User talk:Yamaplos/en

Aymara page

I created a language page stub for Aymara. Maybe this SpanAm link [1] should point there instead of to OLPC Bolivia? Cjl 02:05, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

Aymara activity is right now happening in the Bolivia page. The most I could do for an Aymara page right now would be to put some Wikipedia or CIA stuff, and a link to the Bolivia pagehich besides the fluff would be the same think as linking directly to the Bolivia page. If you don't mind too much, could you leave it as is for now? We'll probably have specific Aymara development some day, hopefully, which will fit right in. Thanks. Yamaplos 15:45, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

aw shucks, didn't know you had done so much work in the Aymara page already. Scratch my previous comment, I'll go there and see what I can do. Yamaplos 15:47, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

It's OK, connect Aymara to Aymara, I'll pipe from there. Thanks!!!Yamaplos 16:19, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

It's just that with Aymara speakers spread across Bolivia, Peru, Chile (Argentina?) it is probably best to organize language-specific information on a language-specific page that each of the country-specific pages can link to. Cjl 16:12, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

It's OK, though the real reality of the very truth is that we cannot expect any of those countries to do much for Aymara, not because they don't want to, but because, bless their hearts, they have more urgent things to do first.Yamaplos 16:19, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

Yes, I'm sure they do. However, doesn't the wiki ethos hold that the important thing is not who does the work (although contribs are clearly credited), but that the work is made accessible and easily found to all who might need it? Bolivia will benefit from Spanish localization efforts done with Peru in mind and Peru will benefit from Aymara localization effort done with Bolivia in mind, win-win. Cjl 16:26, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

You are totally right, that is why I followed most willingly your advice. Thank you for pointing me out of my one-track mind. Now I will clone your translation work to the Aymara Fest page and hope we can get two-column pages somehow. The fact that we will have 'originals' in both English and Spanish makes the usual approach complicated, and rather inconvenient. Hope there's a way to get it to work, or maybe you can try again to convince me another way is better :-) Yamaplos 16:31, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

The way I see it is that it's all about the kids, no matter what country they live in, no matter what language they speak and us "grown-ups" just need to set an example by playing well with others :-) If you want to modify the "original" language of the Aymara page into Spanish out of recognition that it will be a primary language of those able to contribute, I'm fine with that. The "original" language of most of the Spanish America pages is Spanish, and that only makes sense. It would be nice if there were more (es) to (en) translated pages for folks like me that haven't really used their Spanish since high school, but c'est la vie. Cjl 16:59, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

One problem is usability. It makes _sense_ for users that are interested in the Aymara Fest to look for it in the Bolivia page, because so far at least and in the probable future, it's Bolivian this is addressed to. Serependitiously I hope to attract circumstantial visitors to that event. Now I have to ask them to make one more click, in the name of order and proper procedure. Now the Bolivia page has no action, no voice, just like the Aymara page. All the action is in an out of the way, circumstantial page. I see most of our wiki pages developing into temples of fluff in this model. Notice that you can actually find very little information in our official pages. I was unable to get to the OLPC_Bolivia following logical links from the main laptop.org page. Oh well.

The worst is that I agreed to it :-> Yamaplos 17:07, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

I agree with your the point about two-column translation being easier, but I'm not template-savvy enough to try to figure out the mechanics. Maybe you can talk to User:Homunq who appears to have done most of the work on that template, or maybe User:Xavi or User:Dupuy that have worked a lot on translations.

As for page-advertising, maybe the best thing is to do is to ask User:Walter to feature your effort in the OLPC:News or even on the main page. I will say that anyone who is going to make a meaningful contribution is not going to be put off by an extra mouse-click, wiki's are not really built by users who expect shop-at-home one-click checkout. Not that it isn't great when they are built to be friendly to such users, but I think you have to ask yourself how much "drive-by" traffic you can really expect. I think getting users that are fluent enough in Aymara and computer-savvy enough to contribute to a Pootle translation jam is likely to require some significant off-wiki recuriting anyway. I think the best you can do on-wiki is to use good category tags so that there is the opportunity for serendipity. I face a similar challenge with my own pet project Animal health in that there aren't many wiki-speaking, large animal vets wandering by . . . if you know one, give them my e-mail address. Cjl 17:30, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

Ha ha. Point taken. I will contact the users you mention, see what can be done. No, my take as to usability is to have an easy time getting to where the good stuff is. You are entirely correct, it will be extremely hard for me to populate this project, yet sometimes we seem to be unaware how hard is for noobs to get some stuff done, and I am the more grateful for your concern for the translations template in that sense. Now, if I could just figure out how to make the generic look and feel for Aymara Fest to be in Spanish... Yamaplos 17:41, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

