On Mon March 22 2004 22:48, Jeff Williams wrote: > Dave Aronson wrote: ... > Erick's > post in Spanish, should have included a English translation. It > didn't! When I pointed that out I was personally and professionally > attacked. Having not seen the original, I can't say for sure, but it may be that you were attacked for *how* you said it, not *what* you said. (Let's not get sidetracked into a discussion of the merits of that possibility, only ack that it *is* a possibility.) > > 3) We don't have anywhere near the money to do all the > > translating the UN does, let alone distributed in real-time like > > they do. > > We? Is there a mouse in your pocket? No, I'm just happy to see you. ;-) > ICANN certainly has the > funding or can acquire it. So can or does the IETF... Okay, let's crunch some numbers. Let's assume only one full-time translator (surely these lists, plus the assorted WGs, could keep a full-time translator busy), for only each of the top ten languages, and only for the email lists, not board meetings, presentations, etc. (It should be easy to come up with that many major languages with native speakers in the lists.) Let's assume they get paid $50k (I have no clue how realistic that is, but it's surely within a binary order of magniture), plus another 50% in benefits. That's $750k. That's well over 10% of FY04's projected ICANN revenue of about $7M. Okay, so technically maybe they could afford it, especially with a 10% hike in registrar fees, or 10% growth in business... but not so easily, nor with so few better things to spend it on, that I think the board wouldn't just laugh. -- Dave Aronson, Senior Software Engineer, Secure Software Inc. Email me at: work (D0T) 2004 (@T) dja (D0T) mailme (D0T) org (Opinions above NOT those of securesw.com unless so stated!) WE'RE HIRING developers, auditors, and VP of Prof. Services.