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Suggestions for development of bilingualism in web2.0

The suggestions presented here are high level, focussing on general approaches and issues, rather than the detail of a specific web2.0 application or service.

Several general principles underpin them:

Providing an equality of service to the two language communities.
Equality of service based on equality of experience.
Supporting the two language communities.
Supporting user choice of language.
Equally high quality of organisational involvement in both languages.
Building bridges between the language communities.

While the present report refers only to Welsh and English languages, there may be contexts where additional languages need to be included. The report can be used to include those additional languages and these can be applied in those additional contexts.

1. Overall approach

Suggestion 1: Provide a monolingual service only where this can be justified.

In some circumstances an organisation may be justified in providing a monolingual service either in Welsh or English. However, the justification must be in accordance with the general principle of providing an equality of service to the two language communities. Such cases are likely to be exceptional. Note particularly that the fact that Welsh speakers are able to use an English language service does not demonstrate that there is no demand for a Welsh language service.

Suggestion 2: In the absence of a justification for providing a monolingual service, a bilingual service should be provided.

The default assumption should be that providing both a Welsh language service and an English language service is appropriate.

Suggestion 3: Where a bilingual service is provided, separate streams for Welsh and English are preferred.

Bilingual streams are problematic for several reasons. They disrupt the reading experience, the less frequently used language may be visually dominated by the other language, making it difficult to locate content in that language and making the public uncertain as to whether or not it is appropriate to use that language. However, it is important to provide bridges between the separate language streams.

Suggestion 4: Aspire to provide equality of experience.

This does not mean that equality of content or equality of opportunity should never be the model chosen. There may be specific contexts in which they are the appropriate approach. However the organisation needs to be clear about the reasons it is not providing, or aspiring to provide, equality of experience.

Suggestion 5: Drive users to the appropriate language stream

Not only should speakers of each language be driven to the web2.0 services provided in their language, it should also be made clear where services are made in the other language and easy navigation to them should also be provided.

Suggestion 6: Organisations should monitor the “health” of their communities.

Although this is necessary, it is far from clear how this should be done. The work of Preece, identified in the literature review below, has started to explore these issues. Among the potential measurements she suggests are: messages per member, quality of contribution, number of participants, and number of uncivil behaviours. It is also not clear whether the measures of “health” for two parallel monolingual streams should be the same or at the same threshold. For some measures (e.g. quality of contributors) they might be, whilst others (e.g. number of participants) might not be. A possibly simpler and more useful approach would be to ask the users about the experience of using the stream.

2. Messages and responses

Suggestion 7: Messages (as opposed to responses) should be provided in both languages.

If the stream is bilingual then the message may be bilingual or two separate monolingual messages may be posted at the same time. If there are two monolingual streams, then a message in the appropriate language should be posted to each at the same time.

Suggestion 8: Messages should be posted in both languages simultaneously.

It is assumed that for messages (as opposed to responses) there is more opportunity to take these through a translation process or to write a parallel text. A severe posting lag in one language may undermine the usefulness of that community.

Suggestion 9: Where an application or service supports tagging of messages (these may be texts, photos, videos etc.), tag in the language appropriate to the message, or if the message has no language, tag in both languages.

Organisations should also consider whether it is appropriate to tag a message with a tag denoting the language itself.

Suggestion 10: Responses (as opposed to messages) should be provided in the same language as the comment or message which provoked the response.

The only exception to this might be if the comment provoking the response breaks the language policy for the stream (i.e. it is using the “wrong” language in a monolingual stream) [Suggestion 38].

Suggestion 11: The speed of response should be the same for both languages.

Excessive delays in responses will be damaging to the sense of responsiveness and communication within the community. If a difference in the speed of response between the language communities is unavoidable, this should be explained in the stream’s terms and conditions.

Suggestion 12: In situations where responses have not been provoked, they should be either in the language of the stream (if monolingual) or in the poster’s language of choice.

In this situation an organisation should be mindful of the principle of equality of experience. It would not be appropriate for an organisation to only ever provide non-provoked responses in one language, unless a monolingual service is provided [Suggestions 1, 2].

