Findings from the consulations in 2009

Ed,

this is fabulous. In some ways it confirmed what I suspected but other items were new to me (green hosting, for instance). I particularly like the ecological approach...the people of the planet will come up with a million different ways to organize themselves!

One thing I noticed only once (could have been there more and I just missed it) was "language" or what I would term "localization." It's the whole topic of which language people within an initiative speak and will use online. I may be particularly aware of this topic because Canada has two official languages (I live in the U.S. but am a Canadian citizen). In Quebec, approximately 5 million people speak only French but English services must be available in the courts and the National Assembly.

All that is to say that we should consider how at least two languages may be used in normal activities of a TT initiative.

Also, I've got on my plate a task to look at how the Internet may change over time, particularly trends in connectivity. For instance, will we see less people connected to the Internet over time? I suspect that Internet connectivity may be at a peak right now (at least via computer) and maybe in absolute terms, as well. And of the ones who remain connected, will they connect less and less by computer and more by some sort of (smart) phone, which may be cheaper, á la Africa? How does this impact the Transition Drupal project?

BTW, it goes without saying that none of the above takes away from the great work you and Ben did :-)

I'd like to set up a call with you and the IA team (and anyone else who wants to join) to discuss your findings in some depth. Would you be up for that?

Andre, your comments re language resonate here. And thanks, Ed, for pointing to the blog on this issue. I'm with Transition Ottawa (Canada), currently Ning-based, and we have wrestled long and hard (largely to no avail) with the issue of bilingualism on our site. Ottawa is approximately 20% French speaking -- 35 % if one includes Gatineau in the larger urban region.

Our current site is largely unilingual English. Is it at all in the realm of possibility to envisage a platform in which an individual member, for example, could select the language of choice used for menus, navigation, messages etc.? I realize our situation is not the norm -- there are few cities as patently bilingual as Ottawa, yet, various shades of the issue probably exist in many of the more urban-based sites.

I don't have any suggestions for these -- I'm not competent in Drupal -- but am intensely interested in the work you're all doing here. I think it's just great!

Cheers,

/ jd

A multilingual function would be of enormous benefit to us here in Kensal/Kilburn in London which I learned recently is one of the most diverse areas in the UK.

In fact, I built a button into the page header strip on my visuals to allow a user to switch languages.

One approach for translating content which I've discussed on other projects is attempting to build a volunteer base of willing translators who can translate key content into other languages. I've never looked into workflows but I assume you could at least set a trigger to send an alert to each translator when there was new content to be translated.

However, there are also potentially IA issues around how translated content would be displayed. Since it's voluntary, it can't be assumed the work would actually get done so how do you present content to someone reading in another language? Do you duplicate the entire sitemap for each language but leave untranslated pages in English or empty or do you present a reduced menu?