[Ubuntu-ch] Language

[Myriam Schweingruber]

Hi Dirk,

On Sat, Oct 25, 2008 at 8:20 AM, Dirk Deimeke <dirk.deimeke at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> to say that in the first place: It is no problem for me to communicate
> in English but I see really some people who can not.
>
> Please keep in mind that out there in the real world you can find
> people without university degree or any sort of higher education.

I very much do, but everybody can learn, can't they? Especially
regarding that most contributors are still young and English is easy
to learn... and English IS the lingua franca in this field, regardless
if we talk about GNU/Linux or international sharing.

...
>>The choice is difficult to make, but we didn't want to
>> interfere with the already existing French, German and Italian
>> speaking communities and, knowing that there already are language
>> specific mailing lists, IRC channels and forums, creating another set
>> of language specific media would have been counterproductive.
>
> totally disagree.
>
> There are mailing lists for India, Great Britain, (nearly every state
> of) the United States, many more. All of them have lists with English
> as the language spoken.
>
> If I follow your arguments, all English speaking countries should only
> have one single list to communicate?

Not at all, these are language sets and I never said it was not
allowed to use one's native language, only if we let it slip this list
will end up in being 100% German and all the other contributors will
be gone! Believe me, it happened before! You seem to forget that
Switzerland is VERY small, with a roughly 6 Million Swiss and 1,5
Million non-Swiss population. I live in this country since almost 50
years and VERY well know the Swiss attitude, which comes up all the
time when you try to do something Swiss-wide: "why not in German, why
not in French, etc." and it ends up in regional small entities who do
not communicate AT ALL! That is the sad reality in Switzerland.

This list is a central point for communication, so if we really want
to communicate we have to find a common language, which IS English,
regardless the very few who don't speak/write/understand English.

An actual example: there is a Ubuntu-Stammtisch in Zürich, something
we learned about initially, but so far the communication about what's
going on is difficult and if I would not ask and ask again, nobody
would even bother to inform the others what exactly they are doing. On
the contrary, I am simply asked to participate in yet another
mailinglist and travel 200 kms which take me more than 4 hours by
public transportation, at least 2 hours by car (whoever travels on the
A1 understand what I talk about). This is the first split, with people
closing in a regional group like a shell and excluding the others by
non-communication. That's the Swiss way of doing things, and it's
totally counterproductive.We are in a multilingual and multicultural
country and if this Swiss Team will work it's only by intense
communication about what's going on, and PLEASE do this before it
happens, after it's too late.

Understand me well, I'm not opposed to regional groups, except that I
refuse splitting and think that if we want to gather the manpower
Swiss.wide we desperately need this central mailing list in English.

So if there are regional things going on, please do communicate this
before, during and after on THIS list, there always is somebody who is
fluent in English in these groups.

>> - The SwissTeam has been founded to spread the love in ALL the
>> country, regardless the languages and cultural diversity. Also, not
>> everybody living in Switzerland is Swiss nor does everybody speak all
>> the languages, but from what I know about education in Switzerland (I
>> was a teacher for almost 20 years), English is widely available and
>> accessible to everybody.
>
> Regardless the language meens what? Only people who are able to
> communicate in English are addressed?

maybe in this mailing list yes, as what is required is understanding
English, But again, this is the Swiss-wide mailing list, and see above
for the things we try to avoid.
...
>> - support is available through the Ubunteros who subscribed in the
>> wiki, indicating their particular skills, region and languages so
>> there is no reason to fear that somebody wouldn't find help if needed.
>
> Agreed. But the page is in English as well.

The idea is to make it available to everybody, but where are all those
people who translate in ALL Swiss languages? So far I have only seen
German coming up wildly and without any coordination or even
communication. I wonder how many wiki pages there are we have never
been informed of because people don't understand the focus of the
Swiss Team..
We want to do a website and every technical bases are already there
and wait to be used, but why don't these people speak up and try to
work in the Swiss-wide focus? Because again they stay in their region
and refuse to communicate, language is such an easy excuse for not
even trying to communicate with all the others.

> I think the problem is that you can not imagine that this is a big
> issue. I spoke to at least ten Swiss German people who would like to
> engage in local activities but are not able to communicate in English.

Oh yes, I can and do know all this. They can and should, but if the
Swiss Team is supposed to run we need more and better communication
and collaboration everywhere, see above.

>> - We are well aware that many do participate in other mailing lists,
>> channels or forums, but keep in mind that if you want to help
>> Switzerland, it's not by supporting the GermanTeam who is only active
>> in Germany, ditto for the FrenchTeam and the ItalianTeam. If somebody
>> wants to help out in Switzerland we need a central meeting point. Of
>> course, the existence of Switzerland specific groups in German, French
>> or Italian forums is a plus, but there already is a Swiss multilingual
>> forum available, namely Swisslinux.ch where all the different
>> distributions find their space, ditto for the languages. Again, it's
>> about avoiding to split manpower...
>
> Totally agreed for the central meeting point.
>
> But at this very moment you split the manpower.
>
> Swiss German speaking people engage in Germany because of not having a
> chance to do that in Switzerland (but all would like to do so).

That is simply stupid IMHO, because there is a Swiss channel in
ubuntuusers.de and it's absolutely possible to focus ON Switzerland.
Again, there IS a multilingual Swiss forum, Swisslinux.ch and I and
other founders of the Swiss Team have always suggested that this
should be used instead of other channels, but if people want to do
otherwise, I can't stop them. Only, don't pretend to be a Swiss Team
anymore!
If only those who do things in other language media outside of
Switzerland would try to focus on Switzerland it would already be
something, but the problem lays in the current non-communication.
[snip]

>> Of course, the above is mainly my opinion but I know it's shared by
>> others in the team and we are of course open to discussion about ways
>> to improve the current situation. So much for herding cats...
>
> Hey, it is ok, if you really don't  want to change it. You just have
> to be aware that you will be miles behind your possibilities.

It's not about not wanting to change, it's for all the reasons
mentioned above YOU are not aware of.

When we did our second release party in Bern, we learned about non
less than 3 other install parties for Ubuntu to have happened or about
to happen around this date. Who of these people did even bother to
google for a Swiss team or try to contact us? We often hear that we
are not know of, well, if those who pretend to be Ubunteros don't even
do the most basic attempt of communication how are we supposed to tin
the Ubuntu way, sharing and getting in touch with others? No, all they
did was a closed regional or even institutional gathering and dreaming
of doing bigger next time. But did they even bother to get in touch
and coordinate?... And don't tell me they were not able to communicate
in English, these were almost all students perfectly fluent in
English.

For the record: googling for Ubuntu Switzerland gives the Swiss Team
in the first page, ditto for Ubuntu Schweiz, Ubuntu Suisse and Ubuntu
Svizzera. So pretending that nobody knows about us is due simply to
the usual Swiss way of doing things: in my own garden and not talking
to the neighbor.

Greets

Myriam
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