[Rhutobello]

This is a little exp on how fast a quarrel can go out of hand. We are a international community with a lot of diffrent culture and languages.

A language has a lot of "flowers" and "diffrent meanings" for the same word when used together with other word When we try to translate a message from one language into another much will vanish, or take wrong meanings.
I like to think that I am about average in English, but I am sure that an English person can send me a letter scolding me with "a smile", and I will not see it.

So when your translation was deleted, it gave no meaning or false meaning for the reader.

We must also agree that a post in a non English language has greater chanse to survive in the community, because of the language barrier.

This said without taken any stand in your translation skill:)

Have a nice day:)
Edvin

[aisha759]

Edvin;
When i first started reading your post, i thought: "oh my god! When did i write this? " You look so much like me, we could be twins
I was stunned for a few seconds, then realized I hadnt looked at the name.... just so as not to cut this thread and keep it in context, i will add to my post (you might think you wrote it when you first look at it also.. he he) I AGREE WITH YOU!

good day
Aisha

[slothy]

AN EVEN BIGGER SATIRE ALERT

claus said:

Let me take the translation as an example of anacronism regarding censorship. An italian with problems in english have posted a comment. He asked for somebody to translate into english. I did so as a service to an unknown person

Claus [et al],

With due respect, Sir

I can only imagine that Uday 'removed' rather than 'censored' your post.

If what you submitted was the product of an on-line translator the output is ,by and large, far from perfect. In fact, it has the detrimental effect of straining one's powers of word association and losing ones faith that the language it was translated into has any syntax or a modicum of semantic structure. As it happens, i have contributed code and design principles myself to the development of an on-line translator, and I know for a fact there are a few years to go before the Chomskyesque programming community will produce a program of satisfactory translatory skills. Especially from italian and Giascone's writing style in particular which, may i add, is heavily idiomatic.

In fact in an effort to translate an essential extract of a computer manual from Swedish recently, it was more like reading a cross-fertilisation of a recipe for a cabbage soufflé with a magazine column about the mating behaviour of transvestite orang-utans.

Out of curiosity, i filtered the text in question (Giascones) through one this morning and i was satisfied that the output bore only a passing similarity to the original post and in no way carried across the essential subtlety of the post, written in Italian.

This was why, i imagine, Uday removed it. Very little to do with censorship!

I started to translate Giascones post myself , but after reading other posts in the same thread, as he seemed to reflect a common opinion prevalent through most of the others, i reasoned i had better things to do with my time before i go away (like write a post like this )

Lots of love

Alex.

I was a bit harsh in my last post Claus and i apologise. Keep up the good work!

PS
To prove my point Claus..pass this post through an English/Danish translator...and if you cannot make a cabbage soufflé by the end of this week-end and/or have sympathy why male orang-utans who wear pink frilly dresses are pathetically hopeless at finding a mate and passing on their genes, I WILL EAT MY HAT. (This last phrase in particular will have an interesting translation)

[uday]

I don't want to explain the hows and whys of each edit, bu this sort of edit is easy to explain, and easier to understand

- I cannot moderate a posting written in a language that I cannot read.

- Machine translation is imperfect. Someone posted a very long paragraph, text all smashed together, content mostly nonsensical. It looked something like

"....bsszt...crackle...pop....Nazi and Fascist....sputter"

and was posted in a thread that reeked of emotional content, about two groups of people having a disagreement.


Moderation is a fact of life for the mooment.

[csdenmark]

For Alex

There is no machine translation possible to/from danish. Pity I would very much like to have such one. I cannot read much italian but from what I can read and rest is guessing - the machine translation was rarely fair to the text.

I can test the translation german/english myself and doing so it is not perfect but it is rather good. I have therefore added links to entry sites to my web-sites for aut. translation of those into other languages. There I can check the german translation - and it is fairly good. Of course it is a commercial tool and due to that the word 'bridge' is translated as a bridge for walking.

Right I was not censored in the normal meaning of the word but after the deletions it looked so. But the point is still not my translation but only the hitting of a wrong target. The real target was and I think is still in place.

We still have many songs from that period - last time we had censorship in Denmark. The germans did not interfere - they were unable to understand. They are still popular tunes - not least due to history.

[Flame]

So many posts each one longer then the other, for a pretty simple subject.
Censoring should be limit to the minimum possible, im sure everyone agree just that the creteria for when to censored differ, its legimate to ask the persons incharge to try and interfier less, this kind of remarks can only help the forum, the people incharge can benefit from knowing what the people think, no need to take it as a complain.

[1eyedjack]

Heh,

Sorry for the thread drift but I couldn't resist ....

I used SystranSoft to translate into a few foreign languages (which, to my eternal shame, like most Brits I never bothered to study) the phase "Well played partner" which I then punched into okscript.

German-speaking partner had a real hoot when I later regurgitated
"Brunnen getaner Partner!"

(Brunnen being a hole in the ground that you get water from)

[slothy]

1eyedjack, on Apr 3 2004, 11:50 AM, said:

Heh,

Sorry for the thread drift but I couldn't resist ....

Tectonically, you succeeded admirably

[luis]

I fully agree with Ron, BBO can just state that the posts are the sole responsability of the posters. Moderators should only deal with offtopics moving posts to the right forums and mentoring the posters about how to use the site.
I found the edition or deletion of a post something arbitrary and potentially dangerous thing.
I can stand what Ben and uday do as well as other moderators but I really think this forum would be better without that much intervention.

