A min gustariame que o PerlMonks fose multilingue, pero soportado pola propia aplicacion web, proporcionando as ferramentas necesarias para que cada monxe vexa soamente as mensaxes que poida entender, por exemplo, cunha especie de canles idiomaticos os que un se poida suscribir.

¿Pero quen esta disposto a facelo traballo, eh?

english version:
Mago, and what happens with the other languages spoken over the world? Not only in Brasil are people that can not speek English and if everybody starts writing on his preferred language this will become a mesh.

I would like to have a multilingual PerlMonks, but with support from the web application, with the required tools to let monks only see the messages they can understand, for instance with some kind of language channels.

But, who is gonna do it?

It's an intriguing idea, but in the end I'd oppose it, because, if it succeeds at all, it would lead to fragmentation, with different sub-monasteries emerging around each language. In other words, I think the value of fostering a sense of community trumps the value of allowing monks to post in the language they are most comfortable with. (BTW, I don't say this out of "anglo-chauvinism"; my first language is not English.)

An alternative solution would be for those who have a hard time posting in English to post in both languages, like several posters have done in this thread, though I would reverse the order so that their best effort at an English version appears first, followed by the version in their native language, possibly within readmore tags. This is just a idea; I have not really thought it through.

the lowliest monk

it would lead to fragmentation, with different sub-monasteries emerging around each language

Not necessarily. I was faced with this issue when I designed the UN's first web-based discussion forum (with perl naturally) over ten years ago. We decided to have multi-lingual fora where everyone was free to post in their own language and filters which allowed users to read the boards in all languages or only in one. What ended up happening is something similar to what is happening in this very thread. What starts out in one language leaks over to other languages due to the people who speak several languages. There were also many people whose reading fluency was better than their writing fluency (a common occurrence) so that people would end up reading the English and replying in French, etc. And perhaps the most important thing was that the participants, even if they could not all understand each other, had the sense that they were all part of one world, one discussion. (so shoot me, I'm a romatic idealist)

The really important question for me is the question of inclusivity. I would like this to be a place where people of all levels of language ability could participate. It could even become a way for people to learn some of the tech aspects of English and the other languages. I get by pretty well in French but not with French/Geek since I learned my French long before I knew anything about computers.

It seems to me that it is no accident that this discussion is sparked by someone from Brazil instead of someone from Portugal or Holland or Germany. Europeans are more likely to know some English than Brazilians are. But the future is in Brazil and Japan, and China and India and Singapore and South Africa and hopefully other places as well. Inclusivity is not just a matter of making accomodations to incude the excluded for the sake of the excluded, it is and will increasingly become a way for the English speaking to broaden their horizons and gain from the diversity of the worldwide open source movement.

I don't at all pretend that it would be easy to make perlmonks multi-lingual or that it is something we can or should start on immediately. But certainly we need to start thinking about it now, for our own sakes, as well as for the sakes of those who could not participate here otherwise.

I don't believe this would really lead to fragmentation. Having different PM like independent websites in several languages would, but a multilingual one wouldn't.

Most monks would still participate on English conversations even if English is not their first language, and so communities born around other languages would not be isolated.

The Mandriva club of Mandriva linux (formerly Mandrake) has a multilingual site. You select the languages you understand in your prefs and only see articles in those tongues. There is also a fairly good effort made to translate articles so a good set are available in most tongues.

Cheers,
R.

Pereant, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt!

Esta foi uma ótima idéia! Cada monge diria quais idiomas lê e quais idiomas escreve. Então na hora de escrever o node, iria aparecer o textarea para cada idioma que ele sabe escrever, e na hora de exibir os nodes, mostrar apenas nos idiomas que ele consegue ler.

That was a great idea! each monk would say which languages (s)he reads and which ones (s)he writes. So at the time (s)he's writing the node, it would show one textarea for each language (s)he can write, and when showing the node, showing only the languages (s)he can read.

Este seria um trabalho interessante, afinal recursos que mantenham uma comunidade unida valem a pena serem desenvolvidos.

Um dos grandes destaques do Perl é justamente a comunidade, que acrescenta recursos e mantem a linguagem viva!

