- From: Ed Trager <ed.trager@gmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 6 May 2009 10:34:56 -0400
- To: Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org>
- Cc: www-international@w3.org
Hi, Richard, Good question. I was actually referring to geolocation guesstimation based on IP address as provided by services like geoPlugin.com and others. Since I am primarily interested in using geolocation in order to refine localization options, knowing location at the resolution of country or province within country is probably sufficient for what I want to be able to do. Best - Ed 2009/5/6 Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org>: > Ed, > > When you say 'geolocation' do you mean looking up GPS coordinates by the user allowing an application to post their current position based on satellite fixes, or identification of location based on IP address? > > RI > > ============ > Richard Ishida > Internationalization Lead > W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) > > http://www.w3.org/International/ > http://rishida.net/ > > > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Ed Trager [mailto:ed.trager@gmail.com] >> Sent: 30 April 2009 15:46 >> To: Richard Ishida >> Cc: w3c-translators@w3.org; www-international@w3.org >> Subject: Re: New translation: 使用<select>鏈結到本地化內容 >> >> Thanks, Richard, for pointing out this resource. >> >> I also would like to make a few comments using the English source >> document as a reference: >> >> > *Fonts* You must also think about whether the reader will have fonts to >> display this range of scripts. >> > Be aware that a Web user in France, for example, may see empty boxes in >> place of the Japanese >> > text while a user in Japan will see the text just fine. This is because the fonts >> available on the >> > French user's system may not contain Japanese glyphs. One could argue >> that this is not too >> > important, since French users don't need to be able to read the Japanese. >> On the other hand, >> > you may feel that empty boxes are unsightly. >> >> One can also argue with equal if not greater force that undoubtedly >> there are plenty of Japanese (or any other nationality) business >> people travelling through the major cities of France every single day >> who would be pleased if multi-lingual web sites localized in their >> native language were accessible on French computers in the offices and >> hotels where they need to meet and work with people. >> >> Operating system vendors and large multi-national organizations should >> think about this more : This kind of scenario suggests that a basic >> selection of fonts covering all of the world's major scripts should be >> installed by default on workstations in the offices and business >> centers of multi-national and travel-related organizations. Empty >> square boxes are indeed unsightly. >> >> > *Ordering* There is also the question of how to order a multilingual list of >> language or country names. >> > It is not an issue that is specific to selection lists, and there is no simple >> answer to this. >> > >> > It is difficult to apply alphabetic ordering since this varies by language, and >> there are also likely to >> > be multiple scripts involved. It would be possible to follow the default >> order prescribed by the >> > Unicode Collation Algorithm, but whether that would be helpful, intuitive or >> recognizable to the >> > user is another question. >> > >> > Other possibilities are to order the list by the size of your market, the size >> of the region or number >> > of speakers of a language, or by some kind of geographical principle. >> Again, while these may >> > provide a rationale for ordering, none of these approaches are necessarily >> helpful to the user - >> > especially for long lists. >> >> I've been thinking a lot recently about web site localization issues, >> including this very issue. Here is a solution I am considering >> implementing: It is now quite easy to use Geolocation to get an >> approximate fix on the geographic origin of the computer requesting a >> web page. Based on the country of origin determined from geolocation, >> it would be possible to use a lookup table to map the "top" languages >> used in that country. >> The <select> list could then be reordered so that the top 4 or 5 most >> commonly-encountered languages of a given country of origin appeared >> at the top of the list. >> >> One additional point is to always include English somewhere near the >> top of the list too, since it is the de-facto international language >> of business almost everywhere in the world now. >> >> Implementing this, users in Vietnam might then see the following at >> the top of their select list: >> >> * Vietnamese >> * French >> * English >> * Chinese >> * Khmer >> -------------- >> ... all the rest ... >> >> While users in Finland might instead see the following ordering: >> >> * Finnish >> * Swedish >> * Sami >> * Russian >> * English >> ----------------- >> ... all the rest ... >> >> I'd be very interested in people's thoughts on this idea of using >> geolocation to derive a short-list of languages. >> >> Note that there are a number of subtle points one can consider. What >> do I really mean by my phrase "most commonly encountered languages"? >> We may need to ask, "encountered in what context?" >> >> For example, in many countries of the world, the languages most >> frequently encountered in trade and business are going to be mainly >> the languages of colonialism and empire, to which we may now add >> modern global trade. These "top" languages may differ substantially >> from those spoken in the local markets and on the street ... >> >> - Ed Trager >> >> >> >> 2009/4/30 Richard Ishida <ishida@w3.org>: >> > http://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa-navigation-select.zh-hant.php >> > >> > Thanks to Samuel Chong the FAQ-based article "Using <select> to Link to >> Localized Content" has now been translated into Traditional Chinese. This is >> our first translation into Traditional Chinese. >> > >> > >> > ============ >> > Richard Ishida >> > Internationalization Lead >> > W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) >> > >> > http://www.w3.org/International/ >> > http://rishida.net/ >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > >
Received on Wednesday, 6 May 2009 14:35:39 UTC