Sunday, June 06, 2010

Things change even in the #localisation numbers game

You may have everything under control and then, then they change the numbers on you. It is not about fair or unfair, it is about the reality represented by the numbers. At translatewiki.net, the "most often used messages" are exactly that. They will change because the introduction of the Usability software will change the composition of the most used numbers.



At this moment there are localisations for 137 languages. There are 28 languages that have a complete localisation of the Usability software. All WMF projects will have the benefits brought to you by this important project and consequently the numbers will change.

One observation that can be made in the "Group statistics in Time" is how we slowly grow towards our goal of 170 languages who have 98% of the "most often used" messages  localised. We are happy with such growth and, we are sure that we will have to scramble to reach our predicted goal by years end.

Even though they are numbers, they represent important concepts. We believe strongly that a project in a language that does not have a proper localisation works at a disadvantage. This disadvantage is the concern of its language community.

Technical problems for a language, a script are different. They are what makes a language play at an uneven playing field. It is what prevents a language like Hindi, Malayalam reach their full potential. These are the things we cannot solve at translatewiki.net.

Thanks,
      GerardM

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