With the title ‘Sind Sie auch schon Forscher?’ which means something like ‘Are you already a researcher too?’ the German science magazine P.M. features an article on Citizen Science. I got a copy of their 10/2012 issue, as they had asked me for a picture. Besides Galaxy Zoo, there’s a whole bit about Whale FM too, one of the other cool Zooniverse’ projects.
My German is not great and you’re going to have to get your own copy to see what it says. I did notice they use the (English) term ‘Citizen Scientist’, which I think is great. I had been struggling to come up with a translation for it in Dutch a while ago (for a presentation) and even asked twitter for help. Eventually I decided our language should just adopt the term.
Just like I wish German would stop misusing Hanny’s Voorwerp’s name. It’s not ‘Hanny’s Ding’ (i.e. ‘Hanny’s Thing’). Especially since English speaking countries all over the world are taking the trouble to use the name correctly, this seems silly to me.
Anyhow, I’m sure it’s an interesting article so if you want to check it out, have a look on their site.
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The translation issue is sort of tradition in German language, it’s true – German media are inventing silly translations since.. well, it might well be since there are translations. (I acquired a 1890s astronomy book, that features some hilariously silly translations from the French). Personally I like ‘Voorwerp’ as a term pretty much, since it looks and sounds so much nicer than ‘Object’, ‘Thing’ and variants.
Now I only need to get my hands on a issue.
Thanks for that Markus