3. Translation

Suggestion 13: Do not require or suggest that users provide translations for their comments.

The mandating of, or the implication of an obligation on, users to provide translations will act as a barrier to their participation in the community.

Suggestion 14: Do not require or suggest that staff provide translations for their responses.

The mandating of, or the implication of an obligation on, staff to provide translations will act as a barrier to their participation in the community and reduce responsiveness.

Suggestion 15: If an organisation does decide to translate comments or responses, these translations should be clearly marked as such and the original poster acknowledged.

While this approach is not recommended, if it is necessary it needs to be handled carefully [Suggestion 16]. This should be mentioned in the terms and conditions.

Suggestion 16: If the organisation intends to translate content, they should consider introducing an appeals procedure in cases where the public are unsatisfied with the translation of their comments.

Because web2.0 is often about personalities and online brands, people may object to the way in which a translation presents their words. While getting their approval for every translation is infeasible, allowing them the possibility to correct obvious errors or misrepresentations is important. This should be mentioned in the terms and conditions.

4. Language

Suggestion 17: Adopt a relaxed attitude towards the style of language used by staff in responses.

The nature of web2.0 and the principle of preserving personality suggest that an informal language style, whether Welsh or English, is both natural and appropriate for responses.

Suggestion 18: Accept that the organisation is not responsible for the quality of language in user comments.

While the terms and conditions for a stream may reasonably prohibit foul language, personal attacks and so on, it should not attempt to mandate the quality of language used as this may act as a barrier.

Suggestion 19: Accept that the organisation is responsible for the quality of language in messages and staff responses.

While an informal style may be appropriate (particularly in the case of responses) the language should be of an acceptable standard of correctness.

5. External applications

Suggestion 20: Where organisations are using external web2.0 application to provide services, these should be clearly identified as an “official” activity of the organisation and linked to from the organisations website.

Whilst this is not specifically a language related issue, it is important that those activities associated with an organisation are clearly distinguished from those which are not.

Suggestion 21: Where organisations are using external web2.0 applications the organisation’s terms and conditions and practices regarding bilingual provision should be extended to these services.

In some cases the form or function of the application may not lend itself easily to bilingual or parallel monolingual use and the organisation may need to consider the best approach on a case by case basis.

Suggestion 22: Organisations should think carefully about providing services in applications that do not provide interfaces in both Welsh and English.

Many popular web2.0 applications do not provide a Welsh language interface. This should not been seen as an absolute barrier to their use, but the organisation must consider their use carefully and be able to provide a justification if asked. Among the questions they should consider are: is there an alternative application which does provide a Welsh interface (if so should the entire service be moved to that application or just the Welsh language service); would moving the Welsh language service to another application make it less findable or have other negative effects; is the application just so popular that the Welsh provision has could be placed there despite its using an English/other language interface.

Suggestion 23: Where an organisation decides to use an application that does not provide interfaces in both Welsh and English, it should look for opportunities to support the development of an interface for whichever language is not supported.

This support could take different forms, such as contacting the application provider to ask for a different language version, supporting campaigns calling for additional language versions, or contributing translation towards crowd-sourced translation efforts.

Suggestion 24: Consider a separate Welsh and English presence in applications; one identified by the Welsh name of the organisation and the other by the English name.

In some cases an application may lend itself easily to having a single bilingual point of presence for an organisation, but typically this will result in a cumbersome solution. If separate presences are provided it is important to provide links between them.

Suggestion 25: Where an organisation is providing content for use by a community it should do so on a basis of equality.

If, for example, an organisation is offering English language content for use on Wikipedia, it should make the same/equivalent Welsh language content available for Wicipedia.

6. Bridges

Suggestion 26: Provide bridges between language communities in parallel monolingual and bilingual streams.

In order to provide openness between the language communities, provide some form of cross-posting of ideas. Ideally this would be in the form of Language Champions as discussed below. The posting of weekly translated summaries appears to lack flexibility and audience specificity, but may be appropriate in some circumstances. Machine translation does not appear to provide a satisfactory solution at this time.

