Do we need English to guarantee the Honor Code?

Question

In November, Chris posted about diversity in WikiTree. One of its answers alerted us to the tragic end of the Netherlands Project and generated discussion about multilingualism on WikiTree. In particular, it was demonstrated that, thanks to automatic online translation, we are not restricted to English in order to monitor that the tenets of the Honor Code are adhered to. Agreement came from project level members representing a variety of national backgrounds. I‘m curious to know: Has the WikiTree Leadership Team initiated a change in policy to allow the use of any major language, even in conflict resolution?

In the hope to avoid the pitfalls of monocultural cul-de-sacs in the future, respectfully,

Oliver (Stegen-15)

Comments

Een mooi voorbeeld van een nieuwe naar alle waarschijnlijkheid doodlopende straat is het optuigen van een "Global project" voor alle landen ter wereld, met volledig Engelstalig leiderschap. Het loopt allesbehalve storm met aanmeldingen. Het ergste valt te vrezen.

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Thank you for raising this, Oliver.

It is a difficult question, not least because automatic translation may be inadequate for the subtleties involved. (For example, Google Translate renders Sjaak's sentence "Het loopt allesbehalve storm met aanmeldingen" as "It's anything but a storm with registrations", which is not meaningful English.)

Perhaps an eventual way forward would be for the group which handles conflicts in WikiTree to be augmented with people who have a variety of native languages other than English.

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@Sjaak Vielen Dank für das herrliche Beispiel einer kulturspezifischen Reaktion auf Monokulturalismus! Wenn es um Umgang mit Kritik geht, werden die wenigsten Anglophonen die Niederländer, Friesen und Norddeutschen verstehen. Briten und Amerikaner ganz bestimmt nicht; vielleicht am ehesten noch Australier :)

Was wäre das doch für eine entspannte Welt, wenn wir wegen Ironie, Satire oder Parodien nicht mehr oder wenigstens weniger angefeindet und missverstanden würden ...

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@Jim Thanks for your reaction! "It's anything but a storm with registrations" is meaningful English to me! But that's not the point. I don't think that "automatic translation may be inadequate for the subtleties involved" is actually accurate. It has much more to do with how statements, regardless of in which language, are interpreted.

Tenet IV of the Honor Code says "We know misunderstandings are inevitable. We try to minimize them by being courteous to everyone, even those who don't act accordingly." And then there are more explanations about courtesy, including: "Do not be quick to take offense. WikiTree is a multinational website, and different cultures express their thoughts differently. What is rude in one culture is perfectly normal to another. And keep in mind that English may not be the other person's first language. Also, remember that the other person, regardless of their native culture and language, may not be a good writer; they may not be good at expressing themselves clearly."

I don't think that this anglocentric stance is worthy of a multinational organization. If English mothertongue speakers are encouraged to take into account the insufficiency of the other's English and the differences of the other's cultural expressions, they could just as well apply this to the automatic translation of the other's statement in the language that s/he is most comfortable in. As it stands right now, many WikiTree'ers are forced to resort to a language that feels foreign to them. (I'm not a good example as my family is actually bilingual German/English.)

I have been working in a multinational organization for 30+ years. When I joined in 1990, everything was English-speaking and the leadership was almost exclusively US American. But in the mid 1990s, the leadership realized that cultural and linguistic differences cannot be handled by communicating in English only. The effort to make the use of multiple languages possible has been appreciated immensely by non-English speakers and has resulted in an exponential growth of our organization's endeavours. It may feel like giving up control but if our goal is global, the expansion into multilingualism and -culturalism is definitely worth it (some might even say inevitable).

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Oliver, I agree fully that speakers of other languages should not be forced to write in English for the convenience of English speakers. But I think it would be a serious mistake to rely on automatic translation to convey tone or level of (dis)courtesy from one language to another accurately.

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Oliver, Jim, Sjaak,

Ich habe angst, ik ben bang, I fear to react on your comments. Because I’ve promised my last Mentor who guided my MIR process to stay away from G2G and not to react on anything that could cause any Wikitree Member or Team member to flag my reaction as not following the honor code.

However in the end misunderstanding and cultural differences, together with suspicion and the loss of control by several teams had lead to the downfall of the Netherlands project. And Sjaak, having a native speaker as a project leader isn’t always a guarantee for success also. See the same example in the Netherlands project. It’s barely alive and there’s not really someone who’s guarding our Dutch roots cultural heritage, like sticking to Dutch naming convention. Or explaining why we always use maiden name for married woman.

I’m trying not to care about it to much and do whatever I always did but now without the project. For me personally that means a lot less stress.

