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Re: [ox-en] open translation?



Hi Thomas,

That's a nice, clear argument. But I think there is a counter-proof by
example: the distributed proofreaders site for Project Gutenberg,
http://www.pgdp.net/c/default.php
To me proof-reading seems even drier than translating, but it's a 
successful site. 

Another example might be marxists.org: this is based on people scanning
and proof-reading texts voluntarily; if you can scan a text, I guess that
means you have access to it already, so it would seem there's no 
personal motivation (except perhaps in being able to search the text 
electronically) but it's still successful.

My guess would be that if a generic translation site was set up AND
publicised enough in the 'right' way (whatever that is!) it would be
successful, and that problems might be more with controlling the quality
of the output: what do you do about people translating into a language
that's not their first language, or language students using it to
practise? Who can say whether a translation is 'good enough' or 'accurate
enough'?

Finally, I sometimes translate texts for personal pleasure. Does that make 
me weird? ;-)

Graham


On Mon, 25 Aug 2003, Thomas Berker wrote:

Hi Joel, hi list,

--On 25. august 2003 11:00 -0400 jrs295 nyu.edu wrote:
Since the topic of translation of the German documents comes up every so
often on the list, I've been wondering how to apply the ideas of free
software organization and peer-to-peer directly to the problem of
translation.

For example, would it be possible to have a system (such as a site
specializing in translation where different projects could post, or a way
of cataloguing material on different websites) where people who had texts
they needed to translate could give information on what subject matter
the texts are in, which language it's being translated from and to, which
items have higher priority, and so on; so that somebody interested in
translating could search through many different projects and find one on
a subject that is interesting to them?

Applying principles from Free Software development to translation (which, 
yes, is desperately needed and not only for [ox]), I would draw different 
conclusions. I don't think linking projects together through a system of 
any kind (a website, a translation CVS, or whatever) will result in more 
and better translations.

The importance of *intrinsic* motivation ranks high in every survey on free 
software development. Meaning: The fun of programming meets the desire to 
produce something useful. Thus, I would suggest that free-translation 
projects most likely thrive when there is a sufficient number of 
contributors who have a lot of fun translating texts. And I would not know 
where to search for this kind of people. Translation as hobby? A community 
of translation hobbyists? Difficult. A second problem might be that though 
the result (the translation) is of course useful, it is not useful for the 
translator. S/he is per definition able to 'use' the original text.

I am afraid that when these two cornerstones of FS motivation are lacking, 
every kind of organisational/technical support does not harm, but is not 
likely to help much either.

A few weeks ago, German media covered the case of a translation project for 
the most recent Harry Potter novel, which is (was?) not yet available in 
German translation. This seemed to work quite well. Indeed, here we have 
lots of intrinsic motivation (high interest in every single sentence of a 
Harry Potter book). Moreover, only contributors had access to other 
contributions. Appearently this - eventually being able to read the whole 
story in German translation - provided another important share of the 
motivation - which is unfortunately not exactly compatible with the 
principles of Free Software as it creates artificial scarcity.

But I would love seeing my scepticism to be proven wrong...

Thomas
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