Talk:Internationalization and localization

Jmabel's article outside Wikipedia

I know it's tacky to add links to one's own site in Wikipedia articles, so I'm drawing attention to it here on the talk page and asking that someone else consider adding it to the list of external links: Internationalization and Localization. I think it's a stronger introduction to the topic than the current Wikipedia article. Wikipedia also has my permission to quote extensively from my article, as long as the original is credited (basically, I'm intending to give a permission equivalent to GFDL; if there is something more I need to do, someone should let me know). -- Jmabel 23:59, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

I agree the text you wrote is better than the current article, which is primarily based on my contribution. If you don't mind we can start a new article from materials of your papers. (It's quick way to have a better article.) In any case, if you give GFDL, then we can just reuse your text just like open source program code. -- Taku 00:35, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

Yes, fine. I've noticed that despite being GFDL itself, Wikipedia rarely uses other GFDL material. Consider this GFDL permission; please be as careful to correctly handle my copyright+GFDL as Wikipedia expects others to be about Wikipedia's copyright+GFDL.

Let me know when you're done editing what's in my paper into Wikpedia style. Wikipedia is generally open to some more technical content than I thought was appropriate to that paper, and I'll gladly add some more specifically technical considerations to the Wikipedia article as additional sections. -- Jmabel 03:54, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)

I just want to point out that despite the praise, no one has taken me up on this, not even to the point of linking to my page. Again, I think it would be tacky for me to add the link myself (I feel weird enough about mentioning it again) but I really do believe it's a first-rate resource I created. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:36, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

Jmabel, I praise you writing that page :) I have looked at it now (3 years after your post) and it appears that all material from your page has been replaced by info from other sources, so there is no longer need to add a link as a source. Also, it would be tricky to add it as external link even if it's a good resource, since there have been efforts to delete all external links including, among other, KDE guidelines. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:56, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Title

I think the current article, and probably the above essay too, is a bit to software-centric. Internationalization and localization have existed for at least 100 years, and yet the article deals with the topic from a software-engineering standpoint through-out. Of courrse, my expertise also lies in software engineering, so I'm unable to contribute a different point of view, but perhaps someoen else can. — David Remahl 04:42, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC) I agree. when i came to this page, I hoped to find some of what can be found on the Globalization page. I think this article should try and focus on the wider meaning of the word, software really is not what 90% of the world population associates with the term. TrACE666 21:39, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Then what do you propose as a title for the current material? "Internationalization and localization" is a standard term in the software industry. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:17, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

i18n

"Internationalization is often abbreviated as I18N (or i18n or I18n), by IBM and others, where the number 18 refers to the number of letters omitted."

After some basic counting, it was revealed to me that only 16 letters are omitted in this abbreviation, 18 being the number of letters in the whole word. However, in the next example (l10n), 10 letters are omitted. This needs to be clarified somehow. [[User:Livajo|力伟|т]] 17:02, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

So does "basic" counting mean "in base twelve"? Yes, there are 18 letters. Assuming we write all our numbers in base 10. -- Jmabel 19:16, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

Learn to count. I am splitting "the inside" of internationalization in groups of 3: [i nte rna tio nal iza tio n]. 6 groups * 3 chars in group = 18 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.6.160.92 (talk • contribs) 14 Jan 2006.

This discussion of i18n is really diversionary - moved to the end of the article - people surely want to read about the concept, not some discussion of l33t ways of spelling this terms. Dunxd 14:05, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

While I find this to be a6g j4n—that's "annoying jargon" to us humans—it is pervasive, especially i18n. 40,800,000 Google hits and, as you can quickly see, at least the first several dozen are pretty much all on-topic; just arbitrarily, I looked at numbers 201-220, and those were, too. - Jmabel | Talk 06:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Commercial link

I cut the link Quick Translation Service. It looks commercial. It also looks not terribly useful in the current state of that site. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:23, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

Is this not against MoS policy?

