First attempt to summarize the issues

Splitting of the site contributions by languages

In zijn voorstel voor de syndication site, Pseudo ziet voor een opsplitsing per taal (url/en/ ; url/nl/ ; url/fr/) voor de verschillende talen.
Dans sa proposition pour le site de syndication, Pseudo prévoit une scission du site par langue (url/en/ ; url/nl/ ; url/fr/).

Actually, he did not mean splitting the content, but choosing the interface language.

A splitting of the content by languages is not currently possible, but sf-active developpers are working on it (thanks Pseudo ) So it might become possible in the future if we choose to go for it.

Language of the interface of the syndication site

There are other ways to manage the interface language than asking the visitor to choose it at every visit:

- a cookie (the user chooses his/her language once, and this choice is stored on her/his computer). This could be implemented with a warning to the user, so that s/he can refuses the cookie and choose the language at each visit if s/he prefers.

• no warnings. if people want to handle cookies in a certain way they can set their browsers to that. -- PP 14/07

Question for techies: Can this be implemented? What are the disadvantages of a cookie on a site that has no publishing form?

- javascript automatic detection of browser language.
Question for techies: Can this be implemented? (with the possibility for the user to change language through a link on the interface)

• you don't need javascript for that + depending on javascript is tricky since people can turn it off ... -- PP 14/07

Turlututu's answer
<<turlututu>> le javascript ne marche pas avec tous les browsers
<<turlututu>> et il ne réagit parfois pas de la même façon
<<duende>> d'où l'intérêt d'un lien sur l'interface pour changer le choix
<<turlututu>> par contre il y a peut-être des scripts php

- other?

Ways to get translations for the syndication site

Arnaud raises questions about translations for the syndication site (meeting of 21 March, see the logs):

• How will we ensure that most of the features (and articles) get translated in the other language?
  • Translation tool,
    
  • Translation like on www.indymedia.org (won't be possible right now, see below),
    
  • Translation team...
    

Arnaud would like an option on the syndication site to translate texts like on www.indymedia.org.

PseudoPunk's answer:
the syndication site just takes content from elsewhere.

it has no publishing options or admin or so. it's just a script that looks for articles, features & agenda items on local imc's. the script updates the newswires and such. that's basically it.

perspective on the long run from the sf-active developpers team: (see Pseudo's mail)
- more support for multilingual sites
and then
- add a translation interface. now people can only comment to articles. i think it's way more useful if they can add a translation to it (they can publish one now, but if we can let them publish one like a translation, that would be way better).

Vertaallijst - liste de traduction

Aanvragen tot vertaling kunnen gestuurd worden naar de vertaallijst van de belgische imc's:
Les demandes de traduction peuvent être envoyées à la liste de traduction des imc belges:
imc-be-translation@lists.indymediaSTOPSPAM.org

Om zich in te schrijven op de lijst:
Pour s'inscrire à la liste:
http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-be-translation

Current situation for translations between the local Belgian collectives

- .be: .be is the only site in the 2 languages: after a (quick) look on their newswire, i evaluate that 60% of the contributions are in Dutch, 30% in French, 10% other languages (mainly english). For the featurewire: 20% in both languages, 80% in Dutch only.

- liège and ovl: The most important info (features) from each site gets (fast!) translated and published on the other site. That's great, don't change anything!

- wvl (and liège): the most important info from wvl gets translated on their own site. There's currently a diffusion issue, since few readers who can't read Dutch and need the French translation would go on wvl. The syndication site will help solve this problem. Liège also translates and posts on its site info from .wvl. As for .wvl, non-local topics were not allowed on their site before the recent change of their edito policy, so they could not post translations from infos from elswhere.

- antwerpen: antwerpen has published some info in nl over events in the fr part (not much, but they took over the Vottem feature for instance), but i think that no info from antwerpen found its way to the french-speaking Belgian indymedia.

- brussels: the future of brussels is unsure. The absence of active Dutch speakers is an internal problem. Given the number of translators in the collective, translations into French should not be a problem when/if the collective really begins with edito work.

- limburg: their future is unsure as well. Liège already covers in French issues from neighbouring Limburg, so I guess there would be no problem there if Limburg was to become more active.

-- DuendeBxl - 14 Feb 2004
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