Sub-pages for translated listings

[+n0x0n]

Perhaps you know that situation: You're going to go on holidays and the map points out that there'll be some caches to visit . But while you know that there IS a cache, you can't get any information, because the listing is written in a foreign language.

 

Babelfish does help out sometimes, but generally gives a poor translation. Often we open a new thread in our sub-forum and ask for a translation. While this is generally quite a good idea, it is possible, that the same listings get translated again and again.

 

"So what about multi-language-listings?", you may ask.

I agree that that's a good idea, but it pretty much clutters up the cache listing, especially when there are multiple stages

 

To my mind, external solutions won't work (copyright problems, externalizing the information off geocaching.com and so on...), so here (at last) this is my proposal:

 

Give cache owners the possibility to have sub-pages of the cache-listing, linked on the listings page.

Each sub-page would only contain a different translation (perhaps verified by a native speaker?), no pictures - just plain text. Of course that would be a voluntary option...

 

Technically, I don't think that it takes much code to implement such a feature, and text (highly compressible) does not need much storage space...

What do you think about it?

 

Regards

jan

[+sTeamTraen]

I think that if you multiply:

- the percentage of caches which need a translation

- the percentage of those where having the translation on the cache page really is "too cluttering" (how many developer hours should Groundspeak invest to save a few cachers from printing an extra sheet of paper occasionally?)

- the percentage of those where the translation is actually going to be done or checked by a native speaker

 

and then take the resulting numbers to Groundspeak, it won't find its way too far up the priority list.

 

Making a couple of rough calculations (the number of caches listed in the local language and not English, and placed by local native speakers in countries with high tourist densities, excluding the simple traditionals), it's probably not more than a couple of thousand.

 

It's perhaps a feature to consider if a future version of the site were ever to address the internationalisation issue. But given that 3/4 of all caches are in North America and that of the 90,000 or so in Europe, 80% are in .uk/.de/.nl/.be or Scandinavia where English is widely used (and/or they don't get a lot of tourists), it's not a big issue right now. (If the site ever does get proper internationalisation features, I suspect that support for Japanese, Chinese, and Korean might be higher up the priority list than many European languages.)

[+n0x0n]

I don't share your opinion on this point. Each year several millions of tourists visit Germany, statistics for 2002 show, that 15% of our visitors come from the Netherlands, 10% from USA and another 9% come from the UK.

Same thing with the other european countries.

 

English is spoken throughout the world - but there are many Germans that don't - but nevertheless would be happy to make their caches available to a broader public.

 

I personally share your opinion that such a feature might not have top priority at Groundspeak, but it is always possible to kill a good idea before it gets even noticed by a wide variety of people.

 

Programming and DB maintenance and / or administration pays my rent.

Adding this feature won't be a lot of code, believe me.

 

This whole discussion is about one simple and small question:

Do you feel that translations clutter up cache listings?

[+sTeamTraen]

English is spoken throughout the world - but there are many Germans that don't - but nevertheless would be happy to make their caches available to a broader public.

 

They can do that today. Of those that don't, I doubt if one in a thousand don't do so because they think it would clutter the page. I would guess that for at least 900 of the thousand, it's either because they don't see the need, or because they don't have access to someone who will provide - and maintain, throughout the lifetime of the cache - such a translation at the right price (which, I'm guessing, is somewhere in the €0.00 range).

 

Programming and DB maintenance and / or administration pays my rent.

Adding this feature won't be a lot of code, believe me.

 

Me too, since 1975. And one of the things I've learned in that time is not to estimate the number of lines of code on a maintenance job, until I've seen the current state of things with my own eyes. Perhaps Raine could give us a back-of-the-envelope estimate here (in his copious free time ).

 

This whole discussion is about one simple and small question:

Do you feel that translations clutter up cache listings?

 

I am happy to agree with you that this indeed is the fundamental question here. My feeling is that translations don't clutter up listings. Some listings are already waaaaay too long just in one language and adding another just makes it worse, but I don't very often see a listing and think "well that would be great if the translation hadn't added another half a page".

[+n0x0n]

OK, let me change my approach to this question:

Isn't it a really good idea to have cache listings in more than just one language?

Wouldn't it be kind of us to help our foreign visitors?

 

I don't think that cachers disagree about that...

 

jan

[+Cornix]

Isn't it a really good idea to have cache listings in more than just one language?

The same procedure as every year: Feature Request: Multilingual Cache Pages, English plus native languages.

 

Cornix