Re: Arabic site (was -Arabeyes News Digest)

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

--- Isam Bayazidi <bayazidi at accessme dot com> wrote:
> On Thursday 04 September 2003 07:45, Mohammed Elzubeir wrote:
>
[snip]
>
> Now, look at how things go in Arabeyes, the Arabic Howto is made in English, 
> then translated to Arabic, the ACE features are in English, then translated 
> to Arabic, the Site is in English, and will be translated to Arabic. The way 
> I would expect it from Arabeyes is that things are done in the other way when
> we translate .. to translate from Arabic-to-English, not the other way 
> around.

Isam, you know the history well.  When Arabeyes came on-line (more than
two years ago) you couldn't even write you name in Arabic on linux.  Alot
of things have changed, but one thing remains.  If you are serious about
development and/or translation you will have to know english - there is
no way around it.  There is nothing sad about that - that is simply
reality.

> > It is unfortunate that we have not had the time to provide an Arabic
> > interface to our website. However, please do remember that this is a
> > primarily development project and not a news portal. Most if not all
> > developers and technical people are going to need to communicate in the
> > English language (it is the de facto technical _and_ business language).
> 
> Well, in our mandate, we target non-technicals as well as technicals, and
> the reason that the average Arab Linux user did not get near Arabeyes is
> that he did not find it friendly to him, in terms that it did not speak
> his language.
> 
> I heard this from tens of people, Arabeyes existed because we believe that 
> the Language is a barrier to getting Arabs to Linux and Open Source, and we 
> are working to overcome this barrier, But within Arabeyes this barrier was 
> not respected, or considered. I know I was in Core, and more than one time I 
> attempted to make moves toward making the site in Arabic, and drawed back 
> looking at how much the site is already rooted in English, having it in 
> Arabic will make it more like a "Demo site" in Arabic were all Real valuable 
> content are in English. What we need is not to make a site in Arabic, but to 
> move Arabeyes toward Arabic.

What do you propose ?  Arabeyes will continue to mainly be run in English
(we very much require and depend on external non-Arab support too).  Instead
of complaining about this (and if memory serves, you've talked about this
for at least a year), I recommend you take-up the item and complete it.
Take on the site and Arabize it - once things are Arabized, new content
will have to be Arabized (or vice-versa).  Take ACE for instance - we will
only publish new ACEs in both Arabic and English (always).

To get you started (and I hope you will commit to doing something about
this), M.Yousif (thanks again) has translated the following pages (they
are in raw text format),

  http://www.arabeyes.org/~nadim/tmp/about
  http://www.arabeyes.org/~nadim/tmp/help
  http://www.arabeyes.org/~nadim/tmp/benefits

Once these files and others are completed we can contact the webadmin to
get them folded-in (so that the entire site has the same look-n-feel).

We've started an 'admin' page to deal with just those types of issues;
website content/format, various web applications that live off of it, etc.
So again, once all the static pages are translated, post to 'admin' and
we'll get them incorporated.

> I know, Arabeyes projects are for Arabs, This is why I am here in the first 
> place, but what I am talking about is the PR strategy for Arabeyes, Having 
> EVERYTHING in Arabeyes from the manifesto, to site, to Howtos, about page, to
> Arabeyes goals, everything is in English. So we are targeting English 
> speakers more than we are targetting Arabs, remember that a great portion of 
> the Arab world have French as a second language, and Arabic language is what 
> lakes us Arabs in the first place.

I don't see it that way at all.  Again my view is that the people who will
contribute will continue to need to know English (how will you develop if
you can't read various docs and howtos out there beyond Arabeyes ? and how
will you translate if you don't know english).  So your point, although
emotional, is not logical.

I again suggest that you "become part of the solution" and use your talents
to solve this issue (you were a translation super-power, no ?).  The files
above are a great start, if you would like to see what you note become a
reality, bring it forth as such and make it happen.

Let us know what you decide to do.

Salam.

 - Nadim


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