Comment on We're losing

• sbeak@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I believe this is because many languages will interpret that differently, and Wikipedia having contributors from around the world writing in different languages, decided that clockwise is a good universal instruction that is more difficult to mistranslate.

  If the instructions were “left to right” and then “top to bottom”, a bad translation might end up making it mean the top to bottom first and left go right last.

  Reading order

  In Arabic (and a few other languages too), things are read RTL, and plenty of Asian languages, at least traditionally, are read top to bottom first.

  Doing it clockwise is seen as a more universal instruction I guess? And I don’t think it’s too hard to figure out. I might also be to make the instruction more concise!

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  • Zagorath@quokk.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Wikipedia has entirely different versions in different languages. This page is on the English Wikipedia.

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    • sbeak@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      . having something consistent can reduce confusion among contributors, particularly for those who are translating pages between languages and 2. there are other reasons too, like making the instruction more concise

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• yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Clockwise order isn’t the same as reading order. The correct order is:

  1. The top left image (because it says “from top left”)
  2. The top right image
  3. The bottom right image
  4. The bottom left corner

  It helps if you imagine a circle around the images with arrows pointing in clockwise direction, like this:

  Drawing of 4 squares in a 2x2 grid, which represent the pictures. A circle with arrows pointing in a clockwise direction surrounds the squares. The squares are numbered according to the order described above.

  They could have just put the images in reading order though, especially when there are only 4 of them. It would be way less confusing :/

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  • Zagorath@quokk.au ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Clockwise order isn’t the same as reading order

    Yes, I know. That’s what my comment is criticising.

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    • yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Oh, sorry, I thought you were talking about in which order you’re supposed to “read” the pictures. I only understood it now.

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    • cenzorrll@piefed.ca ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      “Clockwise” is universally known by all cultures, reading order varies.

      So when translating to a different language, you can’t just say reading order, you have to change the article instead of just translating

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      • Zagorath@quokk.au ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        That’s how Wikipedia works. Each language is an entirely separate article, maintained by entirely separate people. Not a simple translation of English Wikipedia.

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