h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>> help where you can, Yes please! The two main projects at the moment are proofreading the collection of entries http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F20154027?thread=8136894 and getting involved in the discussions on engaging the rest of the web http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F20484619?thread=8121071 and engaging the community http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/F20735840?thread=8123988 and moderation (though I've lost that one myself Oh, and buy t-shirts and things when the shop opens....! In fairness, paulh has actively been involved in all those things, as have many in this thread, and paul sumarised the state of play in the moderation discussion a while back. If anyone wants to write a summary of either of those two threads, drop by my space and let me know. These things really do help, and they help in several ways: 1) the Interim Committee can't represent the Community if we don't know what the Community thinks and feels - it's not the Interim Committee's bid, it's the Community bid 2) we're really strapped for time and there's a bunch of stuff that simply won't get done if the Community at large don't do them - things that will make a real difference to the quality of the bid At the moment, the big push is on proofreading and on the coversations I've mentioned, in particular if anyone could provide a summary of where they've got to so far, that would be very helpful. There are new tasks coming along... for example sanity checking the GBD when it's got more things in it, and if anyone felt like re-reading Stockholm to see what's been missed from the GBD..... We aren't ready for those two yet and we'll tell you when we are. Oh - and if anyone's got experience of setting up and running an online shop and would be willing to run the Community's shop, then please drop by and say so... That's another task you don't need to be on the Interim Committee to do, and which would be a burden off our shoulders if someone else would pick it up and run with it. Ben

Paul, you could subcribe to the Interim Committee updates if you like... ;-) http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A80173361 and / or http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F20154027?thread=8031760&latest=1 We keep peeps posted whenever we can.

Hi, Mrs. Zen.

If you've lost the moderation stuff I wrote, I'll email it to you again. No problem.

No, we've got it and included it. I'm happy to go with it without changing it, I'm just aware that the Moderation discussion is a discussion that will never die....

B

~JWF~, re:

"BTW, anhaga's mention of the necessity of creating an
equal and parallel French version is because of Canadian
Law. We are an official bi-lingual country and by law
everything from Parking Tickets to instructions on a
cereal box has to be offered in both French and English."

What do they do when the English part includes a French phrase? Do they trans-literate it to English to stick in the middle of the French version?

As George W Bush once famously said, "The French don't have a word for entrepreneur"...

French in Canada includes many variations that come from
many localised post-Expulsion communities. The largest
group of course is in the Province of Quebec which has
adopted many 'anglais' words and phrases and many of its
own colloquialisms.

I should explain that while all provinces are expected
to provide full bilingual services (some on request only)
only Quebec and New Brunswick are officially bilingual.
One can operate a private enterprise in English-only in
the others if you are registered only within an English
province but all national interests like the CBC, Air
Canada, Via Rail, and all Federal Govt agencies must
provide both.

Consumer products from food to electronics (especially
those from the US) who want to sell across the country
must also label in two languages. The results, as your
post suggests, are often funny and even ludicrous. Would
you buy a can of soup that said it contained 'fungi'?
And I always get a kick out of 'rape'.


~jwf~

An example I encountered today is the slogan on KFC.

In English it says "Secret recipe of eleven herbs and
spices".

The French side of the bucket just says "Onze fine herbs
et espices" with no mention of 'secrecy'.

This may be more about the Napoleonic Code regarding the
notion of 'secret' ingredients rather than a translation issue.

Perhaps anhaga, who speaks and writes in more than half
a dozen lingoes can offer further insight. My French is
insufficient to judge the accuracy of most translated
labels and adverts. I can order a croissant avec fromage
but after that I'm helpless (sans d'aid a moi).


~jwf~

""In English it says "Secret recipe of eleven herbs and
spices".""

go put these buckets of mayonaise out in the sun for a couple of hours!!!

