User talk:GerardM

This is my talk page using LiquidThreads.. My old style messages can be found here. Thanks, 14:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Language support
Hi, Gerard. I saw what you wrote on Bosnian Wikipedia about language support. I am professor of Bosnian language and literature (but I am also good in English :-), and, of course, in Croatian, Serbian and Montenegrin) and I am also one of the admins on BS Wiki (Kukac). Could you explain me this language support with more details? What kind of information does the language support team need? Maybe I can help in terms of language questions. But software testing is something different. :-) I'll pass on that. :-) Thanks. -- 62.113.4.227 14:15, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

What linguists can do in a language support team
At translatewiki.net, we support the localisation and the internationalisation for many software applications. What we have learned is that practically every application needs particular facts and when supporting particular languages there are issues that could be supported in standards when these standards contain the necessary information.

Many of the issues are so simple that anyone with an advanced knowledge of a language can answer the questions; what is the autonym, how do you write a number, how do you sort a list of words. Others are a bit more difficult like do people have adequate fonts to read their language or is it easy for people to enter texts from a keyboard.

By looking for knowledgeable people who can support their language and by concentrating on standards and fonts and keyboard methods, the use of gender, plural. We seek to improve the content of standards and after some delay we will be implementing those standards. Providing a best practice that makes a difference to any and all.

For people who support an application by working on its localisation; we work hard to make translatewiki.net as good as we can. We actively share our knowledge with other freely licensed applications. People who localise are the real heroes; their work is the most effective usability improvement available to anyone who does not know the original language of an application. Even English readers benefit; in order to localise a text, the text has to be understandable.

So yes, you are not only welcome, you are very much needed. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 15:05, 16 October 2011 (UTC)