Re: [Slashcode-development] towerofbabel.com

[Malcolm L. <ma...@to...>]

"I don't know that I agree with having different subdomains for different
languages."

Well, as far as where slash stands right now from a multilingual perspective
it would be a quick and easy workaround. Basically, when the user clicks on
the language flag, they'd silently set a "language pref". So that their
language choice sticks with them as they navigate...at least until they hit
another flag which will silently
reset their pref....etc etc

Of course, ideally a language pref would be a part of the user's Log in box.
Would that be very easy to do?

As far as my three different methods for dealing with both localization and
internationalization issues are concerned:

for Method A:

"The problem that I have with that: for one story, you are actually
creating 1..n stories (sid's) and a unique discussion for each."

Well, yes, exactly. From a hypothetical perspective it would/will be
interesting to see which is more popular: the slash where all languages can
join in or the ghettoized slashes where each language sticks with its own.
I'm assuming the latter. Still, the only website I've found which is
currently doing what I want slash to be able to do is this one:
http://blogalization.org/community/weblog.php . So I'm wondering what the
isolated issues are which prevent slash from being like blogalization.org.

for Method B:

"The problem with method B, as I see it, is that different people will
be reading that same story in different languages. That's fine (it'd be
the whole point of mod B). But that story will be related to one single
discussion. So you can/will have comments posted in different languages
than the language for the story that's being read at that particular
time."

Well the whole point of trying to do what I'm doing (or what I'm trying to
make slash do) is to make anyone be able to post or comment on a story in
whichever character set they choose to.

I'm not so sure I'm completely sold on Method B, to tell you the truth. The
idea simply came to me when I realized that localization and
internationalization are two completely different beasts which don't really
need to be.

My goal is to have any and all character sets, both Romanized and
non-Romanized, be recognized and accommodated by slash in all corners of the
code, only tertiarily am I interested in ghettoizing slash locally by
language, but the way I figure it, as long as these issues are on the table
might as well try and stretch slash as far as it can to see if we can push
the code into a whole other realm than it's been used to.

"PS - the links you included http://towerofbabel.com/ or
http://www.towerofbabel.com/ , for me atleast, didn't work. DNS shows
them fine, but it looks like apache's down on the machine from here."

Try again. Must have been sunspots. :-)


Malcolm Lawrence
Editor-in-Chief
Babel: The multilingual, multicultural
online journal and community of arts and ideas.
http://www.towerofbabel.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Babel reminds you: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
------------------------------------------------------------

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Shane" <sh...@lo...>
To: <sla...@li...>
Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 4:08 AM
Subject: Re: [Slashcode-development] towerofbabel.com


