[Admin] Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

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admin

site admin

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[Admin] Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post02 Apr 2009

Wishlist:

In no particular order. Priority as indicated. These, and more, are duties already being carried out to some degree and are involved in the running of this site. As stated elsewhere BrahmaKumaris.Info is being orientated to prioritize ex-BKs, exiting-BKs and to protect the friends and family of BKs and non-BKs.

Contact us on forum or privately. Thank you.

Example letters to send to individuals and organizations - High priority

    A variety of "letters of concern" to be offered as templates for concerned individuals to send to individuals, VIPs and organizations which they believe the Brahma Kumaris are misleading according to their millenarianist and political agenda. All claims or statements within must be verifiable. A list of suitable letter for different purposes, e.g. political, interfaith, New Age, media etc.

    Translations into all non-English languages welcome. See, here.
Letter and information pack writing - High priority

    Preparing and sending letters (not emails), information packs etc to relative groups, organizations and governmental and non-governmental organizations
Copyediting - High priority

    Fixing formatting, lay out and basic spellchecking of new and old posts; helping non-English speakers with their language skills to express themselves, tell their story and fulfill their needs.

    2 hours per day increasing. Everyday.
Article writing - Medium priority

    General article for submission to websites, newspapers and magazine; e.g. 'The Brahma Kumaris", 'My life as a Brahma Kumari', regular news releases and more specific stories. 800 words or 3,000 words
Translating website and other resources into all languages - High priority

    Internationalising website. Translating fixed front pages, e.g. "BKWSU for beginners, topic summaries (see below), Encyclopedia articles.
Translating BKWSU Wikipedia article into all languages - High priority

    Internationalising BKWSU Wikipedia article, to be translated into all languages.
India Research Project I - High priority

    Researching BKWSU finances in India and elsewhere. Data available from official bodies and other sources.
India Research Project II - Medium priority/long term/funding

    Researching BKWSU in India, meeting and speaking with locals, documenting conditions finding copies of original materials. Networking with other concerned Indian groups.
News story - medium priority

    Researching BKWSU related news stories in India and elsewhere.
Summarizing existing forum topics - Medium priority

    Creating 'position papers' on BK related issues. 3,000 words maximum.
Classic post patrol - Medium priority - ongoing

    Revising the forum for "classic posts" valuable to offer to newcomers, to be chosen for inclusion in the Classic Posts forum.
New user patrol - High priority

    Welcoming new users to the forum and assisting them with the software, finding topics, providing support.
Forum guides and moderators/editors - Medium priority

    Helping others find already existing topics. Merging new posts of same topic into old already existing topics etc.
BrahmaKumaris.Info version 3.0 - Low priority/long term project

    Research and develop next stage fully incorporated "social networking" website allowing a single log for all users to all parts, e.g. forum, blogs, encyclopedia and downloads. Must be able to import data from Mediawiki, phpBB, Wordpress and HTML files.
Dedicated webhosting - Medium priority

    Next level webhosting for website and forum (currently unreliable shared hosting). From $59.00 per month.
Academic papers on the BKWSU or BK related topics - High priority

Further cooperation in completing Murli archive - Medium priority - long term project

    Scanning, copying to text and data inputting.

General PR and outreach - High priority

    Writing to interested groups, individuals and parties, relative websites and forums.
Artwork, cartoons, multi-media, t-shirt designs and video production - Medium priority

    Producing artwork, graphics, cartoons etc and multi-media (video or slideshows) for use of websites such as Youtube, Google Video, Metcalfe etc.
De-bugging current software and tech support - Low priority/long term

    Fixing and technical support of current software, including researching solutions to problems and incorporating any useful additions.

    3 hours per week. Full-time during upgrades
Software training - Medium priority

    Helping users use forum, bloging and Wikipedia type software for content creation here and elsewhere on internet.

Mailing list duties - Medium priority

    Collating likely email address for BK related mail outs.
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Mr Green

ex-BK

  • Posts: 1877
  • Joined: 07 Apr 2006

Re: Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post02 Apr 2009

I've just lost my job, so have to withdraw my offer. Sorry.

I will offer myself to be interviewed by anyone, but I cannot write about the past. It just makes me too angry.

jann

friends or family of a BK

  • Posts: 1227
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  • Location: europe

Re: Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post03 Apr 2009

Willing to do translation.

cadizmarias

friends or family of a BK

  • Posts: 36
  • Joined: 30 Jan 2009

volonter for translate in spanish

Post03 Apr 2009

Hi,

I think is very important translate in French and Spanish.