I wish you all the luck with the multi language struggle and the problems that this causes within a multi language platform. (And I can see this struggle every day having to work with people from UK, India, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. Being able to speak and write English, doesn’t mean we get the finesses of reading between the lines of a conversation. And Google or Deepl translations can never translate that.

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Jim, Margreet,

of course, automatic translation can neither "convey tone or level of (dis)courtesy from one language to another accurately" nor "get the finesses of reading between the lines of a conversation". I don't believe that most humans are able to do that accurately. But then, imho, courtesy is much more about giving each other the benefit of the doubt than flagging anyone's reactions as not following the Honor Code.

I am on the autism spectrum which really helps not to bother about suspicion or control. Neither are conducive to multicultural collaboration. So, I wouldn't want to throw the courtesy tenet out of the Honor Code, but I would wish that people wouldn't use it to clobber each other over the head. The Honor Code has already established that what is courteous in one culture may be rude in another. So don't interpret or (over-)analyse! To me, it would be courteous if everyone could use their own prefered language. Anyone can then use automatic translation to get the general gist of what was written - and hopefully throw any suspicion about (dis)courtesy out of the window ...

My application for policy change remains standing: Open up WikiTree for truly multilingual usage at all levels!

Answer 1

There's an Italian phrase known to people who do translation:  Traditore traduttore , which translates as Traitor translator according to Google translate. (ot the other way around) 

Basically, translation is treacherous, as some words that exist in one language don't exist in another, so one has to go with a closest approximation.  To give you an example from English to French, the word like does not exist in French.  So what is used is the word love 's translation, aimer. One then adds a qualifier to moderate the depth, ie j'aime bien, j'aime un peu, j'aime beaucoup (like it well, like it a bit, like it a lot).  One has to know the context to correctly render it, and even then, it's easy to miss nuances in a large text.

Comments

I know the Italian proverb Traduttore traditore very well as I have been working for a major international translation organization as a linguistic consultant for many years. While the proverb is often misunderstood as disparaging the work of translators and interpreters, it can just as well be taken as a criticism of popular misunderstandings of what translation means - as you, Danielle, seem to have tried to show with your English-French examples.

But look at it this way: When two people with different mothertongues try to communicate, translation is inevitable. If a "common language" is prescribed for communication, it forces everyone, whose mothertongue is a different language, to translate what they want to say into that language, resulting in "treacherous expressions" even before an interpretation of that person‘s statements has been done. This is what currently happens at WikiTree: many people feel that they have to communicate in English, i.e. every non-English speaker is disadvantaged here. By contrast, if everyone could use their own preferred language, then every speaker / writer would feel comfortable in expressing themselves, and the disadvantage of "treacherous translation" would be evenly distributed across all listeners / readers, regardless of their mothertongue. For example, an originally Spanish statement could then be translated into German, French, Tagalog, Afrikaans, etc. with the help of automatic translation which is sufficient to get the general gist.

Now, for literary translation, e.g. of the Bible, or of other works of art like Lord of the Rings, I would never suggest automatic translation. However, for everyday human interaction like we have among genealogists on this forum, we do not need the high standards of literary translation.

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Oliver, it's not a criticism but an example of a word that doesn't exist in one language, so translating it from another language can get convoluted.  And I personally find automated translations leave a lot to be desired.  Particularly if a person uses local vernacular or bad grammar etc.  Then things can really get confused.

Answer 2

In terms of conflict resolution, members are already able to communicate with their Mentor in their preferred language. We have several volunteer Mentors who speak languages other than English, or members can just rely on translation tools to communicate back and forth with an English speaking Mentor. Anyone being mentored is also able to ask for a different Mentor if they’re having trouble communicating or having trouble working with their Mentor.

I would love to see the main UI of the website be offered in multiple languages, to make the site more welcoming to more people. This would help us get the multilingual volunteers we'd need to make the rest of the site more multilingual. It sounds like this is probably a while away still though. But there is nothing really stopping people from working in other languages right now—people can (and do) write biographies in other languages and post in G2G in other languages, and several help pages are offered in a few different major languages.

Comments

Valerie, of course, different languages can be used on WikiTree even now. But then, why was the Netherlands Project required to abandon Dutch for their public discussions and use English instead?

I don’t believe that offering multiple languages for certain aspects of our beloved WikiTree platform will actually resolve the linguistic imbalance. As I demonstrated in my first comment to Danielle‘s answer above, currently all English speakers are advantaged whereas all non-English speakers are disadvantaged -  "treacherous translation" is actually not avoided but simply shifted to non-English speakers, leading to a false impression on the side of English speakers that communication is generally working. Allowing every speaker‘s preferred language, and then relying on automatic translation on the side of every listener / reader, would actually adhere to the tenet of courtesy of our Honor Code, specifically the admonition to keep in mind that "different cultures express their thoughts differently". Forcing every non-English speaker to first translate what they want to say into English does, as I see it, a disservice to our community‘s interaction and understanding.

