History: Translations depository
Preview of version: 2
Example (fiction):
I belong to the French swimming federation. All national swimming federations worldwide have only monolingual websites, and it is the best they can do.
I write an article about how my hometown is building a new swimming pool. I estimate it is interesting only to locals. I write an article about how my hometown is organizing the next world swimming championship. This time I estimate all national federations should know about the schedules, addresses, etc.
What I do is that I go to a tiki site, where I copy/paste my text, and I request translations. On the other side, people who are concerned will come and pick up the translations, to copy/paste them in their own monolingual website.
Explanation:
Most multilingual cms start from the principle that the articles published in the cms have to be translated on the same website. However, content can be exported as OpenOffice files, or even copy/pasted onto other cms.
This new feature is more like a translations market, for articles that are to be published elsewhere. It becomes especially useful in cases where many websites are already up and running nationally, with many frowning webmasters, and it proves impossible in terms of organization to develop an integrated multilingual cms on time.
In order for users not to get confused with a lot of irrelevant features, it is necessary to extremely simplify the system down to mere translation features. It is also likely that such a system should have a minimal external Anonymous interface, kind of "This is the translation website", in order for users to perceive such a website as neutral, and keep editorial choices for the sites where those translations will be published.
Experience:
Many many many webmasters don't understand what this suggestion is about, and simply reply like: "No thanks, my cms is already multilingual". But that is not the aim. The aim is to provide a quick translations system for organizations wich already have a rigidified network of national websites.