Hi!
I know, that owner from Playroom is from Switzerland, but french canton I think.
Here is my question, but this question is maybe for someone not very good question.
Why We must to know french language for translating Gameroom? Only for this? If owner will be from France, OK, It is understandable. I have remembered on one situation. I have translated french game from English without any problem.
I would like to notice some of You, that not many people can speak French languages, like in English.
Ofcourse, there are people from Lebanon, Maghreb countries of north Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia), people from some west african countries, some polynesian people and people from west Indies and ofcourse, Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland and ofcourse, France.
It is same by me, that game or software You must translate from Japanese, althought this software is in English and try present, howmany people know Japanese in our world and from which countries and who they are?
Ofcourse, people from Japan and japanese community for example in Brasil.
So, by myself It is rude thing and strange with translating gameroom.

If we take War and piece as an example that book was written originally in Russian and translated from Russian to English. You don't hear that someone translating it from Russian to German, from German to Italian and from Italian to English. People are humans and can make mistakes, you make less mistakes if you do it directly rather than through a third party. People have already said in many posts that there are many errors in the English translation.

The thing is nowadays there aren't many errors in the English translation. Typos and spelling errors do not count here, because they cannot be transfered to another language. The most important thing is that there are no sentences which have a different meaning than it is originally intended in French, and I do not personally think there are.

Hey come on, at the end everything you translate you already know. Let's take an example, open forum, you know that button open forum will open forum and not send a friend request to someone, how can you translate it wrongly. The main point in every language is that you can understand what is going on, in each meny and each part of the game. You are not translating the mistic books of Egypt or bible so people can understand it wrongly.

Varsovie should read Warsaw just one example, I think that is not a spelling or typing error on the European Monopoly board. Aminiel has his reasons why he wants people to at least be able to translate from French to the new language. He also wants them to be able to communicate with the admin on the French part.

I did not get your example. And why would aminiel want a translator to speak French, in case of a helper it is understandable but Aminiel's English knowledge is more than enough for the things he needs to discuss with translator.

Yeah, that example has no point. You will know which city it is and translate it correctly. A hypothetical example would be in a game saying black pieces instead of white pieces. That mistake is a bigger one and would be pasted into other languages translated from English. However, English at the moment does not have such issues.

Hello,

One of the most important reason is, now the playroom is so big that when you open a new language, you don't have only to think about the translation itself, but also about creating the corresponding language specific community.
We also need new helpers, people who can moderate the forum, reply to user tickets, etc.

We need to get to know helpers at least at a minimum in order to trust them enough on what and how they are doing.
In fact it's very difficult to give power to someone.

All this is where we especially don't feel comfortable enough to communicate everything in english.

IF it were just a matter of sending translation files back and forth, probably that a few of them would have already done it long time ago. But the playroom is much, much, much more than that; I hope that you are aware of it and that you agree at least a little.
It's difficult to express the problem in english, I hope that you can understand what's the node of the problem.

As an administrator of an online game myself, I find the concept proposed by post 1 absolutely laughable.
According to alexa, one of the official languages of witserland is French. Not english, french.
So of course Aminule will want french speaking people, just on that concept alone!
Setting that aside for a moment though, lets talk about what it means to be an administrator, of anything. Be it a forum, a letter, a game or a sign on a post outside my house.
Lets look at it in simple dynamics:
A translator is an employee.
they work for a company, in this case, translators work for the playroom.
Workers are part of a team. In order for a team to work together, they must be able to understand each other. Most importantly, they must understand the chain of command and what the big boss, Aminule, wants to happen.
for example, if the big boss says, translate uno into spanish. But he has a bunch of employees who only speak 3 words in French and the rest in English, the job is not getting done.
So, what you are proposing above is, that Aminule employ translators, and then a translate to translate his orders, to the translators.
That adds an extra layer to the company, lost communication and understand and requires a level of trust in translator b.

Now lets look at this from a partnership basis.
I'll be honest. I don't speak German. I tried? I just can't. So, if I want to translate something into German, I need someone who can speak German, right? But whose to say they do it right. For example, if I say, translate "you draw a card" into german, they could write something that means, "Lara is stupid." and I wouldn't know any difference.
Therefore, for someone to employ a translator is something that requires a high degree of trust, because they are, in essence, forming part of the image of the playroom.
If minule wants the playroom to have a good image as a reliable platform, he needs to trust his translators.

So... I hope this post has cleared up the roblem some what, and remember, the internet was made for trolls!
Of course...