If I am the documents in French, for my is possible translate in Spanish.
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dilse

ex-BK

  • Posts: 12
  • Joined: 06 Jan 2009

Re: Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post03 Apr 2009

I can translate into Russian.
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tom

ex-BK

  • Posts: 363
  • Joined: 14 Jan 2008

Re: [Admin] Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post04 Apr 2009

Hi,

I am ready to contribute whatever I can do with my learned skills and not so perfect English.
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admin

site admin

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Re: [Admin] Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post04 Apr 2009

List updated. Thank you for responses to date.
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ex-l

ex-BK

  • Posts: 10661
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Re: [Admin] Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post02 May 2009

Chat function is broken, needs fixing or upgrading.
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rayoflight

beyond BK

  • Posts: 361
  • Joined: 17 Mar 2009
  • Location: Truth.

Re: [Admin] Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post17 Jun 2009

I can contribute to French and Italian translations.

raistlin

ex-BK

  • Posts: 47
  • Joined: 10 Sep 2009
  • Location: Planet Earth

Re: [Admin] Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post20 Jun 2013

I can try and do some English to Polish translations of the website.
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ex-l

ex-BK

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Re: [Admin] Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post23 Jun 2013

That's all wonderful and great. It's your decision what you would like to do and what is important.

I target things mostly at non-BK to stop them being misled and sucked in by the BKs. It's a waste of time to argue with a BK once they have become addicted. I don't know what your opinion is ... but it seems to me that until something happens that wakes them up there rational discussing or appealing to their better senses is a waste of time. They become just robots who 'do not compute' and are so easily manipulated by the leadership.

raistlin

ex-BK

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  • Location: Planet Earth

Re: [Admin] Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post29 Jun 2013

ex-l, I am glad, I can contribute somehow to the BKinfo as well.

Well, I have already finished translating to Polish the body text and links in the main page (Brahma Kumaris in a nutshell). Two years ago I also made an "unofficial" ENG-POL translation for the whole FAQ about BKWSU/O. I can send it to you as well.

I've got some technical questions and reflections:
    - Who and how I could contact about the translation or some other "to dos" or if I would like to send what I finished?

    - I found out that the website is based on WordPress, so I wonder if there would be possible to automate the whole process of translation of the subpages as well, or not? I had no idea of localization WordPress. If it is possible, my work would me much simpler, and I could make just an editable and versatile template in Polish, and you would link it somewhere in the homepage.

    - The next thing is forum (some phpBB modification, I suppose). And I think it is the same situation as with the website. Localization of the template/module (I don't know the proper word, I am not a coder/programmer), and adding an option to change the language at in the homepage.

    - The other thing is Wiki (Encyclopedia) and I don't know if it would be able to automate the translation, probably not. So I will have to translate everything manually.
If anyone would be willing to give me some suggestions, please feel free about it. I am open for a discussion. And criticism too.

Thanks for any help.

BTW. It seems that the search module in the main page of the forum is broken(?). I am using Firefox and even though I have the NoScript add-on switched off, I cannot use it - I cannot enter anything in the search field until I hit the magnifying glass icon. The same problem appears when I use Opera.
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Pink Panther

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Re: [Admin] Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post14 Jul 2013

Raistlin,

You can save considerable time if you use Google translator -http://translate.google.com/?hl=en - it translates to & from most popular languages.

You can copy & paste moderately lengthy slabs of text - two or three paragraphs - on one side, then select the language to translate to.

Because it is essentially translating word-by-word, the syntax and grammar need to be edited. It has options for showing alternative words (run your mouse over the word) etc.

Or, for example, a misplaced comma will change a meaning e.g. "what is this thing called, love?" or double negatives e.g. "we don't need none of that", or in some languages where there are variants for gender and tense for the same verb. To say "I went, you went, they went" - in some languages they'll have a different word for 'went" in each case, and different again if past, present or future - but the translator drops in the "default" word.

It would be handy to have a second window with an English-Polish dictionary .

I have used this approach occasionally and it seems to work reasonably well. It saves a lot of time as it does the bulk of the translating reasonably well. I have found where some phrases are too difficult to translate, it's quicker to just leave them out if it doesn't affect the gist of the meaning, or just rewrite them.

So to work easily, set up a window (or tab) with original text, a second window with Google translate and a window (or tab) with a dictionary

The main "editorial" problem comes when idiomatic or colloquial phrases don't translate directly, so you need to actually edit the original to more formal language for the 'translator" , i.e. reword it, or edit the translation itself to carry the meaning rather than the literal.

for examples see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English-language_idioms

Good luck.

raistlin75

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Re: [Admin] Wishlist - volunteer opportunities for members

Post09 Oct 2013

Hello after a long break, and in new "outfit" (in some sense "raistlin" is suspended). From now I use the nick "raistlin75".

Thanks Pink, for your valuable advice. Of course, I don't even try to translate directly and try to catch rather the proper context, the meaning, than focusing myself on the exact translation, which in many cases is just impossible to do.

I posted few minutes ago in the "BK Info - tech stuff section needed" topic, that the translation of the articles is almost done, and I'd be able to send it to you in the next week with addition of the fully translated "BK FAQs".

BTW, I am also totally panicked because it is my absolute debut - my first "digital" translation ever, so please don't shoot me ... at least not immediately. ;-)

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