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Change to language guidelines


geoaware

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That's something I've been wondering as well. Do you have good reviewers that can understand all the languages supported by GS perfectly? I could imagine that if this is not the case quality of Earthcaches will go down. How do you make sure the local language part is not just some gibberish ran through google translator?

 

My reply to your comment somehow digresses a bit from the sole Earthcache focus. Over the years I got the impression that only those who are proficient in more than one language and have been confronted with texts in at least one foreign language on a level considerably higher than the basic everyday level, are aware of the many issues and problems caused by automatic translations. Typically the need to deal with this issue is higher for people with a different native language than English.

 

There is a difference between if I just want to understand the gist of some text or whether I want to understand the details and to be able to learn something from the text. If I encounter an Albanian text and do not understand a single word, I of course will be happy if an automatic translation produces at least a few meaningful sequences of words. If on the contrary I know Albanian, my degree of satisfaction with an automatic translation will dramatically decrease with my level of proficiency in Albanian.

(NB: I am not directing this explanation to you as your background and your experience in several different countries puts you on the other extreme side of the spectrum.)

 

 

Cezanne

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You go Cezanne!

All the arguments are falling on deaf ears. We still have never gotten the rationale for the change and at this point, probably not many care. I certainly don't! As usual, your examples are right on point but remain unaddressed. Absent some personal and/or snide remark aimed at this author, I am out of here and I'll leave he 'fight' to you.

Take care and good luck! :)

I'm out of here too KK, which really I seem to be the only one that does not understand or am I able to communicate in any other language other than English, which is the local language. I never plan to visit any other Countrys, so really the only say that I have in this matter is that I am glad for the new guideline so I do not have to worry about EC listings being published in any other language than the local one in the Country which I reside, and we are still offically a English speaking Nation, for now anyway.......

I would say that most EarthCachers that get to develope EC's all over the globe are well educated professionals, and I think that is good, but we all can't be, and I have no problem with that. I find it interesting. :mellow:

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I don't know, I've seen GC Listings submitted in Klingon and Na'vi, so anything might be possible :)

 

Apart from the ironic aspect of your posting, note that your examples refer to physical caches and there is no language rule for physical caches anyway. Actually, this is also one of the issues that bothers and surprises me at the same time that Groundspeak agrees to a policy forbidding Earthcaches with only an English descriptions in major parts of the world as this does not match with their general policy.

 

Cezanne

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so really the only say that I have in this matter is that I am glad for the new guideline so I do not have to worry about EC listings being published in any other language than the local one in the Country which I reside, and we are still offically a English speaking Nation, for now anyway.......

 

May I ask you with how many non-English Earthcaches you had to deal with in your country? I cannot imagine that their number was greater than zero. The local reviewers could easily reject e.g. a Chinese Earthcache in the US and if they are doing so, it is perfectly fine with me (I would do the same). That's however definitely not the issue we are talking about here.

 

If an Earthcache in Austria, Denmark, Poland, Oman etc pops up in English, it does not harm you at all.

You might even profit from the texts as you are able to understand them and might be able to learn something about Earth science around the world even without leaving your country.

 

Who is taking profit e.g. if the terratins cannot create an Earth cache in Denmark? If they are not allowed to do it in English, the Earthcache community is losing something. The reservoir of cachers able and willing to create good and highly interesting Earthcaches is not that large.

 

Cezanne

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I don't know, I've seen GC Listings submitted in Klingon and Na'vi, so anything might be possible :)

 

Apart from the ironic aspect of your posting, note that your examples refer to physical caches and there is no language rule for physical caches anyway. Actually, this is also one of the issues that bothers and surprises me at the same time that Groundspeak agrees to a policy forbidding Earthcaches with only an English descriptions in major parts of the world as this does not match with their general policy.

 

Cezanne

 

Yes, my pathetic attempts at levity usually have that affect on people :mellow:

 

On a more serious note, like MNP noted above, I somewhat assume that the people submitting Earchcaches are a reasonably well educated subset of the Geocaching population. As such, I don't think it's inconceivable to present a persuasive argument, at the time of submission, that would convince an EC Reviewer, that indeed, the text presented in a Description would be understood by a reasonable cross section of the Geocaching Community in that area.

 

I similarly dismiss the argument concerning the apparent inconsistency between the GC Guidelines vs. the Earthcache Guidelines. I can readily find any cache in the world, armed with nothing more than my GPS and my wits. Not so with an Earthcache, since the information I need in the Description is vital to my success in logging the cache in most instances. I don't believe it's inconsistent in the least, but a reasonable accommodation to the local Geocaching Community.

