Asaf,
That is not how I understand it. First, I do not mind bots. When
Wiktionaries have information on words in Malagasy, I am perfectly happy
for the translations to be copied from one Wiktionary to another. When the
descriptions are translated using machine translation, the question becomes
only slightly different.
The question becomes about the quality of the machine translation. Now I do
not mind key words in Malagasy without definitions. With dodgy translations
it is ok because it is still better than providing nothing. When the
quality of the machine translation is such that it is understandable but
not quite there, I am of the opinion that it is much better than providing
nothing.
The biggest problem I have with the notion of perfection is that it is the
enemy of the good. The good is to provide the best we can offer. When it
needs work, it is acceptable because it is a wiki.
The biggest problem with language support is that products that are
perfectly functional like Special:MediaSearch are not promoted because "the
next iteration will be even better". It also shows the extend we have
moved away from our Wiki roots.
The notion that a bot operator is not people... really...
Thanks,
GerardM
On Fri, 18 Sep 2020 at 16:33, Asaf Bartov <abartov(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
I am surprised you consider it "people add
content", Gerard. It is
explicitly *not* people adding content, but a bot using machine
translation. Machine translation is problematic enough for just reading
some text, but a machine-translated *dictionary* is literally worse than
nothing. It is a travesty, and it is better to *not* offer dictionary
entries in Malagasy than to offer machine-translated ones with zero human
supervision.
I encourage this committee to consider whether it is beneficial to the
mission to allow this to continue.
A.
Asaf Bartov (he/him/his)
Senior Program Officer, Emerging Wikimedia Communities
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
https://donate.wikimedia.org
On Fri, Sep 18, 2020 at 12:18 PM Gerard Meijssen <
gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi,
An error rate is expected when people add content, this is true for any
project. Given that the information is based on what other
Wiktionaries offer, from a Wikimedia point of view, no new errors are
introduced. What we do not have atm is a process where translations are
shared in one database. This is possible at OmegaWiki but that is outside
of WMF.
From my perspective, a good effort as with any project it has its flaws.
Thanks,
GerardM
On Thu, 17 Sep 2020 at 20:54, MF-Warburg <mfwarburg(a)googlemail.com>
wrote:
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