Wikiversity talk:Multilingualism

The explanations on this page create confusio in my head rather than helping clarity.

The current ways of doing things are mentioned but not really explained. Should we follow them for now?

A future way is proposed with several pictures which are neither very clear nor explain well how the future shall be working.

Also an obvious problem - parallelity of access - is not addressed.

This is specifically peculiar, since in order to author a contribution to a discussion, several pages need to be altered consistently.

My suggestion: Have one master page which collects all the real contributions and require it be accessed for alteration in the following manner:

1. alter by quickly creating another headline at the end, put your sign --~~~~ beneath it, and store it.
2. In case of an edit conflict, abort your edit, and restart the process.
3. If not an edit conflict, section-edit your previously created contribution.
4. When saving your edit while it is not finished yet, leave a clear mark like "ongoing edit" so as to inform potential translators, and readers.
5. When done, store it and (except maybe for cosmetic changes, additional references, etc.) do not alter it any more.
6. If you want to add something, start a new section (It's ok to add a backward and a forward link between them)

The picture series with their comments give a faint idea of what might be intended. Yet as described, it is not workable yet, lacking clarity.

• It would be nice to explain these pictures better. Use terms of what exactly to do.
• I suggest to write names down, of the yellow-brownish and the green pages. Avoid terms like "discussion page", just name it, e.g. Talk:example/fra for the french talk page if that is meant to be so (i.e. {{NS:Talk}}:example/fra).
• I suggeest to name or number the sample enties (colored blocks) in the images for reference. If that means replacing images by tables containing real text, ok, then be it so.
• It would be helpful to replace the red, blue, and green bars by actual sample text. "lorem ipsum" may suffice, but references should be there, not only section headings (or numbers) as asked for above. Thus it would be visible how to refer to contributions, how to refer to short summaries, and how to refer to translations of either, and where these actually are stored.
• How does a translator handle missing translations before the one he is adding? Create a series of empty headings, or not?
• What exactly does one do to start a new discussion? On which page? How to find a name for the page?
• I suggest to put clear headlines and directives at the beginning of each multilingual page, e.g. "This is a page of short summaries in Greek" "To add to the discussion, goto page XXXX" etc.

Finally: When shall that new scheme be used? Will a voting be held? Someplace it seems to be used, maybe, but perhaps not clearly followed? --Purodha 16:59, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Dutch version

I want to start a Dutch version of multilingualism.--Daanschr 19:30, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Problems with the proposition at present

Insisting on being short can be bad for a discussion where the details are more important then the concepts.

I see a few major problems in summarizing all contributions of participants of a discussion of the same language. 1) It ends the individual perspective, which means less freedom, more bureaucracy and politics and less consideration for objectivity and subjectivity. 2) Languages will be politically put against eachother. Political blocks of languages will be formed. 3) A speaker of a language with lots of participants will have less influence on a debate, then a speaker of a language with a small amount of participants, but enough translators.

I don't agree that consensus will be reached. My experience in life, on Usenet, on Wikipedia is that people nearly always keep their own views. These views will confront eachother in unendless powerstruggles. A method to prevent politization could be decentralization and deregulation.

My proposition is that translators will translate individual input into other languages instead of translating summaries. To make sure that all languages can partake to a discussion, it will be required that an organization will be formed that organizes discussions and which will allocate resources (people) to tasks (with deadlines). What must be ensured to my opinion is the freedom of those who join a discussion.--Daanschr 13:06, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Interlingual Beta Club

I've proposed the Interlingual Beta Club on the English Wikiversity hoping to address some of the problems stated above. I'm hoping that this organization can be replicated on the other Wikiversities and help foster a spirit of collaboration. This could be the organization that Daanschr proposed above. CQ 20:44, 29 November 2006 (UTC)