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Language and Product Localization Technical Support

From mediawiki.org

Introduction

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This is a workstream within the Language and Product Localization team in the Wikimedia Foundation’s Product and Technology department created effective July 2023. We work closely with language communities where timely interventions and engagements are needed to support internationalization and localisation workflows and products to help these communities to keep them moving to achieve their goals.

It should be as easy to consume and contribute useful knowledge in all the world’s languages as it is in the largest ones. We will work closely with the Wikimedia communities about language- and region-specific needs within the products intended for multilingual use. We identify gaps in product workflows and periodically report the findings that affect use and growth of the product in certain languages or regions, and surface special needs that are necessary for a uniform multilingual product experience.

Background

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There are over 800 Wikimedia wikis across various projects. Wikimedia’s language communities have a wide range of needs around language technology. Their requests include adding and removing languages from projects (e.g., MediaWiki core), adding font and keyboard support for languages, Translatewiki, and other miscellaneous language-related configuration changes such as RTL fixes, and spelling and grammar adjustments. According to research conducted by the Language Diversity Hub project in 2022, 13 language communities across Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America were interviewed to understand their challenges related to technology, education, economy, and/or social conditions. The top challenges identified were: few contributors, language tech challenges, and the need for more training. Small and new languages need the most technical support since they usually  have only a few tech savvy volunteers and it can be overwhelming for them to tackle all the technical needs for their communities. Read more here

Current initiatives

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Our work is divided into two; OKR and Essential. OKR entails contributing to the Foundations Product and Tech pillars to achieve the strategic goals for the department Essential. ensuring we continue providing technical support for Wikimedia Language communties.

  • 2024-25; This year our work is intended align with the Foundation Annual plan and the Product & Technology multigeneral pillars, objectives and Key results and hypothesis. Specifically we will be contributing to knowledge equity goal specifically on closing knowledge gaps. See more here
  • 2023-24; As part of Language Inclusion cross departmental initiative, which aimed to connecting the dots across disparate language diversity-focused work streams inside the Foundation, increase understanding of Wikimedia’s role in the internet language ecosystem, coordinate across movement stakeholders, and work toward a movement theory of change for language inclusion. See more here

Follow our work

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  • See what we are currently working on here
  • Follow our quarterly status updates here