Hoi,<br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 2/16/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">David Starner</b> <<a href="mailto:prosfilaes@gmail.com">prosfilaes@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
On 2/16/07, Gerard Meijssen <<a href="mailto:GerardM@wiktionaryz.org">GerardM@wiktionaryz.org</a>> wrote:<br>> Why is it that there is no support for any specific functionality for so<br>> many languages ??<br>
<br>Functionality in what sense? In the general sense, I'd say money.<br>Decent translation and internationalization takes a lot of<br>people-hours, which usually has to be paid.</blockquote><div><br>Functionality starts with being able to identify something in a language. Only when this is achieved you can consider translation, internationalisation and spell checking for such a language. The tools that are out there are really bad at allowing for the support of many languages.
<br><br>When we can convince the tool makers that they ALWAYS enter the language code as part of the meta data of a document and, when they were to allow for all the linguistic entities that are recognised we would have a much rosier situtation.
<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">> It is because it is extremely hard to recognise content as<br>> such. Much analysis of the content of the Internet just does not happen as a
<br>> result. When people can reliably indicate: "Give an article on AIDS and give<br>> it to me in my mother tongue", you will find that much content will become<br>> available in other languages. It will become available because it allows for
<br>> better communication.<br><br>Putting everything else aside: why do _I_ care? It goes on my list<br>with things like the starving children in Africa and saving the<br>whales. I respect that you care, but there are thousands of issues in
<br>this world worth caring about, and yours is not one of the handful I<br>have the interest and time to take up.</blockquote><div><br>When you do not care why should we care for codes for English of the Romantic era, the Elizabethan era. These people are dead !!
<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">> When you only consider books for "Project Gutenberg", you will agree that
<br>> from a language point of view there is not much consistency for western<br>> books dated before 1700. They each feature very much their own unique<br>> language. They are all very much one of a kind.<br><br>
No, not really. One Elizabethan English book uses much the same<br>language as the next. If you want to spell-check or something, it's a<br>little different, but readers of such material don't care.<br><br>> You want to be practical for
<br>> your own purposes but I am not convinced that what you propose does help<br>> that much.<br><br>It helps me clearly label books in a way that people can have an idea<br>whether they can read contents, and makes sure they don't get mixed in
<br>with books for people who speak modern Czech or whatever.</blockquote><div><br>Your argument is as good as mine.. Why should I care .. what is in there for me.. However I do care that you get it right. I do object to your dismissing the needs that exist for relevancy in the implementation of standards. I think you do the work done a disservice.
<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">> As to your notion that we are not a missionary group, well to be brutally
<br>> honest I think the lack of marketing is one of the failings of the work that<br>> has been done. The work may be of good quality but the relevancy is not what<br>> it should be. With only 15% of the Internet content tagged and much of it
<br>> tagged incorrectly we may convince ourself that what we do is relevant. We<br>> have however not convinced the world at large.<br><br>I don't care. My goal in life is not to convince the world at large<br>
that what I do matters. I'm studying to be a mathematician, and most<br>people couldn't name five mathematicians if their life depended on it.<br>Apathy here is a life saver.</blockquote><div><br>I have Wikipedia to help me out. There is this movie about a "beautiful mind"..
<br></div><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Less tongue in check, this standard is a powerful tool being used by<br>many organizations. We've hardly failed if all this means is that
<br>computer programmers and librarians have and use a standard set of<br>language tags.<br></blockquote></div><br>I have my background in computing... Really many people in this field do not care at all about standards. One reason is that many standards are only available at a fee another is that not all Standards are considered equally. I seriously doubt that we do that well.
<br><br>Thanks,<br> Gerard<br>