WWL Site Has Moved

You have arrived at our old website. We have moved to www.worldwidelexicon.org where we are demoing the latest versions of our Word Press plug in, PHP scripts, and coming soon, a Firefox extension. Thanks for visiting.

Simple Localization System (SLS)

We’ll be demoing some fun new stuff at Foo Camp in June (and possibly one other conference). Watch for our WordPress plug in, coming soon.

We also figured out a simple, but very effective way to localize software and documentation. If you’re a software or web service publisher, read on to learn more. It’s a simple solution to a tricky problem, and will work real well with the new tools due out in the next month.

WWL Welcomes Metalink Ltd

WWL welcomes Metalink Ltd, based in St Petersburg, Russia. Metalink is building a set of Javascript translation tools that can be embedded directly in a website, starting with a WordPress plug-in that will be available shortly. If you are looking for expert PHP developers to develop custom WWL applications for your website or service, we highly recommend them. For Ruby on Rails work, check out Elevated Rails, they’ve been working on our RSS tools.

As WWL grows, we are building a network of professional software developers to assist clients in embedding WWL techniques in a wide range of web publishing and information services. Watch for more announcements about WWL partners in the upcoming weeks.

Javascript Translation Widget

In a few weeks, we’ll be publishing a Javascript widget for web publishers. This tool will make it easy for website visitors to view, contribute and edit translations. The widget, which can be embedded in a style sheet or template like any other element (e.g. a banner ad), displays a list of the languages to which an article has been translated, and invites readers to contribute their own translations. If you’d like to test this translation tool, send an email to brian /at/ mcconnell.net for more information.

WWL For Publishers

One of our main goals is to publish a complete open source package for publishers later this year. This package will provide a complete range of editorial and quality assurance features (like randomized peer review), and will allow publishers to mix volunteer and professional translation. If you are a publisher and would like to  contribute to the development of this package, we’d like to hear from you.

WWL Beta Test News

We fixed several RSS feed problems today. If translations were not being saved for your site, this problem should now be fixed. We will also be making some improvements to the editing system in the next few days. The translation service is currently at demo.worldwidelexicon.org (new address coming soon).

We are also happy to announce that Alexey Gavrilov and his group at Metalink is joining the project. They will be customizing the Ning social networking platform. This system will make it easy to create and join translation communities about any site or subject. We are testing it now at groups.worldwidelexicon.org.

Credits

I would like to take a moment to thank the people who have contributed to this project over the years. It’s been a long time, but our translation service is up and running and free for the world to use.

• David Anderson – Berkeley, CA, USA : advised us when we were working on the Lexicon@Home project (David is the director of the SETI@Home project)
• Jonathan Augenstine – Pasadena, CA, USA : worked on the multilingual instant messaging system
• Phil Bekker – San Francisco, CA, USA : our second translator, he’s helping with French
• Chris Cunningham – Madrid, Spain : worked on GNUtrans and MIMS
• Melinda Green – San Francisco, CA, USA : built an early version of our multilingual instant messaging system
• Martin Korben – Buenos Aires, Argentina : our first translator
• Mike Mangino – Chicago, IL, USA : he and Elevated Rails developed our translation wiki prototype
• Thor Muller – San Francisco, CA, USA : he and Ruby Red Labs helped us in early stages of the translation wiki project
• Pixelstud (aka Jayson McAuliffe) – San Francisco, CA, USA : created our logo
• Jonathan Vaught – South Carolina, USA : he and Elevated Rails developed our translation wiki prototype

Say Hello To SmartMobs and ILoveTab

Say hello to our first beta testers, Howard Rheingold’s Smart Mobs, Plugs and Cars, and ILoveTab. SmartMobs is serious. ILoveTab is silly. Both deserve a global audience. Help us share them with the world at demo.worldwidelexicon.org.

UPDATE: We are having some problems with edits to Smart Mobs and Plugs and Cars translations not being saved. We’re working on it. Let us know if you encounter problems with other sites. We’ll post an update when this issue is fixed. Meanwhile, please help translate Worldwide Lexicon, I Love Tab and O’Reilly Radar. Thanks!

A History of the WWL Project

The Worldwide Lexicon project has a long history, about ten years. I have been studying language translation technology for many years. It is a difficult problem because computers excel at something things, but are quite dumb at others. I tried many approaches to solving this problem, and have learned much in the process. It has been a long journey, but the lessons from our previous experiments taught us how to build a system that millions of people may use someday.

Volunteer Translators Wanted For A Few Sites

Hello. We’re starting to test WWL on several widely read sites. We’re looking for bilingual volunteers to kickstart the system for a few weeks. The test websites publish one or two short articles per day. If you would like to volunteer, please contact me (brian [[]] mcconnell.net) for instructions.