The first words of the article were recently changed from "Internationalization and localization" to "Internationalization (or internationalisation) and localization (or localisation)". Given that no human being could possibly understand one of these spellings and fail to understand the other, and given Wikipedia's relatively laissez faire policy about which dialect of English is used for any given article, isn't this counter to the Manual of Style? -- Jmabel | Talk 04:56, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

I agree, and will revert the changes. Seriously, people, it's not that big a deal. Meelar (talk) 05:04, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

I agree also. Maurreen 02:55, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree. My eyes go all funny when I see all the 'z's instead of the 's's. Is there no way we can make everyone happy? Sjetha 14:44, 08 Jun 2006 (UTC)

Modify the wikipedia software to cope with language dialects? --Paulmorriss 15:18, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Michael Kaplan

I'm happily amused to see Michael Kaplan's blog added to the list of external links. My current contract job is with the same group he works in. One sharp guy, knows i18n about as well as anyone, and is unafraid to write (publicly!) even about shortcomings of his own employer's software. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:43, August 5, 2005 (UTC)

locale

Shall I remove the merge tag from locale? We can expand more on the various locales (ICU, glibc, bsd,etc.,), while a para about what locales is enough here. pamri 07:13, August 16, 2005 (UTC)

• I think so. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:38, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

internationalization != localization

The difference between these two concepts is not simply understood by considering their literal meanings, but the approaches and practices that go into enabling a particular product for internationalization or localization. Internationalization is a process that is vastly different from localization. Internationlization includes processes and practices make a product or a service compatible or acceptable in majority of countries and economies. Adding local lingo support or local policy support is not an example of internationalization. Internationalization and localization are different concepts and more often than not in contradiction with each other. The article on internationalization deal primarily with software development where the procedures to internationalize a software are often the same as the processes to localize it. The intent and philosphy behind these concepts is nevertheless, quite different and any overlap that occurs like in the case of software, should be taken as an exceptional circumstance and not be generalized. Therefore, in my opinion the localization and internationalization pages should not be merged. Rather they should be expanded to explain the difference between the two ideas. Regards, Samarth (9 Sept 2005)

Bibliography: Internationalization of the firm

Somebody went to the trouble of making a section/bibliography "Internationalization of the firm", but I don't think it belomgs in the entry, so I'm moving it here -- 200.141.105.210 16:34, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

User Winter apparently aka User:Pilotguy posted to me -- "Regarding Internationalization and localization the bibliography should stay on the main page, since that is where most users will see it."

-- (I replied on his Talk page) -- I really do not agree. I don't think it's appropriate to have long bibliographies like this in Wikipedia articles (except for bibiographies of sources actually cited in the entries, of course). On the other hand, I'm not going to fight with you about this, since Internationalization and localization isn't a topic that I have any special interest in. I will, however, post a copy of this note to Talk:Internationalization_and_localization, in case anyone else there wants to discuss this further. Happy editing to you! -- 200.141.105.210 16:47, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Internationalization of the firm

A sphere of literature in management science focuses on the process of internationalization of the firm.

The internationalization process (Johanson & Vahlne, 1977; Davidson, 1983; Kayna & Dalgic, 1992; Andersen, 1993; Eriksson, Johanson, Majkgard, & Sharma, 1997; Erramilli, Agarwal, & Dev, 2002) involves the accumulation of strategies, intangible assets, experiential knowledge, learning, and capabilities across foreign markets (London & Hart, 2004; Rugman & Verbeke, 2004; Hoskisson et. al., 2000; Chang, 1995; Delios & Beamish, 2001; Craig & Douglas, 1995).

Andersen, O. (1993) On the internationalization process of firms: a critical analysis. Journal of International Business Studies 24, 209-232.

Chang, S.J. (1995) International expansion strategy of Japanese firms: Capability building through sequential entry. Academy of Management Journal 38, 383-408.

Craig, C.S. and Douglas, S.P. (1996) Developing strategies for global markets: an evolutionary perspective. Columbia Journal of World Business 31, 70-82.

Davidson, W.H. (1983) Market similarity and market selection: Implications for international marketing strategy. Journal of Business Research 11, 439-456.

