Submissions/Translating the wiki way

This is an accepted submission for Wikimania 2012.

629

Submission no.

Title of the submission: Translating the wiki way

Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, panel, presentation): presentation

Author of the submission: Niklas Laxström

E-mail address: nlaxstrom at wikimedia.org

Username: Nikerabbit

Country of origin: Finland

Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.): Wikimedia Foundation

Personal homepage or blog: http://laxstrom.name/blag/

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

In the recent years we have seen the rise of translation systems targeted for managing the translation of open source software and to some extend for manuals and help pages too. Even the big companies like Facebook are trying to crowd source translations.

Most of the tools have a web interface for doing translations with various aids like integrated machine translation services. The rest are just file distribution sites, created to necessiate the fact that it does not scale to manage permissions of thousands translators in the same way developer access is handled.

At Wikimedia we have lots of content, but the different languages of of Wikipedia, for example, are not direct translation of each other, but independent projects. Translation does happen, but it is not controlled and more an exception than a rule. There is still a niche where managed translation is useful even in Wikimedia: press releases, user documentation and messages send to visitors across all projects.

Wikimedia has recently started to use one of the translation systems, namely the Translate extension for MediaWiki. The history of the Translate extension is much longer than that. I'd like to present the design principles of this system featuring examples from the Wikimedia world as well as KDE which is in the Linux world.

Track (Wikis and the Public Sector; GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums); WikiCulture and Community; Research, Analysis, and Education; Technology and Infrastructure): Technology and Infrastructure

Length of presentation/talk (if other than 25 minutes, specify how long): 25 Minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: probably not

Slides or further information (optional)

Special request as to time of presentations (for example - can not present on Saturday)

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Yaron Koren (talk) 14:25, 4 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Marclaporte (talk) 05:23, 11 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Amir E. Aharoni (talk)
Daniel Mietchen - WiR/OS (talk) 23:39, 18 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Eloquence (talk) 01:02, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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