[Fsa-guatemala] A modest proposal about dealing with L>1 Workshops (Proposal 0)

Jamie McClelland jm at mayfirst.org
Thu Sep 18 09:33:26 EDT 2008


> Comments?  Complaints?  Concerns?

Thanks Daniel for the proposal. I like the way the proposal really makes
clear what it means to work in multiple languages. In other words, it
removes the illusion that a "translation" is exactly like the "original"
but in a different language.

I have two conerns - one is more principled and the other practical.

The principled concern is that rights can be endorsed and edited before
being localized in all the languages. This is a serious short coming of
any democratic process. It's exclusionary. If my group has no english
speakers, I would find it very alienating to watch an english-only right
being endorsed and edited back and forth between several english
speaking groups without a spanish translation that would allow us to
participate.

On the practical side, suppose my group had a bilingual person and we
decided we were going to put an end to this behavior by translating the
right into spanish.

With one language, we have a built in system that works like this: if
two groups edit the same right at the same time, the first group to save
the right gets their changes saved. The second group gets a message that
says: 

	Your changes were not saved because someone else edited the right
	after you started.  Here's what they changed it to... Do you still
	want to submit your change? 
	
That works pretty well.

However, with this proposal, it's very likely that while my group is
translating the right into spanish, the english language version will be
changed. When we attempt to submit the spanish translation, we will be
told: the english version changed during your translation. Well ok.
Let's now translate the new english version. If we are really thoughtful
and take our time to get the translation right, the exact same thing
could happen again. And again. How many times would it take before the
group says: screw it, we're not translating any more rights?

Jamie



-- 
Jamie McClelland
718-303-3204 ext. 101

May First/People Link
Growing networks to build a just world
http://www.mayfirst.org
https://support.mayfirst.org
Members Local 1180, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO

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