www.talkcyprus.org

moonskin · Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 515 Location: Freiburg, Germany

G'day all,

We are all saddened by the untimely loss of Turkish Cypriot politician Özker Özgür. When I was going through a list of his selected publications (1) to translate one of them for the thread (2), I came up with the following idea: Since he was such a well respected important figure in Cypriot politics, it would be of great importance to have his articles translated into English. In this way, we can help him to reach more people.

Naturally, this is an idea which could only become real if there are enough people to spend couple of hours from their valuable time into translating his articles from (1). So, the question is, are there any Turkish speaking members of this forum who wants to volunteer for such a thing? There are no time constraints. If there are enough people to do this, we can regard this as a product of talkcyprus. We can ask hamamboculeri.org for permission to publish our output and in this way it will be an advertisement of talkcyprus for a very good reason as well. What do people think about the idea?

I have two family members who do (mostly political) translations professionally. They were very happy when I asked for their help. So, we have 2 people on board already.

Native English speakers who does not speak any (or sufficient) Turkish, could help with the English corrections if they wish to. As to the people who does not fall in either category, well you could perhaps share your general opinions or suggestions with us as we proceed.

I accept the task of organizing this, once there are convincing number of people volunteering.

Cheers.

1) http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~durduran/hamambocu/authors/ozk/
2) http://www.talkcyprus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=21162#21162

brother · Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Posts: 8920 Location: London/Cyprus

I will help in any way that time allows.

Xenos 2Fan · Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2005 8:27 pm Post subject:

Anything for the cause. I am between projects right now and have time available.

cannedmoose · Posted: Fri Nov 25, 2005 8:28 pm Post subject:

I'll certainly help correct the English...

Crash Test Dummy · Joined: 25 Sep 2005 Posts: 4911 Location: London(ish)

cannedmoose wrote: I'll certainly help correct the English...

:lol:

I dont want to vote becasue it will make people feel under pressure. i will read them if they are available.

city · Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Posts: 3373 Location: Larnaca area

I very much like the idea, but unfortunately can't be of any help as I neither know Turkish nor am I an english native speaker. :-(

moonskin · Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 515 Location: Freiburg, Germany

Mods, is it possible to make this topic sticky?

I am still waiting for more Turkish speakers of this forum to comment about the project. Thank you.

Xenos 2Fan · Posted: Sat Nov 26, 2005 10:02 pm Post subject:

moonskin wrote: Mods, is it possible to make this topic sticky?

I am still waiting for more Turkish speakers of this forum to comment about the project. Thank you.

I agree. We should make this a sticky topic. I think it's valuable and would hate to see it fall to the wayside.

brother · Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Posts: 8920 Location: London/Cyprus

moonskin wrote: Mods, is it possible to make this topic sticky?

I am still waiting for more Turkish speakers of this forum to comment about the project. Thank you.

I have made the topic a sticky. :wink:

isbaho · Joined: 26 Nov 2005 Posts: 7 Location: Nicosia, Cyprus

I'm also very busy these days about my PhD qualification but if i pass the exam, i'll try to contribute as much as i can. However, as far as i know, we first must go and talk with either the publisher or his family in order to get the copyrights of his writings. If they allow 'us', then, we can propose this project to some of the publishers in Cyprus or elsewhere and work on it. What do you think?

moonskin · Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 515 Location: Freiburg, Germany

G'day all,

First, I want to thank brother for "making things sticky" :flowers:.

Note that this idea is still very premature. It is perhaps better to see first if we can manage it at all. I have a number of ideas how to start handle this but first let's wait a bit longer to hear the responses from more people. Thanks to everybody who has posted so far.

And, please do try to reflect your opinions on this project by casting your votes, not based on whether you can help or not, but based on what you think about the project.

I know you are all busy. We all are. This is some project that we should do out of the kindness of our hearts for the love and respect we feel for Özgür and any other person who is honestly dedicated as much as he was for his/her country and peace. There are no expectations. I'd be happy even if mere 5 people read/downloaded our translations of Özgür's articles after we are done. There are no deadlines or anything similar. We will see how things progress as we walk down the road.

Once we get enough people in, the next step will be asking permissions for publishing what we will end up with and the support of relevant people, perhaps his son -Birikim Özgür- is a good person to start asking.

On the technical side of things, I noticed the extensibility of the forum software by components like Album and Calendar software. So, I want to ask (to Erol perhaps?) if there is any such components that we can use to handle managing such projects. What I had in mind was like a task management software where you can make associations between users and tasks and people can upload their outputs and others can comment. Do you see what I mean?

Cheers.

garbitsch · Joined: 09 Oct 2005 Posts: 767 Location: Cyprus

I can also help you guys, since I have known Ozker Bey and Birikim personally and I might tell Birikim about the project, but I am a bit busy these days... Gotta write an essay and do some job hunting, but I will be available next week I guess.

moonskin · Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 515 Location: Freiburg, Germany

Bumping for better advertisement.

I'll come back soon with more on the project.

city · Joined: 15 Aug 2005 Posts: 3373 Location: Larnaca area

garbitsch wrote: I can also help you guys, since I have known Ozker Bey and Birikim personally and I might tell Birikim about the project, but I am a bit busy these days...

well, that sounds like a really good starting point! :clap:

Birkibrisli · Joined: 29 Aug 2005 Posts: 1409 Location: Australia

You can count me in too,Moonskin.
I will download the articles and start translating whenever you give us the goahead.You will need to assign certain articles to certain people to avoid duplication,I suppose.

I too was a professional translator/editor once,and I know the difficulties of editing a text from a language you don't understand.Some of us native Turkish speakers might have to check the editing of editors to see that the meaning and integrity of the original is preserved.It may be too early to worry about these technicalities anyway...I am sure we can do a job to make Ozgur proud.Well thought,moonskin!