Dez pequenos grupos isolados não motivam participação, porém um grupo forte, com todos os mecanismos e trabalho já feito para organizar o PerlMonks, com alguns recursos adicionais para filtrar as mensagens, como sugeridos neste thread, como já ocorre em "Newest Nodes" e "Show Unmoderated Content"!

english version (sorry mistakes - Google + basic review)

This would be an interesting work, after all resources that keep a joined community are valid the penalty to be developed.

One of the great prominences of the Perl is exactly the community, that adds resources and keeps the alive language!

Ten small isolated groups does not motivate participation, however a strong group, with all the mechanisms and work already made to organize the PerlMonks, with some resources you add to filter the messages, as suggested in this thread, as already it occurs in "Newest Nodes" and "Show Unmoderated Content"!

--
Marco Antonio
Rio-PM

It saves Monges!

Second now our friend and Merlyn master, we must postar in the Perlmonks in Brazilian protuguês also to include monges and of other countries that Portuguese say.

It would like to initiate at this moment a movement for this and would like it support all and to know who is made use to initiate this, remembering that the idea nao is to stop of postar in English, when will be necessary that it is made in the two languages. But that this nao harms the ones that nao the English understands.

I find that freetranslation.com tends to do a better job as compared to google's translators, or babelfish. (if nothing else, it at least got the word 'monks'):

Save Monks!

Now our second friend and main Merlyn, we should place in the Perlmonks in protuguês also for include the Brazilian monks and of others countries that speak Portuguese.

Like to initiate in that moment a movement for that and would like the support of everybody and know who is arranged it initiate that, remembering that the idea nao is going to stop to place in English, when will go necessary that be deed in the two languages. But that that nao injure the that nao understand the English.

I'm personally a native english speaker (with some dutch that I haven't used in 20 years, and some high school spanish that I haven't used in 12 years), but I'd be interested to know from some of the folks for whom english isn't their first language -- does knowing english help in writing Perl, as the keywords and internal functions are named in english?

If so, can we assume that practicing english, even if it's not your primary language, can help you write better Perl?

I think you should ask this in the other way. Does not knowing English make it very difficult to program (in perl or anyway)?

My answer is yes. You must definitely know English at least to some very basic level. However, this basic level is not very difficult to aqquire, beacuse you have to understand only technical words, and the documents itself are often written by people who don't speak English well.

To program, you have to be able to read the manuals. While some books of perl (and even some of the core perldocs) are available in translation, it's still very few as compared to those in English. It would be impossible to translate everything to every language.

if (PostIn('English')) {
    Understand(@monks_worldwide);
} else {
    DoNotUnderstand(@many_monks);
}

$LANGUAGE = 'English';
[download]

Thanks for posting this, I was not among those who downvoted you. Regardless of whether your proposal is in itself worthwhile, it's very important that we all consider the issue you raise. Last night in the CB, we had monks from five continents! This is fantastic, may the international nature of the site continue to grow! But how? How can we encourage as wide as possible a participation without breaking into separate langauage enclaves? Let's keep asking ourselves that question.

Personally, I like the option where everyone is free to post in their own language, where people pitch in (as they have in this node) to add their own translations, where there is a filter available to hide nodes in languages we wish not to see. Yes, that's a lot of work but I can't think of more important feature for the site in the long run.

1. Realization on the part of the poster that they are less likely to get help, as the post can only be understood by a segment of the Monestary.
2. Either a link to a translation (e.g. for the parent node, a link like English by Google

The former is mostly unenforceable, but the latter could be handled through janitorial/consideration -- and maybe even helped by the pmdevils (which I'm still trying to become a member of, I think vroom gets too many private messages!) implementing something like an [português->english] "tag" that would auto-link to an English translation of the current node.

Now, the real question: as much as I think it would be nifty to let people post in their native language, is the additional work and reduced possibility of assistance worth it?

> I just can't understand all the downvotes he got.

Maybe a bunch of Portuguese developers were afraid they would have to read colonial Portuguese ? :-)

Seriously, I'm Portuguese, and I would rather not have all world languages represented in perlmonks.com - it would be really unusable. How about starting a perlmonks.pt, .br, .fr, etc. ? I swear I would visit often :-)

Tiago

If you want to write in a different language, perhaps you should consider creating another site specifically for that language.

