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If you are a translator or have excellent translation skills, please consider joining us and helping to make Nupedia multi-lingual. Presently, we are working on many different translations, making use of various mailing lists: Interpret-L (for general Nupedia translation and multi-lingualization issues); Deutsch-L; Espanol-L; Francais-L; Italiano-L; Portugues-L. Please use the above mailing lists to organize the translations projects. But, complementary to these mailing lists, there are a number of foreign language "wikis" that Nupedians may use to post their translations of Nupedia pages--and to write their own articles in their own original languages. We have wikis in German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and other languages as well. (Find and follow the "Nupedia Translation Project" link.) If you would like us to set up a group similar to Deutsch-L and Francais-L for Russian, Japanese, etc. (any other language not in the above list), please post an announcement on Interpret-L with your thoughts and perhaps a bit about yourself. If there is adequate interest, we'll set it up. If you want to write an article in some language other than English, please see our guidelines for writers. Generic Guidelines for Nupedia TranslationsThe following document includes rules and procedures originally created by Nupedia's German translation project and is intended to be used as a template for guidelines and recordkeeping for translation projects in other languages. We hope it will be useful for the leaders of those projects. If you have any questions, send them to Andreas Flack (sonic at arcormail.de) or to Interpret-L. How to use this DocumentDownload the latest English version available at Nupedia's website and translate it to your language. Don't use all rules at once, introduce them one at a time and only as you see fit. Run some sample translations to see if the system is working and if everybody agrees with your guidelines. You will find that some areas of this document are empty. They are intended to serve as templates for information specific to your language The project's guidelines should only be edited by the project coordinator, which of course means that if there is no coordinator or not even a mailing list yet, this page won't be all that helpful. Table of ContentsHTML-Version 1.2.; 18.3.20011. ProceduresFirst off, you should translate the left and right columns of a web page separately (they're the same on all pages), making a template. After that, all other translations are just translations of the middle column of the respective English page. The right and left columns can copied in from the template. For more information about this, go to 2.3.1.1. AnnouncementPlease announce your translations on your project's mailing list before you start. This can avoid a lot of duplicate work. We will maintain a list of translations in progress in the mailing list. If at all possible, try to find one or two reviewers among participants to discuss the translations in private mails before posting them on the list - this reduces traffic on the list. When posting your announcement, please include a link to the original page, so that prospective reviewers can easily check whether or not they are interested.1.1.1. Exceptions
1.2. Private ReviewWhen replying to emails from the translator or a reviewer, please send the other person a CC of the mail, so that the entire process stays synchronised.In this stage, the article should always be posted together with the original text, preferably interleaved, i.e. one paragraph of the original text followed by one paragraph of your translation. The translations should be posted in plain text (either text only or HTML source code), the HTML version is not particularly helpful here. If everybody agrees, you can also use a different file format with more options (like underlined, bold, colored text etc.). In any case you should include the original text. Soon, it will be possible to use Wikipedia for the review process. As soon as there is a version of Wikipedia in your language, you can post your translations there, so that a broader audience can review them without having to join your project's mailing list. 1.3. Open ReviewWhen all reviewers approve your translation, it's time to post it on the mailing list, as before together with the original text (but this time plain text only, no special file formats), then wait for feedback.1.4. CopyeditingWhen all issues are resolved, the translation is converted to HTML. If the translator doesn't want to do this himself, he can ask in the list if there is someone else who can do it. For more information on the construction of HTML versions, please go to 2.3 (for web pages only), 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, and 4.5The HTML-Version is copyedited afterwards, i.e. grammar, spelling, HTML etc. are checked and after that, the page is ready for upload. There are no special procedures for that yet, just post the HTML version on the list as an attachment (not in the mail itself, for various reasons), either as HTML attachment or compressed in .zip or .gz format, or post a link to a webpage you have uploaded the translation to. For web page translations, please mind 2.2. The upload to Nupedia will be handled by the project coordinator, who has access to Nupedia's CVS repository and will upload the files when they are ready (i.e. he decides when they are ready). Back to Table of Contents 2. For Web Pages2.1. Web Pages not to Translate YetThe following pages shouldn't be translated right now, because they will change soon:
2.2. Copyediting Web Pages2.2.1. AddressIf your language has more than one address (like German "Sie" and "Du" or French "Vous" and "Tu"), please use the formal address. Please keep the address consistent across all pages.2.2.2. SpellingIf your language has mor than one spelling, please decide on one and use it consistently.2.3. Making the HTML VersionYou only need to translate the left and right column once. Delete the middle column and keep that file around (i.e. in the list). You might want to call it template.shtml (or something obvious in your language) and if more than one person is creating pages with this template, you probably should include the following usage guide:
Please note that all other translations that are already online have to be updated with this template, otherwise, no one will be able to access the newly translated page. Please check all links (see 4.2., 4.5) and footnotes (see 3.2) are correct! Back to Table of Contents 3. For Article Translations3.1. Qualified ReviewersTo upload a translated article, it has to be approved by an expert of the respective field, because there are always clearly defined expressions you cannot translate verbatim. After the normal review process, you should look for a qualified reviewer, if you can't find one on your own list, please post in the appropriate English list to find someone who speaks your language.Note: Qualified Reviewer means that this person has to be a Peer Reviewer of the subject area group that produced the article. 3.2. FootnotesIn many articles you will find Ns. Those are clickable footnotes. When translating an article containing footnotes, do the following:
3.3. Pronounciation GuidesIn some articles you will find Ps. Those are clickable pronounciation guides. Please ignore them for now.3.4. Standardized Text PassagesArticles contain text passages that are identical on all pages and should be identical in all translations. These are:Original: Posted xxxx-xx-xx; reviewed and approved by the xxx group; editor, xxx ; lead reviewer, xxx ; lead copyeditors, xxx and xxx Translation: Translate as appropriate, maybe you will want to include something like "English original posted..." Note: In the English version the date is given as year-month-day (2001-2-1 is February 1., 2001). Change this according to the conventions of your language. Include a paragraph with credits for your translation. It might start with something like "xxx translation posted..." Of course you should change singular and plural, masculine and feminine form as appropriate. Original: WRITE THE LONGER ARTICLE ON THIS TOPIC Use this article on your website! How? (1) Read our license and (2) include our attribution statement. Translation: Include your translation here 3.5. Copyediting ArticlesIf you have special rules, post them here.Back to Table of Contents 4. For all Translations4.1. Standardized ExpressionsThe following expressions are particular to Nupedia and should always be translated identical to provide consistency:
4.2. LinksLinks to images and English web pages should always be absolute URLs (i.e.http://www.nupedia.com/<name of the file>). Links to
translated pages should always be relative URLs (i.e. <name of
the file>). That assures that the web pages still work if they
are moved (to their own directory, or own domain). Pages translated so
far:
4.3. MetatagsPlease remember to translate metatags! Metatags contain information invisible to the user and are located in the HTML header, they should be translated because they are important to search engines.The most important metatags are <meta name="Keywords">
and <meta name="Description">.
For webpages, their translation should be included in template.shtml, but remember to translate the page title (inside the <title> tag) as well.
4.4. Special CharactersMost languages use special characters. You should always use the HTML characters entities for them. You can include a list here:
A list of all named character entities in HTML 3.2 is available at: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html32#latin1 4.5. SourcecodeBefore you start translating, please have a look at the page's source code. It is much easier to find footnotes, hidden comments and links that way. If you want to, you can use the source code as the basis of your translation.Back to Table of Contents |
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