Suggestion 27: Provide bridges between language communities in both directions.

In parallel monolingual streams there is a clear case for providing Welsh to English bridges, as the Welsh content is inaccessible to non Welsh speakers. However the organisation should also provide English to Welsh bridges where possible, members of the Welsh community may not read the English stream for a variety of reasons even though they are able to. In a bilingual stream it is perhaps more acceptable to only provide Welsh to English bridges as the Welsh community cannot avoid the English content.

Suggestion 28: Provide bridges between language communities in wider contexts.

The introduction of ideas from other streams is a common feature of certain web2.0 services, such as blogging. Where an organisation has a strong commitment to making a community work, it should consider bringing in ideas from other communities. This would be best achieved by a Language Champion, but there may be some merit in providing a “news roundup” along the lines of the weekly translated summary. Again, machine translation does not appear to provide a satisfactory solution at this time.

Suggestion 29: Accept or even encourage members of the community to act as bridges by bringing ideas from one language community into the other.

This is discussed further under Language Champions below. This might involve translation or summarisation, but is essentially sensitive to the conversation and the community in a way that mandatory translation is not.

7. Language policies and terms and conditions

Suggestion 30: Each stream should have an associated set of terms and conditions.

These terms and conditions should be easily accessible and clearly written. It should be provided in both English and Welsh.

Suggestion 31: Where organisations host a service, the role they play in the service needs to be articulated in the terms and conditions.

It is important for both staff and the public to understand the limits of an organisation’s responsibility.

Suggestion 32: The terms and conditions should provide a clear language policy for users.

Clear guidance should be provided as to which language or languages users are welcome to use on a stream. Alternative language streams should be clearly indicated and the user should be able to navigate to that alternative stream easily. The actions to be taken in the case of a breach of language policy should be made clear.

Suggestion 33: Where appropriate, the terms and conditions should also lay out the organisation’s responsibilities with regard to language.

This might be general principles, or may specify response times and so on. This is particularly important if a monolingual service is being provided, in which case a justification should be provided, or an intended timetable to provide a bilingual service.

Suggestion 34: The organisation needs a code of practice for staff.

This is obviously generally true of web2.0 but it is important for staff to understand when they are representing the organisation and therefore should operate under the code of practice for staff (including language policies) and when they are acting as a private individual (under the general language policy as laid down in the terms and conditions). This may be particularly complex if they are allowed to operate as both staff and private individuals within the same stream.

8. Moderation

Suggestion 35: Comments in both languages should be moderated on the same basis.

Unless there is specific reason to treat the language communities differently, e.g. they have each defined their own terms and conditions. It is likely that organisations will want to moderate user generated content, particularly when it appears on services hosted by the organisation. Details of the moderation policy should be included in the terms and conditions.

Suggestion 36: Moderators need to be aware that language may become an issue even though it is not a topic of the community.

It is possible that the issue of language may be raised within a stream even though it is not an appropriate topic for that stream. Moderation of these comments needs to be handled with care. The best approach may be to point out that this stream is not for discussing language issues and direct them to another stream or service where it is appropriate.

Suggestion 37: Organisations need to define the action to be taken in the case of an incorrect language being used in a monolingual language stream. This should be articulated in the terms and conditions and applied consistently.

There are various options, the comment may be:

Deleted.
Ignored.
Kept and translated into appropriate language.
Translated into appropriate language, deleted.
Cross posted to appropriate language stream, deleted.
Cross posted to appropriate language stream, translated into appropriate language, deleted.

The organisation may wish to consider different responses depending on the intention of the poster. A deliberately provocative use of the incorrect language may be treated differently to an innocent mistake.

Suggestion 38: If the organisation intends to reserve the right to modify, delete or translate comments, this should be clearly stated in the terms and conditions.

While this may be possible for services hosted by the organisation, it may be problematic on externally hosted applications, where the external host’s terms and conditions may apply.