> Wow, interesting dilemas here!!
>
> I don't know that I agree with having different subdomains for
> different languages.
>
> Method A:
>
> On one hand, this is a fantastic way to do it it - you could take one
> story, submitted in english, have it translated, then post it in any
> relavent section that a translation has been done.
> That way each discussion (and it's comments) are in *each section's
> language*.
>
> The problem that I have with that: for one story, you are actually
> creating 1..n stories (sid's) and a unique discussion for each.
>
> Method B:
>
> It would seem that since the templates have a 'lang' field (defaults to
> 'en_US') it would be more appropriate if
>   the table story_text's schema were modified to have such a field.
>
> Then when a site did the dispStory template et all and did the query to
> get a story, that query would use $users->{lang} to determine which set
> of information to pull out of story_info. (yes, this is oversimplified,
> but you get the idea).
>
> The problem with method B, as I see it, is that different people will
> be reading that same story in different languages. That's fine (it'd be
> the whole point of mod B). But that story will be related to one single
> discussion. So you can/will have comments posted in different languages
> than the language for the story that's being read at that particular
> time.
>
>
> There's another thought - with the section-topic changes, I don't see a
> 'lang' field in the skins schema.
> I don't know whether that's good or bad, for your situation.
>
> Interesting discussion, nonetheless. Great to see such issues brought
> up about the code on the devel-list.
>
>   Shane
>
> PS - the links you included http://towerofbabel.com/ or
> http://www.towerofbabel.com/ , for me atleast, didn't work. DNS shows
> them fine, but it looks like apache's down on the machine from here.
>
> On Jun 30, 2004, at 7:40 PM, Malcolm Lawrence wrote:
>
> > Greetings all,
> >
> > My name is Malcolm Lawrence and I’m the guiding force behind the
> > construction of Babel: The multilingual, multicultural online journal
> > and community of arts and ideas which has recently incorporated
> > slashcode on our site on our Map page.
> >
> > If you’re unfamiliar with Babel, we have over 300 translators in 75
> > languages offering their services to help translate the site. We are a
> > non-profit organization, the translators are voluntary and work on the
> > site because they enjoy it (kind of like Linux). Those translators who
> > work on the site get their resume featured on the site. It’s not
> > exactly an open source project because I do ask that potential
> > translators submit their resume or CV before being allowed to begin
> > translating the site so I can see their education, skills, experience
> > and knowledge base with translating in order to ensure that Babel’s
> > standards of excellence are maintained.
> >
> > Anyway, as far as the goal I’m trying to reach with Babel is
> > concerned, ideally one day any user will be able to submit any story
> > in any language which will then be able to be posted in any language
> > and any user will be able to post comments in any language, all on the
> > same page of code.
> >
> > But there are still some multilingual issues with slashcode and
> > apparently I’m not the first person who has wanted to solve them. My
> > interest in wanting to solve them is primarily based upon fulfilling
> > the je nais se quoi of the original idea of the Babel site so I
> > thought I’d step in to see if I can regain interest in solving the
> > issues in slashcode.
> >
> > I guess the first thing I’m curious about since I’m unfamlilar with
> > i18n issues with slashcode is exactly what are the core problems
> > needing to be solved in the code for multilingual issues and how
> > difficult are they to solve?
> >
> > With the code as it is on my site right now slash has its variable set
> > for US English since at the present time there is no way for an author
> > to post a story, nor for a user to post a comment, in whichever
> > language they wish. However, Cliff Wood, the senior administrator for
> > my new ISP as well as one of the slashcode developers, and I are
> > currently working on a solution which will enable other languages to
> > use the slashcode part of Babel, although not simultaneously.
> >
> > What this means is that we’re going to have subdomains under
> > towerofbabel.com for 8 other languages (to start off with) to have
> > their own particular version of Babel’s slash code. The other
> > languages we’ll start with will be Spanish, French, German, Italian,
> > Dutch, Estonian, Japanese and Russian. I’ve chosen these languages
> > initially because with the exception of French they are all languages
> > which are currently using slashcode successfully. (To see them all go
> > here. What I plan to do is have each language’s slashcode page linked
> > to their respective flag off the homepage and designate the particular
> > language’s subdomain using these l10n codes into the url. For example,
> > ja_jp.towerofbabel.com for Japanese, eo.towerofbabel.com for
> > Esperanto, etc.
> >
> > As far as my goal for Babel is concerned, that will obviously be the
> > day when we won’t necessarily need other language-specific versions of
> > Babel, as all languages will be compatible in the same page of code,
> > but as you’ll see from my idea below, perhaps other language-specific
> > versions of Babel would be an entirely separate idea which is worthy
> > in its own right.
> >
> > What I'm curious about as far as using subdomains are concerned
> > is...will each one use it's own slash and in essence be segregated
> > unto itself or would it be possible to have a mezzanine effect,
> > whereas the user chooses their flag, which maps to their language's
> > particular subdomain, but the stories for each slash are from one main
> > slash which each slash would view? Is such a thing possible or doable?
> >
> > I’m also wondering whether those sites which are using slash for other
> > languages have translated the code themselves into their native
> > languages and if so whether they’ve donated their translations for
> > their own slash site to the slashcode community. If not, one of the
> > things I’d like to spearhead is an initiative to get all of the inner
> > workings of the code translated into other languages and then donate
> > them to the slashcode development community so that when someone in
> > another language wishes to start using slashcode on their site, they
> > already have it translated and ready to go. Having slash sites
> > translated so that a virgin site would be all ready to go straight out
> > of the box in a number of languages would be a great benefit to the
> > open source community.
> >
> > Should anyone be interested in my personal immediate plans for slash
> > on my site what I’d ideally like to do is this:
> >
> > Currently I am the only author on my slash site and I have been
> > posting some stories to get the hang of using slash. Ala Slashdot, any
> > user can feel free to submit a story or url and add their own
> > comments. But this is where I want to open Babel up to the world. I
> > don’t want to be the only author, I want others to help me.
> >
> > Ideally I'd like to have not only Babel fans and contributors but also
> > some of the Babel translators join me as authors on the current
> > boilerplate English slash site so they can get a feel for how
> > slashcode works for a while until they get the hang of it and then
> > once the other versions of the slash site are up in the other 8
> > languages (8 other languages only initially. Hopefully soon we’ll have
> > all 75 languages up), encouraging the translators to be in charge of
> > their particular native language's version of the Babel slash. With
> > the eventual goal being to have the inner workings of each language’s
> > slash site translated so they can in essence be free to deal with the
> > code on an administrative level in their own native language.
> >
> > What this means is that it would be great if, say, on the Spanish
> > Babel slash site there were a handful of authors who were Spanish
> > translators, and hopefully not from the same country. It would be
> > ideal if there was one author from Argentina, one from Mexico, one
> > from Spain etc. so you could all post stories or even find some
> > yourself about issues particular to your specific country or your
> > specific artistic passion.
> >
> > What I’m basically trying to do is take i18n and l10n and tie them
> > together in a meaningful and constructive way. So in essence there
> > would ideally be three language settings for slash:
> >
> > 1. One setting where any user will be able to submit any story in
> > their own localized language which will then be able to be posted in
> > only their own localized language and users will be able to post
> > comments in that localized language. (For example, Spanish speakers in
> > Peru would have a slash dealing with their own localized version of
> > Spanish at “es_PE.towerofbabel.com”.) This is currently how slashcode
> > is configured, to operate as a localized code. I’ll call this a single
> > slash.
> >
> > 2. One setting where any user will be able to submit any story in
> > their own particular localized language which would then be posted on
> > their own particular internationalized language version of the code.
> > (This would be unnecessary for many languages such as Welsh or
> > Finnish.) For example, posters from Spain, Mexico and Argentina all
> > being able to post their stories to a main Spanish Babel slash at
> > “es.towerofbabel.com”. This would be an internationalized slashcode if
> > it were to be confingured. I’ll call this a double slash.
> >
> > 3. One setting where any user will be able to submit any story in any
> > language which will then be able to be posted in any language and any
> > user will be able to post comments in any language, all on the same
> > page of code. This would be a multilingualized slashcode if it were to
> > be configured. I’ll call this an omni slash.
> >
> > Please let me know whatever comments, suggestions or ideas you may
> > have.
> >
> >
> > Malcolm Lawrence
> > Editor-in-Chief
> > Babel: The multilingual, multicultural
> > online journal and community of arts and ideas.
> > http://www.towerofbabel.com
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > Babel: Just when you thought you were at critical mass.
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> --
> One gadget to catch them all, and in digital darkness bind them.
>
>
>
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