[thelist] Multi-language site infrastructure?

[Administrative HQ]

Hi, Jeff.

I accept your point. As I think I mentioned, I only
glanced at the posting. I think my remarks remain
relevant for the type of context I was talking about.

Could be I'm also just under the influence of our
approach, which is essentially three versions of the
site...all in one. Each is complete and,
theoretically, independent. Thus a Spanish user, for
example, can navigate everything we have in Spanish
with no recourse to the English site at all...unless
he wants to look at it.

Thus, the scenario you mention, "to
> have a listing of
> articles in english and then have a single article
> in russian slapped in
> between somewhere would be very disconcerting. "

wouldn't usually come up in our case.

In a context like the one you're suggesting, you're
absolutely right.

> the only other option would be to not display the
> article at all if it's not
> available in the language version of the site being
> used.

Interestingly, this question actually came up
recently.
Our site offers an English course for foreign
speakers. Therefore, my original conception of the
site did not include English pages at all. The
designer disagreed and, in the end, I think he was
right for "politcal" or "sociological" reasons. 

This is a side issue, but I might mention it. If the
index page were to be in Spanish or Portuguese, or
whatever, that could be taken by some users as a
preference or prejudice in favor of one country/group
or another. English is neutral in this respect and is
also "relevant" to the site...even though we correctly
anticipated that most of our visitors can't read it.

Anyway...there have been a number of people who
contacted us in English, saying they are Americans
looking for a course for one of their Spanish speaking
friends and wondering why they couldn't find any sort
of demo. The answer is just what you mentioned. As the
demos are not in English we just "did not display that
at all" from the English pages and didn't even provide
a link. In those few cases, we emailed them manually
with a link to relevant info with the proviso that it
is not in Englsih.

Best regards.

David



--- Jeff Howden <jeff at jeffhowden.com> wrote:
> 
> david,
> 
>
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> > From: Administrative HQ
> >
> > I must disagree with the points of view expressed
> that
> > *titles* can remain in English.
>
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> 
> if you read the entire posting, you'd see that i
> depart from "titles in
> english" idea as i expound on possible
> implementations.  more specifically,
> the example where i say that the title and synopsis
> should be in english are
> in context of the english version of the site.  to
> have a listing of
> articles in english and then have a single article
> in russian slapped in
> between somewhere would be very disconcerting. 
> however, if the title and
> synopsis were in english at least the reader would
> have an idea what the
> article was about, even if the only language it was
> available in is russian.
> the only other option would be to not display the
> article at all if it's not
> available in the language version of the site being
> used.
> 
> .jeff
> 
> http://evolt.org/
> 
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