Talk:WikiTranslation

Rather than simply translating random texts I think wikitranslation should also focus on translating important documents. Some works that I know of which are not available online in English are Secret History of the Mongols, most of Victor Hugo's works and many Greek Latin and Chinese texts. I think wikitranslators should focus on translating important documents, literature and source into other languages. One possible project is a new wikitranslation of the Bible.--Gary123 19:35, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I definitely like the idea of a translation community for all kinds of texts. As a requirement, contributed texts would have to be under an open content license.--Eloquence

The only problem to that would be that it would be turn-off for people who want to translate something for themselves (for a personal website, or for a program interface, etc). How about a Creative Commons Licence (I'm not familiar with that licence, but how would that work)? At the same time, I think the GNU FDL would be very useful for things like documentation of open-source programs, even Wikimedia use. Ronline 10:48, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is being trialed at Wikicities, though not with any of the proposed software changes. It could move to Wikimedia if there was community support for that here. See Wikicities:c:Translation. Angela 18:48, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Translating literary works and broader software changes

Translating literary works adds special requirements. If we consider poetry, for example, then one could imagine various groups of contributors wanting to work on different translations of the same text: for example a rhyming translation of Dante versus a straight literal prose translation.

I envisage translators working on small units of translation (a verse from the bible is the clearest example).

I believe it would be desirable for people to be able to view such translations in two different ways:

1. normal mode — the units of a particular translation are strung together in order (each unit with its own 'edit' link as usual)
2. comparison mode — the same unit is displayed from the various different translations on offer (again, each with its own 'edit' link)

I realize this is a potentially significant software change. But it may have applications beyond translations. — Stumps 15:55, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

== i don't know why you didn't think of it earlier i can't find a decent translator anywhere