Delios, A. and Beamish, P.W. (2001) Survival and Profitability: The Roles of Experience and Intangible Assets in Foreign Subsidiary Performance. Academy of Management Journal 44 1028-1039.

Eriksson, K., Johanson, J., Majkgard, A. and Sharma, D. (1997) Experiential Knowledge and Cost in the Internationalization Process. Journal of International Business Studies 28, 337-360.

Erramilli, M.K., Agarwal, S,. and Dev, C. (2002), Choice of Non-Equity Modes: An Organizational Capability Perspective. Journal of International Business Studies, 33, 223-242.

Hoskisson, R.E., Eden, L., Lau, C.M. and Wright, M. (2000) Strategy in emerging economies. Academy of Management Journal 43, 249-258.

Johanson, J. and Vahlne, J.E. (1977) The interantionalization process of the firm: A model of knowledge development and increasing foreign market commitments. Journal of International Business Studies 8 23-32.

Kayna, E. and Dalgic, T. (1992) Internationalization of Turkish construction companies: a lesson for third world countries? Columbia Journal of World Business 26, 60-76.

London, T. and Hart, S.L. (2004) Reinventing strategies for emerging markets: beyond the transnational model. Journal of International Business Studies 35, 350-371.

Rugman, A.M. and Verbeke, A. (2004) A perspective on regional and global strategies of multinational enterprises. Journal of International Business Studies 35, 3-19.

---

Profanity?

Focal points of internationalization and localization efforts include:

(...)

   * Profanity

What's does this mean? Translation of swear words? It looks like a piece of vandalism to me, but maybe I've misunderstood something... :-)
-- Steverwanda | Talk 16:06, Jan 26, 2006 (CAT)

I doubt that it is vandalism, but it could probably be spelled out. There have, in the past, been cases where an effort at translation or at porting software has accidentally resulted in culturally offensive images. Images of hand-gestures are particularly susceptible to this. - Jmabel | Talk 22:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

NLSO

Seems to me like we now have an awful lot about NLSO, especially because it is a project that has not yet released a product. It reads to me a little like promo. I don't necessarily object to it being there, but if we are going to describe a proposed system in such detail, shouldn't we have comparable coverage of existing systems, such as those currently shipping from Microsoft? - Jmabel | Talk 02:20, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the mention of NLSO is ridiculous. Nothing is using this system, and it appears to be the ramblings of one guy (who also added all the information to Wikipedia), who has released nothing useful, and likes to spell Microsoft with a "$". I'm going to remove the information. If Microsoft does have a (working, interesting) i18n/l10n system that doesn't fit into the methods currently described in the article, please do add them. piman 20:39, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

A bit too American Centric? Why not Global Design?

Hi...Just to comment that overall, this article appears to be a bit too American centric to me and the article text itself isn't 'internationalized.'

It's important to remember that Wikipedia is used Worldwide. The examples in much of this text relates in a uni-directional manner and does not appear to take into account the diversity of the English-speaking world. I exclude other languages for now only that I have only read this in English.

Where is the discussion on Simplified English? Why use contorted abbreviations with letters and numbers combined as a form of acronym that isn't even a proper acronym? This is not easy for a non-native English speaking person to decipher (for that matter as we've seen in some of the other discussion - English speaking people). It appears to me totally inappropriate to talk about this concept without keeping in the mind the global audience to which it is intended.

For that matter, it seems to me the whole notion of internationalization (in the context of these articles) begins with the fact that you create something - then DO something to it. I quote "Internationalization and localization1 are means of adapting products such as publications or software for non-native environments." Why not talk about "Global Design - the means by which you consider global implications of a publication or software for non-native environments." Or,the premise that before you put any paper to pen (or fingers to keyboard) you consider that it will be a solution designed for:

- a single language audience worldwide. - easy translation. - localization.