For someone who doesn't know Portuguese, your post is completely irrelevant.

Sure, it doesn't hurt anyone... for now.

As soon as this site gets half its posts in Portuguese, it will.

You're asking Brazilian people to start posting in Portuguese, but you should really be asking the rest of us what we think about it.

Afterall, it's everybody's monastery, not just yours.

What you're doing is like asking everybody who enjoys the same band as you to keep their stereos playing it out loud, when you should be asking the rest of us first what we think about it.

For someone who doesn't know Portuguese, your post is completely irrelevant.

Sure, it doesn't hurt anyone... for now.

I don't think so. You are free to read only those posts whose language you understand.

I think it would be quite ok to encourage non-English language posts. If it hurts anyone, it would be definitely the posters, because they will soon see that more people read their questions (and thus they get answers more quickly) if they post in English.

Afterall, it's everybody's monastery, not just yours.

Indeed. That's exactly why people can post in other languages.

You are free to read only those posts whose language you understand.

Yes, just as you can "just press delete" when you get a nasty piece of spam in your inbox. This defense has been widely used (and widely disporoved every time). However, it is fundamentally wrong to force content down the throat of your users.

That out of the way, here are some half-cooked thoughts...

English is not my first language, spanish is. However, we have to deal with the fact that (for now at least) english is the technical lingua franca on the Internet.

People writing software in Perl need to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of english, as most documentation exists in that language. Would the lack of this restriction increase the audience for this site and perhaps Perl in general? Likely, yes. However, your proposal does not seem to bode well with the way in which this site is run.

Go back and take a look at some (already lengthy) posts (for example, this tutorial of mine).Now imagine what keeping things in sync between versions in two languages, would mean... I know it, because I run two sites that are essentially bilingual, and that is very tiresome. In the long run I believe authors would simply reduce their posting or do so in only one language.

Best regards

-lem, but some call me fokat

You are free to read only those posts whose language you understand.

Sure I am.

But as long as there's no way to clearly separate those posts (for instance, seeing only the ones in a given language), it will hurt, because it will provide noise.

Having a couple of posts in a different language might not make a difference, but having 50% posts in that situation (believe me, it could happen) would provide a lot of noise.

73, 32, 100, 111, 110, 39, 116, 32, 101, 118, 101, 110, 32, 115, 101, 
+101, 32, 116, 104, 101, 32, 99, 111, 100, 101, 46, 32, 65, 108, 108, 
+32, 73, 32, 115, 101, 101, 32, 105, 115, 32, 66, 108, 111, 110, 100, 
+101, 44, 32, 66, 114, 117, 110, 101, 116, 116, 101, 44, 32, 82, 101, 
+100, 104, 101, 97, 100, 46, 46, 46
[download]

If you want to write in a different language, perhaps you should consider creating another site specifically for that language.

Typical Perl solution. If you don't like something, go create your own. Besides it would be difficult for a non-English speaker to become "friends" with the PM development team anyway.

O problema e' que ha' so' uns cinco ou dez pessoas aqui que podem entender a lingua Portuguesa. Mesmo que tenha vinte, ainda nao ha' bastante para mudar da lingua principal aqui. Eu entendo seu desejo de demostrar seu orgulho nacional, mas neste website, temos gente de muitos nacionalidades, que falam muitas linguas. Nao podemos accomodar todas essas linguas. E' interessante ouvir outras linguas aqui devez enquanto, mas no fim, a maioria das pessoas aqui falam inglace, seja suas linguas primerias, ou seja suas linguas aprendidas. Se voce quiser que aquilo que voce escreve seja entendido, tera que falar Inglace.

Espero que entendes que nao tenho nada contra voce. So quero dizer que este website nao valia pena se nao tivessemos uma lingua de padrao aqui.

Peco perdao que meu Portuguese nao e' bem claro. E, se aquilo que tenho dito aqui aperece antipatico eu tambem peco perdao. Claro, isso no e' meu desejo. Faz muitos anos, e tenho esquisido mais que aprendi. ;)

O problema e' que ha' so' uns cinco ou dez pessoas aqui que podem entender a lingua Portuguesa.