I get your point Aminiel, I fully agree we need more helpers. Marina is doing a great job but she just can't hold it all alone. And here we come to the beginning again, I think you should get to know more people on the english part, at least more closer. It would make things a whole lot easier to chooose one of them who would like to be helpers. That would not be a smart idea from your main account cause everyone would want to be good with you and blah blah blah. The best thing is some secret account, and of course it takes some free time. If I would look at the forums and see who is helping the most I would have to say Nikola is the one helping people with issues on playroom, he is spending a lot of time on here and is trying to avoid arguing. I noticed he is leaving tables anytime it comes to religious or political discussion. I am not making advertisement for Nikola here, I am just giving an example of someone who looks serious and tech knowledkgish seeming to have clue.

What Aminiel wants is someone to form a strong team of translators and helpers with a clear command structure. Then it will be up to someone from that team to present their case and show that they are serious, dedicated and organised. I don't see that happening here as too many have their own agenda, you only have to read the forum to see that. Has anybody put together an Arabic/Serbian/Turkish team together as those are 3 languages that people have said they want a dedicated PR for those languages. I hope you can put teams together but I still think in 12 months time people will be still saying the same things. I am sure some will be arguing against this post instead of using their energy to form a team.

We have enough strong team for serbian translation but Aminiel clearly said that we have to wait. And we sent already couple of mails with concrete names and etc. Until Aminiel tells us that he is ready to add a new language we can't do anything.

Does that include a helper team? If that is the case then I wish you the best of luck.

Are you doupting in me Ynwa? Don't you think I would be an awesome helper?

Well only if we get 3 points against Palace on Monday then you will be a magnificent helper! My point is and we can say what we want but Aminiel has to see you are serious and your team, he needs to see a plan and show him what your team can do and why. I remember when my friend at college wanted to get a TV for the college bar, he had to give 50 reasons why the students needed that TV, yes that was crazy but he got it done. I guess the gift of his Irish persuasive powers worked. I can understand why other languages are needed as it is better for people to have the PR in their own language. I can also understand Aminiel not wanting more monsters to be released like the English PR with limited control and that is why I talked about people having their own agenda slowing down progress as we have seen here on many projects.

hmm, i think helpers or arabic part is not problem, playroom full with arabs most of the day, and sure arabic language will encrease them, and yes i agree that we need more helpers in the english part, nekola and yonwa can be

I don't want the Helper's job as I have Quiz Party to work on and even that made me public ememy number one so don't want to be even more unpopular lol! It is clear the Helpers here don't want more Helpers even though they need them as I and others have said that many times. Adding more would break up the existing clique so I don't expect that to happen for a long time. I don't think putting names forward on the forum is a good idea.

You are not enemy due Quiz Party, you are due your personality. :D

It is cheap comments like these Dayan that puts Aminiel off expanding the PR! I don't blame him being reluctant to make the PR bigger and more complex.

I'm sorry, but did Aminiel say that to you or is this just random? Also, why is it a cheap comment when it's the truth? Why would somebody dislike you because of quiz party? It is a game and nothing else. In any case, the trend of moving away from the original topic purpose continues.

The likelyhood is that few will play in a serbian section as many of their friends play in the English part. How many for example have signed up to say they would play in a Serbian PR if it was available? 10, 20 or 50 plus. If it has few then it will turn out to be a white elephant.

Statistics are available for each country. There would be more than 50 for sure. Besides, playing on the Serbian server does not mean you cannot play with English friends.

There are more than 50 speaking German players here but hardly anybody plays in the German section, so statistics alone will not give you a definitive answer. If people stay there and play then in time the Serbian PR will grow but without people supporting your project then sadly it will become a white elephant.

That-s another discussion. When the playroom is translated, translators should promote it on local mailing lists, forums and so on.

What about a green dog?

I believe that as well as having a team of helpers/mods etc demand needs to be considered. Enough people need to want the platform to be translated into a particular language to make it worth doing. You look at the German / Russian servers etc and they rarely have 3 people connected at once from what I can tell.

No, the Russian server is more popular than German. German was outdated with translations for a very long time. The situation should be better now, however that's why it wasn't all that popular.

My advice is do as much research as possible, get the best people you can and create strong teams as you can and present a strong a case as you can to Aminiel. If he sees you have a strong team that is dedicated not just for the short term but long term you will have a better chance to get the green light, remember that every time a new game comes out more translating will have to be done.