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But then, why was the Netherlands Project required to abandon Dutch for their public discussions and use English instead?

Can you provide an example of this? To my knowledge, this never happened.

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Good to hear thank you, Steven. If it was interpreted that there have been suggestions to the contrary, it would not be fair to draw attention to them, as the people involved may be unable to comment.

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Not sure what you, Jim, meant with your allusions. Still, in the hope that my German background doesn’t cross any line by being more explicit now:

I based my perception on the discussion within Chris’ post of last November which I linked to in the original question above. However, it has been stated that some of those involved are in a mentoring program and shouldn‘t talk about the incident. If you are in love with genealogy at WikiTree but are being disciplined because of some perceived breach of conduct, you wouldn‘t want to lose WT membership and therewith access to your achievements, so it may indeed be better to let the past rest …

That being said, it is also to be hoped that certain incidents of cultural clashes won’t set any precedent but will lead to learning from past mistakes for the good of genealogy worldwide.

Answer 3

After having explained my position in the comments to the first two answers to this question, I hope to hear from members of the WikiTree team on the issue:

I don‘t understand why using English would be fairer and more advantageous for everyone over against using anyone’s preferred and most comfortable language plus automatic translation. Why? Please consider and discuss changing WikiTree‘s current language policy in order to address the current linguistic imbalance.

Comments

Oliver, you have heard. What "current language policy" are you talking about? Jamie Nelson from the Team has made it clear that languages other than English are allowed on G2G and in profile biographies.

What happened with the Netherlands project may have been an exception to this, though the details are not clear. Hopefully it did not set a precedent.

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There isn't anything in current policy requiring English. But if it's felt that Jamie's comments assuring that languages other than English are allowed should be formalised as policy, one possible way of presenting an initial draft for a change proposal could be as follows:

Insert the following at the end of the preamble to Help:Discussion Rules, before rule 1:

Nothing in these rules restricts the language in which posts on G2G or other official WikiTree forums, profile comments, and texts for biographies are written. WikiTree is international, and all languages are welcome. In cases where questions arise about whether the discussion rules or other WikiTree standards have been satisfied, advice from other native speakers of the language of the post or comment, in conjunction with automatic translation, may be used to assist analysis.

Edit: add link; correct grammar. 

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Jim, thank you for correcting my lopsided perception! Which brings to my mind a quote from Kurt Tucholsky: "Toleranz ist der Verdacht, dass der andere Recht hat." (And I suspect that the online translation "Tolerance is the suspicion that the other person is right." is correct.)

Now, I also hope that the Dutch incident (whatever happened there) didn't set a precedent.

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Jim, I appreciate your draft of a change proposal. May I ask you to initiate or submit it? You seem to be much more familiar with the process. At this stage, while seeing the need to make your suggested addition to the preamble, I feel a bit overwhelmed with initiating it myself.

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Thanks very much Oliver. I will be happy to submit a change proposal on this in a few days. I have another proposal running at present, and would like first to let activity on that stabilise, rather than having two running concurrently. If it's ok with you, I will mention your name and refer to this thread when I make the new proposal.

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Jim, of course. One at a time :) And yes, please mention my name and refer to this thread. I plan to make supporting comments on the proposal once you've initiated it. Many thanks!!!

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Jim, it was just reported to me that the program demanded that ''Unknown'' be used rather than ''Inconnu'' as LNAB, on a profile of a child whose parentage is unknown, she got baptised with just given name.  Nobody ever came forward to claim her either from all evidence.  Totally French-Canadian profile, not English.  So somebody is applying some sort of unilingual criterion here.

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"Unknown" is a marker in the database which needs to be unique for technical reasons, so it can be handled specially by the software. "UNKNOWN" is English, but that is not recommended as LNAB either. This is different from forum discussions or profile comments, where there is no technical restriction on what language can be used.

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This is what the program threw up per report received:

You entered "Inconnu" as the Last Name at Birth. If you don't know the person's last name at birth, please use "Unknown"

I beg to differ that this is different from this discussion, it illustrates an issue that is language related.  The program obviously recognized Inconnu as being the same as Unknown, just not in English.

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We need to proceed one step at a time, Danielle. Putting too broad a change proposal risks the whole thing failing. If you want the issue you raise addressed, please make a separate change proposal or technical improvement request.

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Done deed Jim.

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Thanks Danielle. I see your post is at this link.