 

As far as the terratins are concerned, the answer seems obvious. Submit data that supports the hypothesis that the majority of the Danish population are fluent in English. If not, then submit the Listing in the local language as required, to the best of their ability.

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I'm with you cezanne, but I'm afraid Americans who live in huge English-speaking country don't understand people from Europe, where countries are often smaller than states in America. I hope they will visit some day the Old Continent and they will understand it :huh:

 

You are quite right. I'll admit I have only visited a few European countries and we Amercans and some transplants often take things for granted! One language doesn't fit all in ALL countries! As Cezanne told us, it depends what PART of what country you happen to be in. Or how near you are to the borders of another country. Thanks for the thoughts.

 

P.S. I did a short review of ECs developed all over the World. Dozens and dozens of them probably would not have been developed if they had to be in the so-called native language. While most of us cannot and/or will not be able to visit these ECs, much is to be learned by just reading the cache page! Sorry, photos are fun but not very educational without text! :)

 

P.S. No. 2. For my detractor, no it wasn't a scientific analysis, just a review and it may not meet your high level of statistical expectations. I didn't do a chi square analysis or use any other test of statistical significance, just a plain old 'look see'! :P

 

I couldn't resist! That's it. That's all folks! :D

Edited by Konnarock Kid & Marge
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On a more serious note, like MNP noted above, I somewhat assume that the people submitting Earchcaches are a reasonably well educated subset of the Geocaching population. As such, I don't think it's inconceivable to present a persuasive argument, at the time of submission, that would convince an EC Reviewer, that indeed, the text presented in a Description would be understood by a reasonable cross section of the Geocaching Community in that area.

 

While I don't think that all Earthcaches need to be in English, I agree that there are many, many cases where English is appropriate though it may not be "the local language." I think that Earthcache developers should have the opportunity to explain their language choice.

 

There's been a lot of sound and fury here in the forum, but realistically it's difficult to say what the impact of this guideline change will be. It may very well be that many potential developers and visitors have stayed away from Earthcaching because it's so dominated by English.

 

But to encourage Earthcaching in many languages, both the Earthcache.org website and Geocaching.com need to improve their accommodation of such languages.

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Hello Earthcachers,

 

may I ask why we have such a big discussion? Noone said english is not allowed anymore in the description of Earthcaches. We just have to add a localy understandable language. Is that such a bad wish. I do not think so.

The owner who want's to have visitors form all over the world can and should add english as a second language. If he doesn't, he will suffer from his Earthcaches visited only by locals... So why not have the listing in English and Local? I wouldn't like an Earthcache in Germany having only english and the other way round I can understand that local cachers in other countries want cache descriptions in one local language. Why not?

 

Regards

 

Andreas

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may I ask why we have such a big discussion? Noone said english is not allowed anymore in the description of Earthcaches. We just have to add a localy understandable language. Is that such a bad wish. I do not think so.

The owner who want's to have visitors form all over the world can and should add english as a second language. If he doesn't, he will suffer from his Earthcaches visited only by locals... So why not have the listing in English and Local? I wouldn't like an Earthcache in Germany having only english and the other way round I can understand that local cachers in other countries want cache descriptions in one local language. Why not?

 

 

If you read the responses here, you'll see that there are many legitimate concerns about the guideline change. It's not as simple as you try to make it seem.

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Hello Earthcachers,

 

may I ask why we have such a big discussion? Noone said english is not allowed anymore in the description of Earthcaches. We just have to add a localy understandable language. Is that such a bad wish. I do not think so.

The owner who want's to have visitors form all over the world can and should add english as a second language. If he doesn't, he will suffer from his Earthcaches visited only by locals... So why not have the listing in English and Local? I wouldn't like an Earthcache in Germany having only english and the other way round I can understand that local cachers in other countries want cache descriptions in one local language. Why not?

 

Regards

 

Andreas

What about the PMO EarthCaches? It makes no difference to basic members what language it is written in if you can't view it. :laughing:

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I'm with you cezanne, but I'm afraid Americans who live in huge English-speaking country don't understand people from Europe, where countries are often smaller than states in America. I hope they will visit some day the Old Continent and they will understand it :D

 

That's the point! In Europe we have round about 50 countries, in only 2 is English the local language.

In Asia it's the same problem.

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I guess I'm the black sheep in this thread, but I think having future Earthcache pages done in the/a local language is a good move. No matter what the language rule is, some cachers are going to be inconvenienced. I'd prefer to see the guidelines benefit the local cachers who will be the primary seekers of Earthcaches.