Luis

[uday]

I think that likening

- the erasure of a translated post that was unreadable except for ".....nazi....fascist.... " while leaving the original post alone

to

the WWII Germans being unable to stop an Underground movement from spreading cheer and spirit via song


is intended to provoke as much as it is off the mark. Well, I am provoked


Anyone who wants complete freedom to say whatever he or she wishes is officially invited to visit rec.games.bridge

[csdenmark]

As this thread is not about translation this will be my last post about translation.

I looked the word 'well' up in my english/danish dictionary.

The meaning in this order in my dictionary:

1) Somewhere to have water from in soil - waterreservoir(substantive)
2) Something coming - streaming(verbum)
3) Good(adv. -'I dont know what 'adv.' is )
4) Healthy(adjective - only praedecative)
5) Let or leave - do nothing(substantive)

You see this word needs some kind of manuel translation/afterwork. Translation of 'good done partner' comes correct.

[slothy]

Well, well, well....

Nothing much to say to that

[spwdo]

1eyedjack, on Apr 4 2004, 01:50 AM, said:

the phase "Well played partner" which I then punched into okscript.

German-speaking partner had a real hoot when I later regurgitated
"Brunnen getaner Partner!"

(Brunnen being a hole in the ground that you get water from)

hi ,


will defantly use this one whenever i play with a german speaking partner

[luis]

uday, on Apr 3 2004, 05:13 PM, said:

I think that likening

- the erasure of a translated post that was unreadable except for ".....nazi....fascist.... "  while leaving the original post  alone

to

the WWII Germans being unable to stop an Underground movement from spreading cheer and spirit via song


is intended to provoke as much as it is off the mark. Well, I am provoked  


Anyone who wants complete freedom to say whatever he or she wishes is officially invited to visit rec.games.bridge

I'm tempted to leave, I really don't like when you behave and talk like a cop uday.

[irdoz]

It is perfectly valid for the members of a participatory forum to have debates about the rules that govern the forum with good intentions and without intending to offend anyone. Those who ask questions should not be made to feel guilty for debating those rules.

This is not about 'market forces' which are not like some pure light stick that get waved around and produce truth, justice and the you know what. It's about process...

Nor for me, is there argument about deleting vulgarity. If it became a problem I wouldn't take issue with putting limits on issues that are way 'off-topic' for a bridge message board such as politics in the middle east or the forthcoming US presidential election.

What was at issue here was an edict which said in relation to a particular issue:

"You can talk about how you feel but you cannot talk about the substance of the issue." (This may be incorrect paraphrasing)

This is an extremely problematic rule. It is censorship. It is worth debating in a calm way. In saying so I realize there are pros and cons with the edict above.

[doofik]

I think that while debating the freedom of speech we're forgetting the purpose of BBO and its forum. This is not to be a political forum, a smear campaign forum, but a place to discuss bridge. Some may say that I'm hypocritical with my post on Monday. In fact I regret having posted and having said what I said, but that ire in me just doesn't quit. And words, while allegedly can't hurt, do hurt and hurt very deeply. And it's my belief that one should always say what one means, and mean what one says; but that's just me, a simple woman from a village.

It is also my fervent belief that anyone who wants to quit ought to be able to do so. Don't criticize, don't send any parting shots, just quit, whether it's a club or BBO. Everything else becomes childish.

Jola

[Flame]

luis, on Apr 3 2004, 01:23 PM, said:

uday, on Apr 3 2004, 05:13 PM, said:

I think that likening

- the erasure of a translated post that was unreadable except for ".....nazi....fascist.... "  while leaving the original post  alone

to

the WWII Germans being unable to stop an Underground movement from spreading cheer and spirit via song


is intended to provoke as much as it is off the mark. Well, I am provoked  


Anyone who wants complete freedom to say whatever he or she wishes is officially invited to visit rec.games.bridge

I'm tempted to leave, I really don't like when you behave and talk like a cop uday.

Just you dont leave, you cant emagine how many ppl are learning from you here.

[uday]

Luis

I *am* one of the cops on BBO.

Are you arguing that cops are not needed? Or that they should pretend not to be cops? Or that some areas of BBO, like the forums , should be a cop-free zone?

The yellows on bbo wear a couple of hats: the ones we see are usually "Tour Guide", "Translator", and , occasionally "Cop".

If you can present a case for

a) Complete non-censorship
Censor-free zones ( bbo.flame , where you can post what you like)
A better procedure for censorship

I will happily listen.

I agree with Irdoz that this subject is worth debating in a calm way.

Abuse is a fact of life in any online community, and it has to be managed.

[slothy]

I am *desperately* trying to think of something to write about that will cause sufficient provocation to Ben to assert his powers of policing and challenge his idea of censorship.

Alas i cant

Will just have to mutter to myself about him whilst kibbitzing and keep my halo polished...

[mikestar]

I have never been part of an unmoderated forum that didn't sooner or later perish from flame wars, character assination (even outright libel), grossly off-topic posts, and extreme vulgarity.

I come here to read and post about bridge. I am glad that posts which:

• Use the f-word twice per sentence.
  
• Accuse everyone who gets an unusual result of cheating.
  
• Argue about the war in Iraq or the divinity of Christ.
  
• Assert that someone is stupid, dishonest, perverted or whatever because they don't agree with the poster or the poster doesn't like their style.

get removed before I have to read them while looking for bridge. If sometimes the moderators call it a little too close for my tastes, they're human and rational people will differ about judgment calls--particularly judgement calls that must be made in a limited amount of time.

I have no knowlege of what has been edited, but the moderators have let some things pass that I would have removed. My philosophy that even a borderline insult is inappropriate among civilized people. This is not intended as criticism of the moderators--no doubt adhering to a standard as stringent as mine would seem excessive to many who otherwise agree with me.