Translations
Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2010 7:22 pm
At least one of my servers has lots of European players; while I know a few languages, I certainly don't know all that I would need to understand everyone. It'd be nice to tie in some (free, available) web services to do translation.
One possible problem is language identification (though players could have an associated language). Several of my admins speak several languages, so they may be sending out messages in any of a number of tongues; it'd be nice to detect German, Romanian, Italian, Spanish, etc. somewhat automatically (this could be as simple as keyword identification). Then, a call out to a web service such as Babelfish, or any of a number of similar translators, could return the message in my preferred language (English), or of course in anyone's preferred language.
Translations don't have to be perfect; but I think machine translation would be quite good, given the simple message phrases (e.g., "Where's that ST got to?", "I have to go now, be back in an hour", "What key do I use to show scores?", etc.). It isn't literature, and even if some of it is (the humor, sometimes), even a rough translation will convey the general topic.
While it sounds like I'm suggesting this just for my convenience, that's not it, really; I think opening up the game to nearly seamless access for speakers of a variety of languages would expand the user community, and make it more fun for all concerned.
One possible problem is language identification (though players could have an associated language). Several of my admins speak several languages, so they may be sending out messages in any of a number of tongues; it'd be nice to detect German, Romanian, Italian, Spanish, etc. somewhat automatically (this could be as simple as keyword identification). Then, a call out to a web service such as Babelfish, or any of a number of similar translators, could return the message in my preferred language (English), or of course in anyone's preferred language.
Translations don't have to be perfect; but I think machine translation would be quite good, given the simple message phrases (e.g., "Where's that ST got to?", "I have to go now, be back in an hour", "What key do I use to show scores?", etc.). It isn't literature, and even if some of it is (the humor, sometimes), even a rough translation will convey the general topic.
While it sounds like I'm suggesting this just for my convenience, that's not it, really; I think opening up the game to nearly seamless access for speakers of a variety of languages would expand the user community, and make it more fun for all concerned.