I understand this as a bit of symantics, but I think the nuance is important. Internationalization implies you do something later in the process than saying we are creating with a blank sheet of paper and we are going to do a 'global design' from the outset

Otherwise, it is good to have many of these well-understood concepts documented in one place. There are more we can add, though. —This unsigned comment was added by Craig Yetter (talk • contribs) 24 March 2006.

I think some of your points are well taken. On the other hand, i18n, etc., are simply common terms used in the industry; we can't ignore them. - Jmabel | Talk 06:23, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with this latter point. It may be "silly" to do this kind of abbreviation - especially "r3h" - but it is a fact of life. It's not like the author of the article made it up. Besides, it has a quite understandable basis: for those working in the field, it is unbelievably tedious to constantly write out "internationalization," etc. I18N became a natural abbreviation. I also agree that eschewing "internationalization" in favor of "global design" *might* be a good exchange in the long run; but only if it became common usage. It seems to me that wikipedia is not here to push new expressions on people, but rather to capture existing practice: descriptive, not prescriptive. It thus seems reasonable, if the term "Global design" is indeed in use in a number of places, to mention it; but from what I've seen, "internationalization" is still the generally-accepted term, and not using it because you don't like its implications does not seem like the right thing to do. fool4jesus 14:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This sentence stood out to me as written with a very US-centric worldview / grasp of English: "In some regions outside of the United States, the spelling variants internationalisation and localisation are more common." This spelling is common primarily to the US, but defines the rest of the world as being "outside of the U.S.". Xurizaemon 22:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

So why not just fix it rather than complaining about it? It doesn't seem so bad to me, but if you think another way of stating it would be more culturally sensitive or something, why not just change it? I seriously doubt the original writer was being intentionally US-centric, and I doubt anybody would mind being it being changed, as long as no information is removed. fool4jesus 14:30, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

External links

I removed a lot of external links that were either about localizing a specific piece of software, a specific piece of localization software, or were basically ads for localization services. But I think there's still too many, e.g. RFC 3490 should probably be in the Punycode article rather than here (and this article should reference Punycode). piman 19:08, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

There are, indeed way too many external links, including the ones embedded in the paragraph that begins "New methods are evolving all the time…" Does someone want to go on a search and destroy mission? - Jmabel | Talk 07:33, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, since the last 10 edits were external links additions, and no one seems to have cleaned it up recently I've cleaned it up by the oldfashioned method of wholesale nuking. No external links -> no linkspam :-). I saw no links that the article absolutely couldn't do without. Henrik 17:46, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Making this software-centric again

The article has lost focus. It rambles on about all sorts of unrelated things now. We should split the non-software stuff off to another article where it can't just be deleted (like the stuff about globalisation can). Chris Cunningham 10:32, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

No reply in a month. I've started on this. Chris Cunningham 14:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Trademarks

One other item that often is not internationalised properly: trademarks. There are too many sites out there asking for "ZIP code" in postal addresses. ZIP^™, ZIP+4^™ and Zone Improvement Program^™ are USPS trademarks, therefore these terms are meaningless on non-US addresses. Basically, they mean zip to anyone else. Rien. Nada. If you mean postal code, like say so, eh? --carlb (talk) 14:19, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Adding section removed for "Difficulties"

I'm undeleting the section on technical difficulties related to poorly written and incomplete standards related to internationalization and localization. It's wholly appropriate to the "difficulties" section and completely on topic. Perhaps it needs wordsmithing - be my guest - but it's appropriate and properly cited. Please discuss. Your thoughts? MickeyWiki (talk) 22:26, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Please discuss before cutting large sections

Stagalj - please join us in the discussion before removing large sections. You've made a number of cuts which, it seems to me, were relevant and on-topic. The whole article probably needs wordsmithing from top to bottom, but, please, let's not cut out pertinent information. Let's simply rework the existing content to make it better. Your thoughts? MickeyWiki (talk) 22:33, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I do not think that the reference used to support the 'standards problems' are related directly to this subject. What I see in the reference - is just a list of the how-to-do problems - which shall be kept out of this subject. I am a professional with considerable experience in internationalizing many web applications and I find this paragraph meaningless.--Stagalj (talk) 02:36, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. i don't think that deleted material will be missed; it was mostly unsourced commentary, or duplication of existing sections. Chris Cunningham (talk) 12:12, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we need to get into comparing resumes. I've built internationalized apps for 7 years up until 2005, so my input has at least as much merit as anyone's. The cited article, in its entirety, is about constructing an app - yes. But it directly addresses lapses in the HTML and HTTP standards (as well as the lack of browser standards). It's the source material for the paragraph. This article brought together a lot of the loose ends that had me stymied at one point. It's an important facet on the subject of internationalization and localization.

