Re: ICANN language translation

[edyson@edventure.com (Esther Dyson)]

These translators are doing all this pro bono for their own communities, I
assume?  That is definitely the appropriate bottom-up approach, and
unfortunately the only one ICANN can afford.

Esther Dyson

At 12:48 PM 27/03/99 -0500, Michael Sondow wrote:
>Antoun Nabhan a écrit:
>> 
>> Sorry I haven't gotten back to you sooner on this - classes are these
pesky things that interfere with what I swear is my real life. Charlie,
naturally, is even harder to find than me.
>
>No problem. I've been pretty busy myself.
>
>> Here's the story. We have 25x2servers = 50 outgoing streams of RealAudio
available.
>
>Nice.
>
>> I think you and I were assuming that the translators are *not* on-site at
the meeting. Given that condition: We can reserve x number of the outgoing
streams for listening by translators, but the translators need to have their
own outgoing Real Audio servers/encoders. We can provide help with that, but
not equipment.
>
>Of course. But surely they can run one realaudio stream off their
>desktops, no?
>
>> If they are on-site at the meeting, we have a different scenario but not
necessarily a better one, since we need an additional encoder machine for
each outgoing audio feed. My experience at Cambridge & Singapore is that a
Pentium II 233 is just adequate for this. The server machine that we brought
to Singapore can supposedly handle multiple encoder feeds, although we've
never run it with that setup.
>
>I don't think we want to start out planning on translators being
>physically present at the meetings. Who would pay for their travel
>and lodging?
>
>As to a minimum of a Pentium II 233 for encoding, would that also
>serve for the outgoing realaudio server, or can't encoding and
>feeding be done from the same machine for some reason? (I'm really
>totally inexperienced in doing realaudio feeds, so you'll have to
>excuse my ignorant questions.)
>
>> I do think it is a good idea to contact CABASE and any mailing lists >
that might prove fruitful. 
>
>That can be done
>
>> (Your suggestion of Spanish, Chinese, French sounds good. I would also >
advocate German, as a nod to the hosts for Berlin, and Japanese.)
>
>Trying to do too much in the beginning is a recipe for failure.
>We'll never get five translators set up in time for Berlin, IMO. 
>
>Can we try for three? Which three languages? Yes, including German
>is a good idea as a nod to Berlin hosts, but German isn't much use
>globally, and the Germans themselves won't need it because they can
>be present. I advocate not doing German, therefore, and
>concentrating on three languages that won't be easily represented at
>the meeting, for example Spanish (spoken in some thirty-six
>countries worldwide), Chinese (as a sort of common Asian language),
>and French (as the second-ranking international language). 
>
>Japanese is too minority: only used in one country. Arabic would be
>a good choice, since it's used in many different countries, but
>perhaps the lack of developed Internet infrastructure in most of
>those countries argues against it. Any other suggestions? Discussion
>on the subject of how many and which languages? Charles?
>
>> The sooner we can get translators lined up for Berlin, the better. 
>> Equipment and technical hurdles will be tricky, but there's a whole 
>> lot of underutilized equipment and bandwidth out in the world; all we >
have to do is find the people willing to let us use it.
>
>Perhaps. :)
>
>> I suggest this as a next step: can you figure out what organizations 
>> exist to coordinate translators? 
>
>We have to first decide which languages will be used. Then we can
>contact organizations. (Although I am copying CABASE on this, since
>I assume that Spanish will be one of them, and also ap-forum and the
>dnso discuss list, which may still have some diverse countries on
>it.)
>


Esther Dyson			Always make new mistakes!
chairman, EDventure Holdings
interim chairman, Internet Corp. for Assigned Names & Numbers
edyson@edventure.com
1 (212) 924-8800
1 (212) 924-0240 fax
104 Fifth Avenue (between 15th and 16th Streets; 20th floor)
New York, NY 10011 USA
http://www.edventure.com                    http://www.icann.org

PC Forum:  21 to 24 March 1999, Scottsdale (Phoenix), Arizona 
High-Tech Forum in Europe:  24 to 26 October 1999, Budapest
Book:  "Release 2.0: A design for living in the digital age"