From Pen Pal Wiki

Contents 1 COTM 2 Welcome, Beinvenito... 3 Main page 4 More On The Main Page

[edit] COTM

Wow Collaboration of the Month! Cool!

OK I'm here! (yay!!!!) now what??? CQ 13:12, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

PS. I don't like to read. I just like to look at pictures, check red links, and promote cool stuff. Don't see much of that here :( Oh well... NOW WHAT? Who's in CHARGE?!? 13:12, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I'm "in charge"! It's great to see that someone else has finally offered a bit of a help to the Collaboration of the Month, as so far I've been collaborating by myself! What sort of pictures and "cool stuff" do you recommend adding to this wiki? I agree that a little more appealing content would go a long way, but I'm stumped on ideas! I'm happy to back you up at Wikipedia:v:Topic:Foreign Language Learning, whatever that might entail (that wiki looks very interesting, so I shall have to explore further). The page Wikia:Collaboration:Current events doesn't exist, so I'm not quite sure where the page you meant is, although I would love to find out! ;)

One particular thing I've just decided needs doing on this wiki is making it easier for people to list themselves, or to add themselves to pages like English/Success stories, by means of a form at the top of the page. An Inputbox, whilst the right sort of thing, doesn't seem to support a multiline comment with a title, which is what Pen Pal Wiki would need, and another (trivial) thing is that the latest version doesn't seem to be installed, as I can't use a comment inputbox at all. So if you can think of any ideas, please do share them!

Thanks again for showing interest in the COTM. I look forward to working with you. Markdarb 07:08, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

'kay! I am here. What's going on? What pages do we have so far? Things I can think of are List of Pen Pal Sites, Tips and Tricks, Etiquette, Safety, ...

--IFaqeer 22:03, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Well translating as much as you can is a great start and greatly appreciated. I greatly appreciate everything you've done so far, but I would prefer it if the Main Page had as little English on it as possible. I made all sorts of flash tables and things at one stage (which can be found in the history) but, after some suggestions were made, decided to make it primarily a page with links to all the different languages. This is, of course, open to discussion, and I don't want to get into any revert wars! ;)

The pages you've mentioned are probably good ideas, but they should all be at Name of language/Name of page, eg. English/Links (a page which already exists, and would probably be the best place for a list of pen pal sites). I don't think the pages you mentioned are really needed just yet, but if you think they're needed then feel free to make those pages, with the right naming conventions, and then we can talk about and edit them until they seem to be about right.

Right now, I think the highest priority is getting Pen Pal Wiki available in as many languages as possible, and promoting it so that lots of people use it.

Many thanks for your contributions so far. Markdarb 02:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

hi,

first of all i think you have to define what is "pen pal", i'am french,i'am discovering wikipedia and my english is limited :))

after five long minutes, i went find a definition on Google ...

good luck, obviously, fell free to cut this comment, almost if it is not at the good place

[edit] Welcome, Beinvenito...

I think it would be cool to say "Welcome" in as many languages as you can on the main page. Then maybe some picture/word things like "House", "Casa", ... with a picture of a house. maybe. Maybe do a new word picture association each week. User:Let's has Italian for a mother tongue. I, unfortunately am stuck in Engrish, but I'm looking into this multi-lingual thing pretty heavily. See wikipedia:v:Wikio

There are some pronounciations via audio files at http://commons.wikimedia.org:Category:Sounds.

Another thing you can do is log into #wikia on freenode IRC if you have an IRC client. I know for sure that ther are folks at freenode on several channels that are multi-lingual. They might direct you to people who may be willing to help.

Take courage Brother , MarkDarb! These wikia sites are tedious and hard to get up to speed. Try joining a few. (I of course recommend w:c:projects and w:c:collaboration). Lots of those on the big list are "dead" as in ghost-wikia but if you thumb through the "most active wikia" list, you may find something you fancy. I have a listing on my central wikia Userpage that shows all the ones I'm signed up in. (8 so far I think).

Oh by the way, That Meta Collab site full url is: http://collaboration.wikia.com/wiki/Current_events I get confused on the wikilinks. Maybe it's w:c:collaboration:Current events. Yeah maybe that's right.

Oh hey, thanks for checking out Wikiversity. I'm hanging my hat there, these days. Lots of groovey stuff going on there! CQ 22:11, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Those are some good ideas. If anyone wants to do them, just mention it here and then go ahead and do it! Otherwise, I'll try and get round to it at some stage soon. Markdarb 23:45, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Main page

I am not sure I agree that the front page should not have as little English as possible. Maybe someday, but in trying to get a wiki community off the ground, the front page needs to be as welcoming as possible to as many people as possible. The best way to do that, I think, is to have the language bar across the top for people who speak NO English, and then to also have the table in English, or at least a quick and exciting explanation of what the wiki is about, in English.

I think it is a good thing to not be English-centric, but I also think it is practical to understand that especially on the Internet, more people understand at least a little bit of English than any other language, and it is helpful to have some, if you also have a way for people to get to other languages.

This is not for me to decide; but this is my advice. :) ----Jimbo Wales 00:19, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree to an extent with what you're saying, as that was exactly what I thought. I had a link to the Main Pages for each language in a large font size as part of the fancy table I mentioned, and it looked quite good. If you were to have a Main Page including lots of English, it's probably pretty much the way to go. I think we should see what a few other people have to say about this. After all, it is a community, and the more people who give their opinion the better an idea we can get on what is most likely to appeal. So, if you're reading this, please give your opinion about this. For now we'll leave it with less English, but once a few people give their opinion here we can make a decision. Markdarb 03:25, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the main page should exhibit succinct information in many languages. The idea of Writing an article, Escribir un artículo, Schrijf een artikel, etc. was taken from Wikinews.

Find a penpal/en, Find a penpal/zh, Find a penpal/es, would make sense for penpal.wikia.com. CQ 05:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Do you think I should go to the Wikipedia Reference Desk and ask people if they would kindly translate that phrase into the various languages?

Also, did you use the colours on the main page because I'd started using them on Template:English/Welcome? It's probably not the most important issue at the moment, but do you think some different colours would be better? The colours I was using were only used because they were the ones used on the table I copied from wikipedia:User:Jimbo Wales, so feel free to change them! 202.27.83.42 23:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I made the above comment from school, but forgot to sign in. 202.27.83.42 21:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking that maybe we could put down somthing like CQ suggested. Hello and the link to each page for a different lauquage in that lanugage...Even for english. That way no lanugage seems more superior then that launguae...Sorry... Can't spell. LoneWolf 5

Yes. A multilingual page not making English look like the main language (or at least not using much English) seems to be the most popular idea. A greeting in each language is also a good idea. Perhaps now we need to discuss layout, although the templates CQ has set up will do they job nicely for now (albeit they probably need more links - getting a pen pal, as previously discussed) Markdarb 00:05, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More On The Main Page

I was thinking that the main page needs a little work. It just seems kinda unorganized. ...Not that I'm one to talk. User: LoneWolf 5

It does need better organising. The question is would we be better off organising it now or later? I suppose if the main page looks just how we want it, with all of the appropriate links, everyone will have a very good idea of what needs doing (because of red links), but we need to sort out just what those links will be, either here or at Talk:Pen Pal Wiki. Markdarb 21:15, 31 October 2006 (UTC)