WikiEducator talk:Language policy
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| Thread title | Replies | Last modified |
|---|---|---|
| Policy or Guidelines? | 2 | 05:15, 24 October 2009 |
| Scope and involvement in the style guide workgroup | 0 | 05:11, 24 October 2009 |
| Managing related pages | 0 | 23:59, 22 October 2009 |
> Open question -- would this be a Policy or set of Guidelines? - User:Mackiwg
We could have both. Guidelines would certainly be useful. So, the question becomes "Just Guidelines or Policy too?"
Policy too:[edit]
Pros[edit]
- Signals that WE encourages users to exercise their freedom to translate and localise resources and develop WikiEducator in their own language(s).
- Easier to achieve consistency with multiple language pages and sites which enhances general usability.
- WikiEducator administrators can be more forward in offering help to maintain such consistency.
Cons[edit]
- Extra effort: to formulate policy, set up and maintain multiple language instances of WikiEducator, and to ensure that users are following the policy.
- Although (possibly a pro?): the policy might end up being really simple and minimal:
- If the learners' language is "ln", then place the resource on ln.wikieducator.org
- If the learning resource needs to be multilingual, then use template {{Languages|PageName}} (or equivalent on the various language instances of WikiEducator)
- Categorise pages with categories defined in the language instance of WikiEducator. This does not preclude defining a category which uses a foreign language word (e.g. French language course on German wikipedia might define a Category: français).
- Although (possibly a pro?): the policy might end up being really simple and minimal:
- A "Policy" might seem restrictive to some users.
Guidelines only:[edit]
Pros[edit]
- These would undoubtedly be useful.
Cons[edit]
- Not as strong a statement as backing them up with a policy
- without a policy we may end up with a mess (e.g. proliferation of foreign language pages on a particular language instance of WikiEducator).
Let's have a policy. I think it's important to send a strong message that we support the ability of educators to participate in their own language. I remember when I was at the iSummit in 2007, this came up from non-native speakers over and over again.
I think I'm with Steve in that if the idea is about encouraging localisation and instructing members on how to use it, it should be a policy that includes things like how to get one, and what sort of resources should be localised (for instance, a French teacher starts a resource in English, but wants some documents in French. Maybe the French documents should be in the French localisation?).
Kim,
I'm going to hold off announcing this as part of the style guide effort until we've figured out what our individual scopes are. The style guide suggestions all pertain to content at the English localisation. This means that language concerns brought up by the style guide do not involve localisation unless it is to advise that certain types of content be placed in another localisation. I think your policy idea is mainly about how to utilise localisation? Let's try to clear that up.
Two other things. The first is that I'm not sure what sort of collaboration you are looking for, here. The style guide has a process and formats, that you are welcome to adopt, so that it is clear to everyone that they are welcome to and know how to contribute. The second is that if you are intending on designing a policy, rather than a guideline, it probably doesn't fall under the scope of the style guide workgroup. The topic of localisation may not at all. I think I'm seeing this as more of a localisation-wide policy on how to get, and interact with individual localisations. It is something that English-localised language guidelines would frequently reference. How does that sound to you?