As a wiki-n00b myself, I'm painfully aware of the barriers to entry for getting something substantial accomplished. At least with the wiki and Pootle platforms it is possible for that foundation building effort to be tackled one brick at a time and shared by anyone that is willing/able to learn a bit of techy-stuff, consider trying to get this done with only a mailing-list or traditional web-page as tools. While the goal is to raise the next generation with the skills that will make all of this second nature to them, someone still has to plow the ground before those seeds can be planted. Cjl 19:37, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

translations

I'll make a few edits to move the translation set-up to a place where it is easier to proceed. I find it very confusing too. Cjl 15:41, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

I've created the OLPC_Bolivia/lang-en page in a form that should be ready for ongoign translation work. The translation status template has a status of "incomplete" which will cause the directions material to appear at the top of the page. Cjl 16:12, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

I made some changes to Aymara Fest translation steps you had taken. You had created a Aymara Fest/lang-es version of the page, but Aymara Fest is already in Spanish. What I did was create the Aymara Fest/lang-en version so that the original will stay in Spanish, as makes sense. This means that the Aymara Fest/lang-es page isn't really needed, so I blanked it because the Spanish version is at Aymara Fest (I realize it still has an (en) pagename). I went on to the Aymara Fest/lang-en page and started following the directions and added some anchor tags. There is still plenty of text there to be translated, but I wanted to make sure that (es) to (en) translating happened on pages that were in the right hierarchy. When the translation is complete, change the word "incomplete" in the template at the top to "complete" and all of the blue directions stuff will disappear. You also should now see the language bar on the top of Aymara Fest that will take you to the english version. Cjl 20:24, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

Having walked through applying a translation template a few times now, I think that some serious improvements need to be made to the directions on Translating/HowTo to make it more intuitive or at least more explicit about the necessary steps. Cjl 20:28, 16 April 2008 (EDT)

I had created translation stubs for Aymara_Fest/lang-en, OLPC_Uruguay/lang-en and OLPC_Bolivia/lang-en thinking that you were looking to do some translation work on these pages. Perhaps I misunderstood, there hasn't been any real activity on tranlsating these pages and I would rather not leave useless stubs around under my contrib history just continuing to get furhter out-of-sync with main-page edits. So unless you do plan to work on the es-en translations of these pages, I'm going to roll them back to translation-wanted instead of translation-incomplete. Cjl 20:58, 10 May 2008 (EDT)

Truly appreciate your help. Will be testing two-column for a while. Thanks!! Yamaplos 22:39, 10 May 2008 (EDT)

Another translation trick

I found a very cool example template on the wiki. Modified it slightly. Click on any language (try English) in the line that starts GoogleTrans on the top of page Aymara_Fest. I'm experimenting still, I don't think it is truly ready for wider use, but I thought you wouldn't mind me testing it on that page, in fact, I think you'll really like it. Cjl 03:18, 11 May 2008 (EDT)

Pootle mark-up

Yama, rather than just scrawl questions across the Pootle page using the pending template, I think it would be far more useful if you were to make corrections as needed or post questions on the Pootle:Talk page. Instead, what you've done is deface the existing page because you have questions, that is not really the wiki way. Cjl 22:41, 26 May 2008 (EDT)

Adminship

Yama, thank you for your support for my nomination to adminship and for accepting my suggestions in the spirit intended. Although I may sometimes offer you differing ideas on how best serve the olpc effort via the wiki, I think we both know that we share a desire to help children and that we'll work together towards goals that are bigger than either of us. Cjl 00:45, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

mesh disclaimers

I made up Template:Prototype to put at the top of all the mesh pages you wanted disclaimers on, so as to not mislead teachers. Is this the kind of thing you are looking for? I would say that anyone has the "relevant authority" to put such a tag on any wiki page; it's easy enough to watch for, and revert. I'm on IRC (mchua, #olpc) if you want to discuss this in real-time. Mchua 14:56, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

Localized look and feel

a friend from the Sur crowd wonders if the look/feel of certain wiki pages can be localized (tabs, etc). no idea here, so I'm coming to my favorite localization minded admin. Primary target for messing with that would be, for example, the Sur page Yamaplos 21:05, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

I don't think it's practical conditionally change the language of the Mediawiki:sidebar (left side) or the tabs (top bar). If there is a way to do it I just don't know what it is. However, it is possible to simulate that effect. Go to Sur and try the "testing for Yama" link, it's a bit of a hack, but it sort of works. Cjl22:01, 5 June 2008 (EDT)

yeah, it's sort of painful, but it's AMAZING! It's somewhat shocking that if you follow a link, you don't get the page in English but in Googlspanish! Let's leave the link there, let me let some of the Surers drop by and say what. Thanks!! Yamaplos 22:28, 5 June 2008 (EDT)