This page explains the procedures for creating a new Lingua site. Please check out the rest of our Global Voices Lingua Guides.
If you are new to Global Voices, check out our About page, Manifesto, General and Lingua FAQs.
Setting it up a new Lingua website quite easy, but regularly providing fresh content and nurturing a community of volunteers is a real challenge. We welcome applications from both large and under-represented languages. An under-represented language is a specific language and/or specific community that is not well represented on the Internet.
Contents
Before creating the site
The first step is to express your interest, at the end of this page. We will let you know if there is already an upcoming website in your language, and put you in touch with anybody else who has displayed an interest in it.
We will need at least one person who can commit to the role of volunteer Translation Manager and a team of at least five volunteer translators. The Translation Manager must be a native speaker of the language in question, and it is also important that the person can communicate (even if little) in written English because it is the lingua franca we use at Global Voices. The next steps are as follow.
Can you commit to it?
A Translation Manager should ensure, by themselves or through members of the Lingua community, that the Lingua site has an active community, where applicants successfully join, as well as overseeing editing and publishing translations on the site, and marketing these translations. These tasks take time and demand commitment.
If you want to start a Lingua site, you need not be put off by this: as Victor Hugo would say:
Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come.”
Should this be the time for a new Lingua site in your language, it will attract the attention it needs to bear fruit and grow organically.
Get familiar with Global Voices ways
In case you haven't done so yet, please check out our history, read our manifesto and our general and Lingua specific frequently asked questions. Next, please take some time to read and familiarize yourself with the Translation Managers Guide which is a more technical guide to managing a WordPress site. Welcome to New Translators is a document that introduces the work to new volunteers, and Lingua Translators Guide is a step by step guide on how to get started with translations.
Translate the Global Voices Manifesto
The Global Voices Manifesto is a short article setting our mission. If you see a link to the manifesto on the right-hand side of the site, it means that we have already a Lingua site in your language. Please also check the sub-pages listed below the text, as we may already have the translation of the Manifesto, even if we don't have a site in your language. In case it is not listed there, you are welcome to send a translation.
Start Social Media pages
Basically, a Facebook page and a Twitter account to attract interest in Global Voices in the new language and to:
- Explain what Global Voices is.
- Set the hope that it will be translated into the new language.
- Attract interest and recruit volunteers.
- Communicate with the Lingua Manager and give them access and credentials.
Please check the following guidelines before creating your social media channels
Get involved anyway
While we decide whether to start or not a new site, consider joining the Global Voices community in another capacity, and there are some other ways to do so:
Subtitling: If you enjoy working with videos, join our subtitling team at Amara. See the guidelines [Using Amara To Subtitle Videos].
Writing: Join the team of volunteer authors to report on the daily conversations occurring in blogging communities around the world. Follow the “conversation” in your own language and help us report on them, translating it into English. See the application form. And after you get familiar with Global Voices you can apply to join the:
Social Media team: who can volunteer 2-10 hours a week to help us run our Facebook and Twitter accounts. You can do so by submitting here.
