I grew up in Asia and here's my take on outreaching simplified vs. traditional Chinese.
On the surface, it would appear that translating the survey into simplified has the greatest return on investment/effort because it would reach thousands of universities in mainland Chinese (plus general outreach that can benefit Singapore and some Malaysia). It would also help spark interest and slowly catch up to the dominant position of local Baidu Baike (Baidu Encyclopedia). However, a huge drawback is the overall censorship of Wikipedia by Chinese government. Many sensitive topics around politics, post-1949 history and environment are frequently blocked en masse on the internet by the Great Firewall of China. The list constantly updates and access to Wikipedia can be intermittent. Sometimes a page is blocked on Chinese Wikipedia but the English entry remains accessible. Other times entries on both languages are completely blocked. This enormous uncertainty makes me hesitant to see resources dedicated to it only to end up going to waste if the students can't access the site. On the other hand, the traditional Chinese has smaller contributor base and is mainly in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. But they do not have to deal with the censorship issue nor to risk flaunting with an arbitrary firewall with an unpublished set of rules. Andrew ________________________________ From: Education <[email protected]> on behalf of Nichole Saad <[email protected]> Sent: August 24, 2017 1:40:13 PM To: Wikimedia Education Subject: Re: [Wikimedia Education] Help the Education Team translate a survey about the Wikipedia Education Program Hi Andrew, You are totally right. I just had Mandarin on the brain, having come from a language exchange meet up and typed in auto mode. We originally had simplified in mind, but your question made me think about which would be more relevant to our specific community, and after asking the Asian Wikimedian community, they adamantly said both are needed. So I will request for *both simplified and traditional* and see if there is anyone who is willing to help. best regards, Nichole On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 8:31 AM, Andrew Leung <[email protected]> wrote: > By "Mandarin Chinese", I think you meant simplified Chinese? Simplified > vs. traditional Chinese are referring to written languages. Mandrain, > Cantonese and others are referring to spoken languages. > > > Andrew > > ________________________________ > From: Education <[email protected]> on behalf of > Nichole Saad <[email protected]> > Sent: August 23, 2017 6:11:23 PM > To: Wikimedia Education; Wikimedia Translations; WMF All Staff > Subject: [Wikimedia Education] Help the Education Team translate a survey > about the Wikipedia Education Program > > Dear [Affiliates, WMF Staff, Translators], > > The Education Team at the Wikimedia Foundation will be running a survey in > mid-September about the perception of the Wikipedia Education Program in > order to better focus our communications and support materials to the needs > of our various audiences. In order for it to be easily accessible to as > many people as possible, we need help to translate the survey into as many > languages as we can. > > Ideally, we would like the survey translated into at least these 5 > languages: Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian, and Mandarin Chinese. > Translations in additional languages are also welcome, as long as the > survey can be fully translated in those languages. > > We will be using a Google spreadsheet to perform the translations. This is > a logistical decision, as moving translations from Meta-wiki to Qualtrics > (the platform of choice to hold the survey) is very complicated. > > If you are interested in helping and have some free time over the next two > weeks, please respond to me directly to let me know which language you can > help translate and I will follow up with more information. Our deadline > for the translations to be completed is September 12. > > I look forward to hearing from you! > > best, > > -- > *Nichole Saad* > WMF | Education Program Manager > [email protected] > user: NSaad (WMF) > > *Want to talk about the Wikipedia Education Program?* > Schedule a meeting: https://calendly.com/nsaad-1 > _______________________________________________ > Education mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education > _______________________________________________ > Education mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education > -- *Nichole Saad* WMF | Education Program Manager [email protected] user: NSaad (WMF) *Want to talk about the Wikipedia Education Program?* Schedule a meeting: https://calendly.com/nsaad-1 _______________________________________________ Education mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education _______________________________________________ Education mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/education