I don't think so. Actually I don't speak a single word of portuguese, but I understood the message (and yours too). French, spanish, italian and portuguese are close enough to allow simple phrases in any of these to be understandable by locutors of any of the other four.

BTW probably latin languages locutors should try harder to understand each other instead of falling back to english...

probably latin languages locutors should try harder to understand each other instead of falling back to english...

vale ;-)

A idéia nao é mudar a língua padrao do site, mas permitir que pessoas que só entendam o portugues tambem possam participar ...

Sempre que alguém precisar escrever em portugues ele vai colocar a tag PT_BR na frente do título.

Realmente devemos ter apenas um centena de usuários que falam português ... mas com isso poderemos ter mais uma, duas ou três centenas de novos usuários.

É melhor centralizar tudo utilizando essa maneira do que criar um novo site só para o português !!!

Mago
mago@rio.pm.org

Well, yeah, fine but there is no mechanism for filtering based on arbitrary tagging of subject lines. Perhaps there could be some mechanism hacked together, but to be honest I think most people wouldn't need such a tag as most are intelligent enough to realize that if the subject is in a language they don't understand they are unlikely to understand the text of the node.

/J\

Acho valiosa essa ideia, entretanto tentar transformar isso aqui em um ambiente bilingue nao me parece que vai agradar muita gente ja que poucos falam o portugues. Acho que pode ser mais interessante se criar areas "portuguese only" que pudesse servir de referencia a aqueles com dificuldades na lingua inglesa, onde nos brasileiros "faladores de ingles" :) ou nao pudessemos nos comunicar melhor. Quem sabe com um inicio desses a ideia fosse pegar melhor. salute

Ma langue prefere est Anglais, mais je ne comprends-pas beaucoup des messages sur Perlmonks, and those are just the ones in English.

In other words, post in whatever language you want as long as it's vaguely related to Perl. I'm sure someone out there might be able to understand.

So if there's any subgroup that deserves their own Perlmonks, it's them. Now, it's a matter of deciding whether they need their own site, their own sections on this site, or, like jZed proposes, intermingling with the rest of the site, optionally with language tags (!= HTML tags, but rather some form of flag), indicating what language a post is in.

I think it's time to come out of our ivory tower.

Hi,

no offence to non english speakers (my girlfriend is finnish so I know what it's like ;-) but I agree with cog here.

if half or even a quarter of the posts are in foreign languages I would have to think about where I want to spend my time. I don't really come to the Monestary to check through links to find something in a language I understand, thats madness (or at least just a little bit crazy).

Most, if not all air traffic controls in the world speak english to make sure there is a standard means of communication between like minded people (as in pilots not wanting to hit each others planes). I personally think that is the way this place should be. A lot more people know some english then know Spanish or dutch etc (not picking you folks in particular, first nations that came to mind).

If there was another site devoted to multi-language Perl'ism I would personally support it, but I dont think this would be a good idea for the Monestary.

BTW, I was one of the people who wen "what the F*~£ is this when I seen the ttle first.

just my 2 cents

Displeaser.

air traffic controlers are required to learn English, and so all of them can actually speak English. That isn't the case for Perl programmers, there are lots of people out there that doesn't know enough English to participate on this community.

You can adopt several possitions when confronted with this situation:

• I don't care, I can speak English, and the monastery is a comfortable place for me as it is now, If you can't speak English, well, it is your problem, because you should, it is the lingua franca on the Internet.
• well, this poor perl programmers out there, not being able to speak English, they should have their own perlmonks.(pt|fr|de|es|tw|...)
• I would not mind people posting in other languages on the monastery.
• I believe a multilingual monastery would be a richer experience, I would be able to conversate with more people from a broader world in several languages (and get Portuguese lessons gratis, great!)

So, where are you?

A lot more people know some english then know Spanish...

Not to be (too much) picky, but I'll parse that as "A lot more people here in the monastery"...

Best regards

-lem, but some call me fokat

Loquimur in lingua universali vera. :)

Hugo

Neniu parolas Latina lingvo nuntempe. La lingvo internacia estas Esperanto nun.

Mas ainda assim alguém irá entender. Eu ainda acho que não há porquê proibir outras línguas.

