On 05 Dec 02  13:32:38, Felipe T. Dorado said the following to Bob Short:

FT>  FT>> That's probably one that a Colombian SysOp translated.
He offered  
FT>  FT>> to do it weekly ...  Poor soul!  ;)
 
FT>  BS> I hope he's still around and willing to continue that.
 
FT> He sporadically appears and disappears unfortunately. He's a new node 
FT> and the only one there I believe, had some problems with his machines
FT> or other.

Makes it difficult to ask a neighboring sysop to help, doesn't it? 

FT> Yes, I hope there are debates and that they serve well towards agreements. 
FT> However it does take time to translate things, specially debates, and just 
FT> extracting the gist of something is quite challenging.

The most important translations would be related to Policy and FTS
changes.  AAMOF, much is being discussed in the FTSC_PUBLIC echo,
including member elections and updating the standards.  Most of the
participation there is from Z1-4, as are the nominees.

FT> And translating the Snooze ...  Uff!  and weekly!...

:)  Spreading the more important information is all one would need do.
Of course, with the same effort, one could teach everyone English. ;-)

FT> It would be great if the Snooze had sections in various languages and that 
FT> zones contributed to them. The news part could be translated and general 
FT> articles left in the original.

It might not be so difficult or time consuming, if one were to use a
text translation utility, and then go back and "fine tune" the result.

FT>  FT>> Are we not a network?  Do we not have means to propagate the
FT>  FT>> proposal through our own media?  Yes, we do.  If not in the
FT>  FT>> Snooze we have innumerable echoes, don't we?  Let's use them.
 
FT>  BS> Indeed we should... but recent experience tells me that it's not as
FT>  BS> easy as it sounds.  We went almost a year before some in Z2 were
FT>  BS> aware of what we were doing.  Distributing requires translations so
FT>  BS> everyone can understand, and people willing and able to do
so. 

FT> I don't quite see the difficulty. I figure that each region has at least  
FT> a general announcements echo which just about everyone is linked to.

Yes, but getting someone in each region or net to post the info is the
real challenge.  Remember, we're dealing with people, not machines.

FT> And CC-ing RC's asking them to please post something is not that difficult 
FT> either, is it?  Spammers do it.  }:(

I have done this several times with this P4 amendment.  I think one of
the problems in getting proper attention to them has been my lack of
"status".  As far as they're concerned, or so it would seem, I'm just
another grunt sysop trying to stir things up.  I did get a few positive
responses, but not many.

FT> Besides, can we really call ourselves a global network if we can't even 
FT> spread something network-wide?

Spreading and convincing are two different things.  I thing only the IC
can send a message that people will take seriously, and (ASAIK) he has
done so to a limited degree... mostly in Z2 though.

But the real assistance can come from the ZC's.  With this P4 amendment
test, if they haven't already, they should have notified all their RC's
of this and provided at least a summery of it, and instructed them to
send it down the line.

This is what I did with the RC's.

Bob

--- GEcho 1.00