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Topic: Website translation

Jaypad
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Joined: 2015-12-12, 10:59
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Posted at: 2015-12-28, 15:08

Hello guys !

While I was translating the game, an idea came to me : it would be useful to have localised versions of the website. Of course we can read it in english, but we are more comfortable with our native language. Furthermore, the new non-english-speakers players could join us if we provide them a localised version of the website.

So, I made a little search in the forum and I found this thread.

I know it will be difficult to make a good and always up-to-date translation of the whole website. The use of google translate is not a good solution in my opinion.

That said, i'd like to propose two alternatives :
- making a partial website translation, for the most important pages
- allow the creation of partial (un)official localized websites (such as widelands.fr for french speakers) with the same theme than this one, if there are sufficient people interested.

What do you think of this ?


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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2015-12-28, 17:38

The main problem is to keep the pages up to date. There are currently some english pages which needs updating, and i don't believe that it would be better if there are additional pages in different languages. Having one outdated page is better than having several outdated pages in different languages i think.

  • making a partial website translation, for the most important pages

A partially website translation... how does it feel if a native speaker founds a translated page, clicks on some links in it and get to a non translated page? And who decides which page is importand?

  • allow the creation of partial (un)official localized websites (such as widelands.fr for french speakers) with the same theme than this one, if there are sufficient people interested.

I don't believe that a localized website has more interested people than the current page. We have several localized forums here but they aren't highly frequented:

  • German: No new topic in 2014, 14 new topics in 2015
  • Spanish: 3 new topics in 2014, no new topic in 2015
  • French: No new topic in 2014, one new topic in 2015

I agree, that a localized website would be very welcome though.

On the other side: It's a bit sad to have a great european union and only some people want's to speak/write in a unified language.

Edited: 2015-12-28, 17:39

Fight simulator for Widelands:
https://wide-fighter.netlify.app/

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Jaypad
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Posted at: 2015-12-28, 18:47
kaputtnik
On the other side: It's a bit sad to have a great european union and only some people want's to speak/write in a unified language.

I agree, but it's not a reason to drop the people who can't / don't want speak english.

kaputtnik
Jaypad
making a partial website translation, for the most important pages

A partially website translation... how does it feel if a native speaker founds a translated page, clicks on some links in it and get to a non translated page? And who decides which page is importand?

I know that a partial translation is not the best thing to do. A homepage, a description page and a download page could be a good starting point to interest non-english speakers to this great game.

I think the localised forums are not used more frequently because people with a little english knowledge prefer ask their questions in english forum to have a sooner answer.

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Vassili
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Posted at: 2015-12-28, 20:02

I totaly agreed with Jaypad.


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Dishito
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Joined: 2014-11-30, 01:04
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Posted at: 2015-12-28, 21:01

Jaypad wrote: I think the localised forums are not used more frequently because people with a little english knowledge prefer ask their questions in english forum to have a sooner answer.

I agreed with that. I'm argentinian. In latin america the official language is not english. But because the spanish forum is dead i speak in english and is not easy to me.


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einstein13
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Posted at: 2015-12-28, 21:33

I know that adding any translations to any page will contain HUGE amount of work. If it is not done yet - it will take few months to do it. I am not telling that it is not worth it, but I am telling that it is very hard to do (with current state of the Widelands homepage).

Now I don't know what should be done, to fulfill all expectations and not to do too much work.

Too much - because english is one of the easiest languages in the World. At first I was upset that I have to write & read all in english, but now I used to it.


einstein13
calculations & maps packages: http://wuatek.no-ip.org/~rak/widelands/
backup website files: http://kartezjusz.ddns.net/upload/widelands/

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Jaypad
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Posted at: 2015-12-28, 22:37

If adding translations to this website is a too big amount of work, we can maybe create unofficial localised websites, as I suggest in my first post.

Obviously, this is creating other problems... but I think it's a good way to extend the game community without giving more work here.


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kaputtnik
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Posted at: 2015-12-28, 23:15

The statement related to european union and unified language was just a sidenote, not relevant for this discussion face-smile.png I didn't want to drop people who don't speak english!

The current code have already some statements to have a localization. But it's not implemented for usage and there is no manpower to do so.

There are some localized pages in german.

@ Dishito: It's also not easy to write in english for me.

Related to an unofficial localized websites: I am not in the position to give you the rights to do so.

Most pages (like Description or Download) are part of our wiki. And a wiki is something that could be edited by every registered user. Also every registered user has the rights to create new wikipages. So why don't you create a localized page and create links from english page to the localized pages? Just look into WikiHelp and feel free to ask if something is unclear face-smile.png


Fight simulator for Widelands:
https://wide-fighter.netlify.app/

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Dishito
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Posted at: 2015-12-28, 23:35

In my case I refer to the dead spanish forum. As nobody talk in the spanish forum, it's dead. Then, there is no use of the spanish forum and nobody will come if he doesn't speak english.

I'm so bad writing in english too. There is nobody, who i know, spanish-speaking to ask something. So I speak in english.


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Jaypad
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Posted at: 2015-12-29, 10:37

kaputtnik wrote:

Most pages (like Description or Download) are part of our wiki. And a wiki is something that could be edited by every registered user. Also every registered user has the rights to create new wikipages. So why don't you create a localized page and create links from english page to the localized pages? Just look into WikiHelp and feel free to ask if something is unclear face-smile.png

I will take a look to the wiki and its documentation to see what we can do.


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