This entire article is almost completely uncited. Can we please add *something* that's verifiable? If you're gung-ho about improving the content, add citations. As it is now, it's just an editorial.MickeyWiki (talk) 21:15, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup

I renamed Methods into Practice and moved it above Difficulties. Also, removed completely

"In making software products, internationalization and localization pose challenging tasks for developers, particularly if the software is not designed from the beginning with these concerns in mind. A common practice is to separate textual data and other environment-dependent resources from the program code. Thus, supporting a different environment, ideally, only requires change in those separate resources without code modification, greatly simplifying the task."

from Difficulties for the reason that the first sentence does not sound informative at all. Content of the next two sentences is already in the Practice.--Stagalj (talk) 22:43, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

muegge's external link

Regarding the addition [1], deletion [2], restoration [3], deletion for second time [4] and more that probable restoration of the link to Uwe Muegge's website.

On favour of its inclusion of the article:

• it could be included per to be considered 4) "Sites which fail to meet criteria for reliable sources yet still contain information about the subject of the article from knowledgeable sources.",

Against its inclusion:

• does not appear to have info related to the article theme. It contains information especific to controlled natural language. (please indicate the location of this material if I am wrong)

• it is already linked on controlled natural language and as source for a paragraph there

• controlled nature language is linked right there, so anyone really interesed on it can just click on it and read that article and its long list of links including Uge Muegge's.

• duplication of links. The first addition added the controlled natural language link, which was preserved on the link deletion, untouched on the re-addition, and I have also preserved. The article relevant to the topic and contains already a link to Uwe Muegge's website, so why add both the article and a link that appears on that article?.

• per [Wikipedia external links guidelines, links to be avoided section] 1) it's not an unique resource for Internationalization and localization (but it could be one for the controlled natural language article) 2) unverifiable research (while its content appears to be correct, I couldn't find that he gave any verifiable sources for it. If you know where it is please tell here so we can link to it instead of linking to the main page) 4) it's to promote the website 5) it's to promote a product (CLOUT) 6) too many ads, about 19 text ads on each page (3 google ads blocks with 5 ads each and 1 block with 4 small ads) 12) it's a personal web page, and Uwe Muegge is not a recognized authority on Internationalization and localization (but he could be one for controlled natural language) 14) not directly related to the article topic

• (note: this point is all speculation by me and not a proof or accussation of anything) possible conflict of interest WP:COI. All [contributions from 144.15.11.131] are to Uwe Muegge article, so I suspec it's a person very related to him (but not Uwe himself, since User:Uwe_Muegge already exists). That IP seems to belong to User:Autoterm because of the way they correct the article on the same ways, reposting the link [5] [6] but that's just speculation. If they are the same person, then the same person added the link twice. I left a message Autoterm's talk page to look at this post.

Finally, link to Uwe Muegge also belongs to controlled natural language and not here since he seems to specialize on that topic. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:57, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

One of the problems with this article is the absence of references. So if you say that the new approach of avoiding references to history and culture etc. and using a controlled language is relevant, and I haven't heard anyone disputing that, then the reference is not only relevant, too, it is absolutely required. Autoterm (talk) 14:37, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

The text does not provide any "references". it adds a few more wikilinks, but there already are a couple of wikilinks. The real references are at the bottom and cover the entire article. Wrs1864 (talk) 14:45, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

True, there is a lack of formal references in this article. Added one to meet this requirement. Autoterm (talk) 16:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)