I had a look at the last EC I logged myself (Canary islands). Of the last 10 logs the number of local cachers = 0, swedish = 1, dutch = 1 and german = 8. I Guess the cache information in Spanish wasn't of that much use to most of them. After all, local cachers aren't always the primary target

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OK - i have just had a friend do some work for me to translate a new listing into arabic.

 

A concern however is that the cache listing now just comes up with a lot of "???????" symbols for unreadable.

 

Has anyone else had problems when converting into other languages?

 

I think you need to set your viewer [ie: MsWord] to be compatible to Arabic. I am not sure of the html settings and how they will need to be. Ask geoaware, it was his idea!! <_< I am sure this will apply to the cachers who want to translate to Coptic, Greek and others.

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OK - i have just had a friend do some work for me to translate a new listing into arabic.

 

A concern however is that the cache listing now just comes up with a lot of "???????" symbols for unreadable.

 

Has anyone else had problems when converting into other languages?

 

I think you need to set your viewer [ie: MsWord] to be compatible to Arabic. I am not sure of the html settings and how they will need to be. Ask geoaware, it was his idea!! <_< I am sure this will apply to the cachers who want to translate to Coptic, Greek and others.

 

The MS Word, HTML editor and all other programs display the arabic text perfectly. I ONLY have the problem on the GC.com website as far as I can see. All fine until I post the HTML code to the cache listing - then I just get rows of "?" symbols.

 

Is there a setting I am missing? It seems odd to me.

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One method I've seen in some cache pages is to convert a block of text to an image, then insert the image into the cache page.

 

This may not be ideal, because to edit the text, you need to re-convert to an image and re-insert it, and the text would not be searchable, but I've seen it work on some pages. (This might work for you as a "last resort".)

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Is there a setting I am missing? It seems odd to me.

 

Why don't you follow the advice given by dfx in the other thread and translate the Unicode to html entities?

That way it should work (I tested it for a few characters). Unicode does not work on cache pages, that's known.

 

Cezanne

 

Thanks - I'll do this in the morning

 

One method I've seen in some cache pages is to convert a block of text to an image, then insert the image into the cache page.

 

This may not be ideal, because to edit the text, you need to re-convert to an image and re-insert it, and the text would not be searchable, but I've seen it work on some pages. (This might work for you as a "last resort".)

 

I converted to a picture - but the quality and formatting is not as clear and sharp.

 

Will use the "dfx" advice on another thread that I posted in "Geocaching topics

 

Thanks guys - now I wait to see if the English content is fine for the cache to be published :)

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Is there a setting I am missing? It seems odd to me.

 

Why don't you follow the advice given by dfx in the other thread and translate the Unicode to html entities?

That way it should work (I tested it for a few characters). Unicode does not work on cache pages, that's known.

 

Cezanne

 

Thanks - I'll do this in the morning

 

One method I've seen in some cache pages is to convert a block of text to an image, then insert the image into the cache page.

 

This may not be ideal, because to edit the text, you need to re-convert to an image and re-insert it, and the text would not be searchable, but I've seen it work on some pages. (This might work for you as a "last resort".)

 

I converted to a picture - but the quality and formatting is not as clear and sharp.

 

Will use the "dfx" advice on another thread that I posted in "Geocaching topics

 

Thanks guys - now I wait to see if the English content is fine for the cache to be published :)

 

Turn off JPG compression?

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Thanks guys - now I wait to see if the English content is fine for the cache to be published :)

 

It appears that it was. Congratulations for getting it published. EC fans will certainly profit from your persistence.

I would have given up and refrained from setting up the cache if I were you due to the new language guideline and the troubles you experienced.

 

I have to admit that the new language guideline demotivated me completely to come up with an EC even though in my case I would not have to

fight with a different alphabet and with having to ask someone to provide a local language version as I could do that myself, but am just not willing to do that (at least not by order of some authority and before getting it published).

 

I am already curious whether the new guideline in the long run will also have effects on the number of different countries in which people will be able to visit ECs as the number of ECs with English descriptions is descreasing in some areas considerably.

 

Cezanne

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Reviewer was actually very helpful - and although the language was discussed - it did not hamper the cache - comments were around the geology mainly.

 

Even though the official language here is Arabic - the de facto business and caching language is English as the bulk of cachers are expatriates - and I'm sure in more far flung areas such as Libya, Sudan etc. the languages of German, French or english will proabbaly be acceptable for caches - and not a local language.

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