Google Translator Toolkit is particularly problematic because it messes up the existing article formatting (one example, it messes up internal links by putting punctuation marks before double brackets when they should be after) and it includes incompatible formatting such as redlinked templates. It also doesn't help that many editors don't stick around to fix their articles afterwards.
Yes this is one of the main issue of *Google Translator Tool Kit* (GTTK). There are many points raised by Ravi regarding GTTK in his presentation at WikiMania. http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ddpg3qwc_279ghm7kbhs
Not all wikipedias work/create articles in the same way as English Wikipedia or some other big wikipedias does. Many of the active wiki communities does not like the word-to-word translation of the English Wikipedia articles. But that doesn't mean that while developing an article, they won't refer English Wikipedia. English wikipedia article is their first point of reference most of the time. The problem starts when some one start forcing English Wikipedia articles in a language wikipedia. Here it is Google, using the Google Translate Tool Kit (GTTK) .
Most of the active wiki communities (especially non-Latin wikis) are not interested in the word-to-word translation of the English Wikipedia articles. Also many of them are not willing to to go through the big articles (with lot of issues) created using GTTK and rewrite the entire article to bring it to the wiki style. They will better prefer to start the article from the scratch.
One of the main issue is that the Google/Google translators are not communicating with the wiki community (of each language) before they start the project in a wikipedia. For example, Tamil wikipedia community came to know about Google efforts only 6 months after they started the project in that wiki.
Wiki communities like the biological growth of the wikipedia articles in their wiki. Why English Wikipedia did not start building wikipedia articles using *Encyclopedia Britannica 1911* edition which was available in the public domain?
Personally, I am not against GTTK or against Google. At least this effort is good for the online version of a language (even if some argue that it is not good for wikipedia). But this effort needs to be executed in a different way so that wikipedia of that language will benefit from it. Some of the solutions that are coming to my mind:
1. Ban the project of Google as done by the Bengali wiki community (Bad solution, and I am personally against this solution) 2. Ask Google to engage wiki community (As happened in the case of Tamil) to find out a working solution. But if there is no active wiki community what Google can do. But does this mean that Google can continue with the project as they want? (Very difficult solution if there is no active wiki community) 3. Find some other solution. For example, Is it possible to upload the translated articles in a separate name space, for example, Google: Let the community decides what needs to be taken to the main/article namespace. 4. .........
If some solution is not found soon, Google's effort is going to create problem in many language wikipedias. The worst result of this effort would be the rift between the wiki community and the Google translators (speakers of the same language) :(
Shiju
On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 8:39 AM, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Shiju Alex,
Stevertigo is just one en.wikipedian.
As far as using exact copies goes, I don't know about the policy at your home wiki, but in many Wikipedias this sort of back-and-forth translation and trading and sharing of articles has been going on since day one, not just with English but with other languages as well. If I see a good article on any Wikipedia in a language I understand that is lacking in another, I'll happily translate it. I have never seen this cause problems provided I use proper spelling and grammar and do not use templates or images that leave red links.
I started out at en.wp in 2001, so I don't think it's unreasonable to call myself an English Wikipedian (although I'd prefer to think of myself as an international Wikipedian, with lots of edits at wikis such as Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Navajo, Haitian and Moldovan). I am not at all in favor of pushing any sort of articles on anybody, if a community discusses and reaches consensus to disallow translations (even ones made by humans, including professionals), that is absolutely their right, although I don't think it's wise to disallow people from using material from other Wikipedias.
Google Translator Toolkit is particularly problematic because it messes up the existing article formatting (one example, it messes up internal links by putting punctuation marks before double brackets when they should be after) and it includes incompatible formatting such as redlinked templates. It also doesn't help that many editors don't stick around to fix their articles afterwards.
-m.
On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 9:04 PM, Shiju Alex shijualexonline@gmail.com wrote:
really? It's a) not particularly well-written, mostly and b) referenced overwhelmingly to
English-language sources, most of which are, you guessed it.. Western
in
nature.
Very much true. Now English Wikipedians want some one to translate and
use
the exact copy of en:wp in all other language wikipedias. And they have
the
support of Google for that.
On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 5:52 AM, Oliver Keyes <scire.facias@gmail.com wrote:
"The idea is that most of en.wp's articles are well-enough written, and written in accord with NPOV to a sufficient degree to overcome any such criticism of 'imperial encyclopedism.' - really? It's a) not particularly well-written, mostly and b) referenced overwhelmingly to English-language sources, most of which are, you guessed it.. Western in nature.
On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 3:43 AM, stevertigo stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
I would like to add to this that I think the worst part of this idea is the assumption that other languages should take articles from en.wp.
The idea is that most of en.wp's articles are well-enough written, and written in accord with NPOV to a sufficient degree to overcome any such criticism of 'imperial encyclopedism.'
Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Nobody's arguing here that language and culture have no
relationship.
What I'm saying is that language does not equal culture. Many people speak French who are not part of the culture of France, for example the cities of Libreville and Abidjan in Africa.
Africa is an unusual case given that it was so linguistically diverse to begin with, and that its even moreso in the post-colonial era, when Arabic, French, English, and Dutch remain prominent marks of imperialistic influence.
Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
This is well suited for the dustbin of terrible ideas. It ranks
right
up there with the notion that the European colonization of Africa
was
for the sole purpose of civilizing the savages.
This is the 'encyclopedic imperialism' counterargument. I thought I'd throw it out there. As Bendt noted above, Google has already been working on it for two years and has had both success and failure. It bears mentioning that their tools have been improving quite steadily. A simple test such as /English -> Arabic -> English/ will show that.
Note that colonialism isnt the issue. It still remains for example a high priority to teach English in Africa, for the simple reason that language is almost entirely a tool for communication, and English is quite good for that purpose. Its notable that the smaller colonial powers such as the French were never going to be successful at linguistic imperialism in Africa, for the simple reason that French has not actually been the lingua franca for a long time now.
Key to the growth of Wikipedias in minority languages is respect for
the
cultures that they encompass, not flooding them with the First-World Point of View. What might be a Neutral Point of View on the English Wikipedia is limited by the contributions of English writers. Those
who
do not understand English may arrive at a different neutrality. We
have
not yet arrived at a Metapedia that would synthesize a single
neutrality
from all projects.
I strongly disagree. Neutral point of view has worked on en.wp because its a universalist concept. The cases where other language wikis reject English content appear to come due to POV, and thus a violation of NPOV, not because - as you seem to suggest - the POV in such countries must be considered "NPOV."
Casey Brown lists@caseybrown.org wrote:
I'm surprised to hear that coming from someone who I thought to be a student of languages. I think you might want to read an article from today's Wall Street Journal, about how language influences culture (and, one would extrapolate, Wikipedia articles).
I had just a few days ago read Boroditsky's piece in Edge, and it covers a lot of interesting little bits of evidence. As Mark was saying, linguistic relativity (or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) has been around for most of a century, and its wider conjectures were strongly contradicted by Chomsky et al. Yes there is compelling evidence that language does "channel" certain kinds of thought, but this should not be overstated. Like in other sciences, linguistics can sometimes make the mistake of making *qualitative judgments based on a field of *quantitative evidence. This was essentially important back in the 40s and 50s when people were still putting down certain quasi-scientific conjectures from the late 1800s.
Still there are cultures which claim their languages to be superior in certain ways simply because they are more sonorous or emotive, or otherwise expressive, and that's the essential paradigm that some linguists are working in.
-SC
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