Re: [alac] translations
Hi. At 06:05 p.m. 07/08/2006, Jean Armour Polly wrote: Hi- I totally agree that major and minor ICANN and ALAC documents should be translated into as many languages as possible. We have a budget for it, do we not? How can we get some of that money spent, Bruce? We've got a whole website to do. This is not a problem of documents, is a problem that you said directly: "(...) know you didn't get on ALAC through the NomCom process, rather were a Board appointment--but NomCom requires its ALAC candidates to be able to do all ALAC work in English (...)". So your position is, because i didn't elected by NomCom i "don't know english". If you read in different way this phrase please tell me. It's not a problem of budget, Funredes, for $1000 USD can translate the email list, (the caribbean area use the system, the WSIS Civil Society list use the system: more information in: http://funredes.org/tradauto/ ) The problem is not money, the problem is about how you express about the capacities for don't wrote my mails in english. I can read and understood correctly the english (and i repeat i tried very hard to express in that language), but when you said, the : "(...) I don't know if you realize that 6 or 7 of your last 8 posts to the list have not been in English. There has not been much discussion about your post (...) / I respectfully suggest that discussion on your region's issues might be furthered by bringing them to ALAC in English so everyone knows what is at stake (...)", you only express, if you don't speak or write in english you are not in the correct place. However I am much less sure of the need to translate all the committee work discussion lists. In regard to committee work, whether we like it or not, the ICANN bylaws are explicit in the requirement that directors, representatives, etc are able to "work and communicate in written and spoken English." Well, maybe will be a good moment to move on, and change the Bylaws, because this is segregation for cultural source, for that the people use translation. ALAC could be the first place that can change the world, and don't cross arms and do nothing for change. The bylaws not are for ever. On the other hand, there's nothing that says that a list post can't be in another language. But my point is very simple--that if you want to get other ALAC members' attention and buy-in to your point of view, the most expedient way to do that-- I would think--is to post the issue in language common to everyone on the list. Ok, if i want to said something will need to be in english or the people don't read it, correctly?, well i'm against that. And i express more strong, i'm really and very really proud of my language, my culture, and respect your culture and your language, and if i can learned english, or use the translator for another language, why you can't do the same? We are all volunteers and all so busy with our jobs-- why make all your colleagues take the extra time to go to a machine translation service, every time, when you know those sites offer notoriously poor translations? "Did you really mean this? Did you really mean that?" is what we would end up saying. Extra time, could be the difference between a english-center-world and a global-world The machine translations are awful at best, and here is a perfect example. Consider Erick's recent response to me, which ends (according to machine translation Spanish to English): "Sincerely of the person who less waits for a racist commentary like which you have done to me, was of You. Erick" Looks to me like Erick is calling me a racist, "a person with a prejudiced belief that one race is superior to others." In the translation lost some linguistic version, but strictly the word "racista" can translate to "racist" but not only to "one race superior to other", is more like "my world, my culture, my language, my something is better that your something, if you want my attention move to my world" Now, I could be offended and demand a public apology, or I could just fluff it off as a mistake in machine translation. Since calling anyone a racist would be counter to the collegial nature of ALAC, to say nothing of a non-sequitur to my original post, I am writing it off to machine translation problems. I repeat your comment was unpolite, a usa-center version of the world and didn't based in multicultural point of view of the United Nations (specific WSIS). I started my post with: "Jamas me he sentido tan discriminado como ahora, y quizas no fue ni la intencion ni nada parecido, pero si escribo en español, no es solo porque es mi lengua materna, sino porque no todo gira en torno al Ingles, porque precisamente porque no entienden español paso lo que paso en Colombia, porque la vision USA-centrica nos esta llevando a una catastrofe de accionar.". A short version: Never i was feel more discriminated that now, and maybe not was your intention (...)" If you want my apologies, because you didn't want to said that i need to write in english to have the attention of another member of ALAC, and if you want my apologies because you didn't want to express that because i don't was elected by NonCom i didn't know english, you have my apologies, all of them, and for all the ALAC members. It's so hard for us to decide anything together now-- so what would it be like to have to wait for an official translator to post in several languages before we write a response? It just doesn't scale when a committee is trying to work. Look how long it has taken us to do the self-review document-- almost a year. We're still not done. Imagine if it were in all our mother languages and edits were done in all those tongues. the problem in this case is not language, the problem is differents points of view, like when we waiting for support pierre for the Board Committee. Make no mistake-- once the committee work is done---translate it into many, many languages. This is only a point, not all the problem. the real problem, is in another world. Erick Just my opinion JP
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