>
think it is much more, and its relevance as a tag catalogue is shrinking<br>
with editor presets becoming ever more complex.<br>
<br>
Of course editor presets would also have to be localised (and not only<br>
translated)... ;)<br>
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
Bye<br>
Frederik<br>
<br>
--<br>
Frederik Ramm ## eMail <a href="mailto:frederik@remote.org">frederik@remote.org</a> ## N49°00'09" E008°23'33"<br>
<br>
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