fedoracommunity.org domain requests outstanding

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, Aug 04, 2010 at 04:38:33PM -0500, Matt Domsch wrote:
> I recognize that we have at least these 4 *.fedoracommunity.org domain
> requests outstanding.  The Board has been unable to meet as a whole
> for a few weeks due to travel, but we'll do our best to address these
> in the Friday meeting.
> 
> #72  	be.fedoracommunity.org domain request
> #73 	ar.fedoracommunity.org domain request
> #74 	dk.fedoracommunity.org domain request
> #75 	{zn,ch,tw}.fedoracommunity.org domain request
> 
> Are there others outstanding which I've missed?
> 
> My personal feeling is that the * in *.fedoracommunity.org should be
> for regional teams, and not for languages.  I believe (and please,
> correct me if you believe I'm wrong) that we have the technical
> capability to do language translation and localization of the existing
> fedoraproject.org web pages and content, including the wiki, and that
> we can easily have language-specific email lists and IRC channels, and
> that these are sufficient technical methods to solve the language /
> translation challenges without spreading out to more and more web
> sites.
> 
> I welcome your opinions on this as well.

I admit to being a bit monolingual, so I also am looking for opinions.
The most common purpose I've seen for fc.o subdomains is Web-based
forums, where users can discuss topics and seek help in their native
language.  (The fedoraforum.org site is English, for example, and
maybe not as useful for ESL or foreign folks.)

But the purpose of fc.o was not envisioned specifically to enable Web
forums -- but to help communities build themselves up.  In a lot of
cases it makes sense for that to happen regionally.  How do we then
address the following?

* Multiple strong language communities in one region/country --
  where it might make sense to differentiate

* Several countries close to each other that share a language -- where
  it might make sense to bring people together

In the former case, it *is* possible for groups that are already
setting up infrastructure to do so using a system with appropriate
i18n/l10n to support multiple groups.  So for example, if you're
setting up Web forums, simply add boards for languages where needed.
The risk here is that if multiple countries do this for the same
languages, the problem gets worse and not better (i.e. splitting
community into smaller and smaller pieces).

The latter case seems easier to solve, though -- someone just sets up
the domain and the cool, map-based site that Mo, Jef, and others have
been setting up can get people to the right site regardless of which
country they're from.  (Unless I'm missing something.)

* * *

Side note on the wiki, it's only somewhat l10n-capable now, in that
there's no specific tools to make translation easier.  The translator
has to simply read the whole wiki page, and then translate it en masse
onto another page.  (Unlike the website, for example, with which
translators can use standard PO-capable tools.)  However, we're in
better shape than earlier, in that Ian Weller has provided an upgrade
that allows pages to reference their other-language versions
automatically -- a big help since it allows us to refer to one URL
that can work for more than one language.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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