Taff, out of curiosity, do you ever read the backlog?

if i hadn't, there was a comment about secrecy and some more rage and vitriol comming there

along with a big dollop of paranoia and conspiracy

Two funny stories about our bilingual policies:



One day back when I was working I was standing behind the bar one hot summer day, in front of a cooler full of beer and soft drinks. A customer came in looking very warm and leaned over the bar saying 'I'll have a can of that -- what's that? Lipton The Glace' I turned and looked at the cooler and saw that every single can of Lipton Iced Tea had been placed with the French side out.


and



One day an in-law from the U.S. who is more than a little like Homer Simpson was in a Canadian supermarket and happened to wander down the soft drink aisle. Suddenly he yelled out 'They have raisin flavoured pop up here!!!' Of course, all the grape drinks had been shelved French side out.


And, on a public attitude note:

I remember well the screaming from (western) English Canada when bilingualism was made policy about not wanting to have 'French shoved down their throats'.

Then, a decade or two later the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico and quietly products started showing up with trilingual labels -- English, French, and Spanish -- and there was never a single complaint. I guess Anglos don't like it when their duly elected government makes a policy about language on labels but it's just fine when a multi-national corporation does the same thing simply to reduce production costs.

I wonder if a simple translation program would suffice, you know, the kind where you press the button to select your particular dialect on the Home Page. As this is an english only site already I can't say as I'm overly concerned with the accuracy of translation, as long as it fullfills the legal requirement it should be good enough.

As an aside, it was always my understanding that most who speak french in Canada understand english perfectly well, they just refuse to speak it because, well, it's a french thing to do though I understand Texans are somewhat the same when it comes to spanish. Then again they to act like they live in a country unto itself so maybe that's the connection. Somebody should reasearch this a write a Guide Entry on it!

I don't think there'd actually be a legal requirement to translate it into French if the CBC took over hootoo (it's not going to happen, BTW -- this all started with me just daydreaming). The CBC has separate French and English services (and, I think an Inuktitut service, and, of course, Hockey Night in Canada in Punjabi http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/hockeynightincanada/punjabi/ ) but there are only varying degrees of overlap between them. If in some magical world the CBC were to take over hootoo, perhaps Radio Canada (the French language service) would manage a parallel French side of it, but there would be not legal requirement to do so.

I wouldn't rule out the CBC being gifted the site nor would I rule out a PBS gift either. In fact, I think it is the ideal time for PBS to get involved in such a fashion as public support (donations) will be more important than ever and a Front Page with a permanent Pledge Drive button would be an easy way to make up for some lost revenue. I'd chuck'um a couple of bucks now and then, in fact I'd probley do even more what with loving me some Austin City limits and Antique Roadshow. If only they'd kept airing Red Dwarf!

It can't cost much to opperate a site such as ours in comparison to purchasing rights to broadcast shows such as they do already and it would allow them to tap an new base of contributing members. A win-win in my book and a logical step in expanding viewership as well as advertising in a down economy. Call me an optimist but I would rather keep hope alive than admit defeat before the end.

Yep, many Texans are quite insistant that pressing 1 for English is an afront to all that is American. And they express this kind of thing in places like San Antonio, Seguin and San Leon. Sadly, I tried to take Spanish but foreign languages weren't even offered until I was in high school by which time it was too late.

Spynxxx, re:"As this is an english only site already..."

Actually, only since the BBC took it over. They kept the site offline for months while Moderators went through hiding non-English contributions. Hopefully, when we're no longer a BBC site we can unhide those threads again.

""when we're no longer a BBC site we can unhide those threads again.""

are they still there???

or

have the Beeb binned them like they have already done with much of their other on line content???

I have no problem with threads in another language but the I can't imagine Guide entries ever being in anything but english because of the difficulties in process as far a review and such goes. You could of course cater to the occasional 'foreign tongue' in a Post column I suppose, german should be a snap.

I'm pretty sure that where an entire post was removed it's still there, but hidden. The real loss was when they went round editing out links to external sites - IIRC, they killed about a third of them before the BBC changed their policy so that only "objectionable" links would be removed, and those are lost forever.