Someone will understand - I don't think other languages should be forbidden.

> Als ik hier nu in het Nederlands op antwoordt dan zijn er nog minder mensen die het begrijpen.

Wirklich? Also lesend können es die Deutschen schon weitgehend "begreifen"... 8)

Cheers Rolf

Und hätten wir den Krieg gewonnen...
xD


holli

You can lead your users to water, but alas, you cannot drown them.

Sabe o que é mais engracado? Todos que comentaram neste node, mesmo que não falassem português de alguma forma conseguiram entender o que havia sido escrito! Isso faz eu me lembrar de uma ONG chamada Hipatia, na sua lista de discussão todos falam na sua lingua natural... e todos se entendem... Sem querer botar fogo, mas acho que é uma reflexão válida.

Do you know what is really funny? Everybody who commented on this node, even if don't speak portuguese, in some way understood what was written! This make me remember of a NGO called Hipatia, in their mailing list everyone writes in his natural language... and everybody understands each other... I don't want to flame, but I do think this is a valid concerning.

Do you know what is really funny? Everybody who commented on this node, even if don't speak portuguese, in some way understood what was written!

The explanation for this is pretty obvious, don't you think? Those who did not understand a word of the original post probably didn't bother with it, so they did not participate. This is a case of "self-selection bias".

the lowliest monk

Yep. Like those that don't speak english don't come to the monastery, because it's useless to them.

Well it makes sense, doesn't it?

Those who don't understand, CAN'T reply.

Obviously, those who reply, understand.

It's not that hard to see it, you know? There's probably a bunch of people skipping this thread because they can't even figure out what the #$#%@!# title means!!!

Do you know what is really funny? Everybody who commented on this node, even if don't speak portuguese, in some way understood what was written!

Actually, I didn't. I started reading after people started writing in English.

    -Bryan

I'm fine with people occasionally posting in whatever language they feel comfortable in, but not with the idea of filtering posts by language. There is bound to be someone who will come along and translate the OP to something more generally understandable. Heck, half the time we're translating posts anyway - even when they are in English.

But filtering posts by language is a way of shutting people out simply because they speak in an idiom you don't get. If we had the time and resources to make language accommodation changes, I would rather see a translation request flag placed on posts, so that someone interested in a post but not quite sure they understand it could alert those who knew the language and would be willing to translate.

Best, beth

> Ani met al diun haze!

Hebrew??? 8)

> But filtering posts by language is a way of shutting people out simply because they speak in an idiom you don't get.

Well, I think the idea should be to post in two languages, one of them English. Perlmonks could be technically extended to provide within the preview an automatic translation into English (e.g. realized through a google-API). So the poster may improve the translation (AND his English skills ;-)

The filtering options should only fold the original language away, similar to the readmore-tag.

OTOH this can only work for the most widespread languages, (and for Brasilian Portuguese it's already quite complicated to find good books and standardizations...)

So if for instance Germans can provide a good perl-board what is hindering Brazilians or speakers of other "big" languages to do similar?

> Heck, half the time we're translating posts anyway - even when they are in English

Hmm, and in most of these cases bablefish would produce a much better text. ;-)

Actually I have more problems to discuss with some native English speakers, which are sooo monolingual (i.e. clueless about other languages), that they don't know how to produce clearly understandable posts (i.e. without slang-words, hidden messages or other unnecessary but good sounding rhetorics).

Cheers Rolf

A ideia original e postar nas duas linguas com o ingles sempre que possivel. Apesar de todos recursos de traducao disponiveis, para os que apenas falam portugues, ler sua resposta sem ter que traduzir ajuda e ajuda muito.
Eu nao vejo mal nenhum nisso, e nem acho que va atrapalhar os que nao entendem portugues, pois como foi citado acima, a maioria de voces acompanhou a discussao com seus pedacos em portugues.

English:

The original ideia is posting using the two languages, using ingles always that is possible. However, we have a recurse to translate the texts, but to portuguese speakers only, read your anwser in your native language helps, and help a lot.
I don´ t see problems with this, and don´t believe that this will disturb non portuguese speakers, so how was said in upper, you accompained the thread with texts in portuguese. :)