Guild of Writers

Hey everyone!

I think we really, REALLY need to get some of our tutorials on the wiki translated into Deutsch and French! I've been told that there are people that have a really hard time with our Wiki because English is not their forte!

Now I know we have a hard enough time getting tutorials written up in English in the first place, but I'm simply talking about translating what we do have. We need people that are fluent in both English and each language to get them translated properly.

Now, if no one here is willing or has the time, my wife, Tracey, told me this morning that she'd be happy to talk to the Greeters, as there are several there that are fluent in both German and French, who are still around at the GoG forums, and are bored to tears right now. They might be happy to do it.

What do you think?

I believe that the French Mystpedia project was translating some of our tutorials on their wiki.

My main problem with translations is keeping them synched. For that reason, I must admit I'd rather see the Frenchies and Germans would just learn proper English.
But I understand that it isn't always easy in some countries, so if there are those who want to translate, why not?
As long as they keep it up to date with current versions, that is! - Or at least always explicitly add the date of translation!

P.S.
I make an exception for Dutch: No one should ever translate our wiki into Dutch!!!

I'll see if I can get some volunteers. I've been emailed, pm'ed, etc, etc, by people who's English is not their first language. Hey, I'm impressed that they can at least communicate with me. If it were the other way around, I'd be hopeless.

Trylon wrote:My main problem with translations is keeping them synched.

That makes me think of something.. Wouldn't it be useful to add in each tutorial for which version this tutorial was written? A sort of disclaimer at the top of the page: "This tutorial was written for PyPRP version: 1.3.1, it may or may not work with previous/latter versions"..
And whenever (or if) we update the tutorial we change the version number to make sure it reflects its current state of validity. In a word: document version checking (argh, that's 3 words)

wow, this is a great things

Is there a Spanish Wiki? I'm learning Spanish and may be able to decode and translate parts of these things :S

Paradox wrote:I believe that the French Mystpedia project was translating some of our tutorials on their wiki.

I had that dream I could do that but pages in mystpedia wiki are still empty

It takes time to translate stuff, especially technical stuff like that. (At least if you want to do it well). And then you need to 'wiki-fy' it. So it takes a lot of time.
The big problem is that there are already around 50 pages of tutorial on the wiki; and that's a lot to translate, but the longer we wait the more there will be..
And it's exactly the kind of work that could be usefull but is not fun to do and very time consuming so in the end it's never done.

Trylon wrote:My main problem with translations is keeping them synched. For that reason, I must admit I'd rather see the Frenchies and Germans would just learn proper English.
But I understand that it isn't always easy in some countries, so if there are those who want to translate, why not?
As long as they keep it up to date with current versions, that is! - Or at least always explicitly add the date of translation!

P.S.
I make an exception for Dutch: No one should ever translate our wiki into Dutch!!!

or Icelandic

If I may point out another wiki that is/was in the process of translating itself. The Alcugs Wiki offers a few translations on several different pages. (Re: Sync) A note could be placed under a separate section on a translated page saying something to the effect of: "This page was translated from <Mother Language> on<Original Page> at Revision <Revision # Translated>." The other pages would naturally have similar "translation" links that point to the newly translated page.

Just looking at the wiki now, we have a good amount of content that would need to be translated, so the best way to begin here is "baby steps." Start out by translating the Main Page and Most Popular Pages and continue downward on the list (eventually). While that may seem like a rather slow approach, you may find that more people are willing to help than originally anticipated (I notice there are a lot of French on this forum who could likely help in the English -> French department). Sometimes, it only takes a little bit of effort for it to snowball and become a project that's really going somewhere.

That being said, I notice that all of the pages currently on the wiki are in English... Don't let that discourage you from posting one in another language!

(On a personal note, I likely won't be of much help in translating... I only know Spanish, and the only Hispanic person I know of who has visited here is Almlys... Someone correct me on this if I am woefully misinformed.)