RE: translation Circus

Hi all.
 
I feel non-native speakers can occasionally do a good job of a translation--if they are really familiar with the language and if they take the trouble to carefully proofread their work.
 
I note errors even in translations by native speakers (due to the haste; "Haste makes waste"--that's one of the many old proverbs that still makes sense today).
 
I do grasp the importance of translations into non-Western languages--otherwise the w3c might show a Western bias.  Also into minority languages.
 
English is a major lengua franca but it is not the only language in use.
 
 
But yes, translations should be made from originals, and not from others' translations, I agree.  Perhaps the w3c should specify this in its policy.
 
And yes, the translations need proofreaders too.
 
Care to do any proofreading of any, Gareth?  Or anyone?  
 
That is what is missing, perhaps:  there are "too many Chiefs and too few Indians"  (another saying from my childhood; which means, no one to do the dirty work, the hard work, nobody to follow order; but I am using it here to mean too many people who put their name on a translation and too few that check work--their own or others perhaps; sorry I've not proofread any translations in a while; I've not had that kind of computer access: I can only proofread English, French, and links anyway; maybe also a bit of Spanish).
 
(I note authors/translators can & should proofread their own work--but alas, when you have a freshly created document, the creater reads it as he/she thinks it should be not as it actually is, and thus, it seems o.k. when it is not; so sometimes you have to lay a document aside for a month or more to proofread it when it is your own; otherwise, you need a second reader.)
 
Best,
 
--C. E. Whitehead
cewcathar@hotmail.com
 
P.S.  I welcome proofreaders to my translation of Dave Raggett's "Advanced HTML" (http://www.geocities.com/quaiouestenglish/Creezunhabitatweb ); think I got it nearly perfect and readable in French, but maybe there is some error left). 

Good evening everyone here at w3c translations,
 
As a long time supporter of the W3C project I would like to voice my opinion regarding the 
quality of some of the translations being prodiced here on the forum.
 
What was supposed to be a good idea ist turning into a fiasco of link hungry webmasters posing as
translators who are translating documents no one really wants or needs. It is certainly helpfull to
be able to read these Documents in French, Dutch, German. Greek, Russian, Cinese or Japanese but
I fail to grasp the importancy of translating documents into languages like Turmen, Uzbek, Azerbajan,
Kazakh, Belarussian, Ukrainian, Estonian, Latvian, Tatar, Georgian or even Armenian. 
Imagine Indian webmasters translating these documents into some of the 50 different dialects of Tamil or Sanskrit
or how about our fellow Chinese webmasters translation their chines documents into Shangjainese or Taiwanese.
 
My question is, where will W3c draw the line?
 
The Turkish translation below is just one of the results of people translating documents into languages they are not familiar with.
This document was clearly translated into Turkish from a Russian translation which is spoiling the high standard of work required by W3C
in order to produce quality translations.
 
Wouldnt it be much wiser to allow ONLY native speakers to translate documents for W3C instead of people producing translations
which they cant read themselves? Maybe W3c should start only allowing main languages instead of sub-divisions of these languages like the 
many Russian dialects as mentioned above. 
 
Whatever the outcome I wish you all a happy new year
 
Gareth