I'll reply to the most recent email just for laziness.
I'm doubtful for a series of reasons, most of were already expressed in a
better way by others:
*a remuneration in terms of quantity will weaken the quality of
translations unless there's a strong mechanism of quality verification
requiring a quantity of resources comparable to translations themselves;
*articles are the result of a long process which reflects cultural identity
of different communities, I'm not confident with transferring them to a
different "weaker" cultures. My usage of "weaker" adjective only
focuses
about the strength of a cultural presence on the Internet;
*articles to be translated are at high risk of reflecting the cultural
identity (and biases) of the Western culture;
*finally I think paid translators would hardly turn into stable Wikipedians.
IMHO some paid editing may be better exploited in order to digitalise texts
of unrepresented cultures (wikisource) or preserving their vocabularies
(wiktionary).
Also those languages which are secondary for all their speakers should be
dealt with in a different fashion. I, for one, am a native speaker of
specific variant of Sicilian, Sicilian is a secondary language to any of
its speakers. Honestly, I'd find pointless to read the biography of
Leonardo da Vinci in Sicilian while I can find thousands of books about him
in Italian. Also I find this kind of translation creates a fake "literary"
language totally detached from reality: there's no "encaustic painting" in
Sicilian, still a Sicilian article about Leonardo will invent one.
As a general principle we should always collect, rather than create,
knowledge.
Vito
2018-02-24 16:30 GMT+01:00 John Erling Blad <jeblad(a)gmail.com>om>:
My reply can be read as a bit more harsh than
intended, it was merely a
statement about my present experience about translators in general.
The problem with lack of contributors (and translators) in a specialized
area is that there is a small community, and within this community some
kind of selection is made. Each time a selection is repeated the remaining
group shrinks. Specialize the selection sufficiently many times and there
will be no contributors (or translators) left. It is simply a game of
probabilities. Thus, to make such a project work it must have a
sufficiently broad scope for the articles. Articles about public health
services will probably work even for a pretty small language group, but
specialized medical articles might create a problem. But then you find
a retired
orthopedic surgeon like Subas Chandra Rout…
On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 4:04 PM, James Heilman <jmh649(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with John that it is very difficult to
turn a translator into a
new
editor. I also agree with Jean-Philippe that it
is key to have
involvement
of the local projects and preferable if they lead
the efforts. Of the
languages we worked in only one explicitly requested not to be involved /
have translations from TWB.
James
On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 7:59 AM, John Erling Blad <jeblad(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
You can turn it around; give added credits for
translations from small
language projects and into the larger ones, that is a lot more
interesting
> than strictly translating from the larger language projects.
>
> On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 3:55 PM, Jean-Philippe Béland <
> jpbeland(a)wikimedia.ca
> > wrote:
>
> > I think the request for such projects should come from the concerned
> > language projects, same for the list of articles. If not, in my
simple
> > opinion, it is a form of coloniasm
again.
> >
> > Jean-Philippe Béland
> > Vice President, Wikimedia Canada
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 9:40 AM John Erling Blad <jeblad(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > Should have added that the remaining points are somewhat less
> interesting
> > > in this context. Preloading a set of articles is a bad idea, the
> > > translators should be able to chose for themselves. Articles should
> also
> > be
> > > pretty broad, not very narrow technical or medical, ie vertical
> articles,
> > > as the number of editors that can handle those will be pretty
small.
> > >
> > > In particular: Do not believe you can turn a teanslator into a new
> > editor!
> > > You can although turn an existing editor into a translator.
> > >
> > > On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 3:34 PM, John Erling Blad <
jeblad(a)gmail.com>
> >
wrote:
> >
> > > 1) You must start with high quality content and thus all articles
are
> > >> extensively improved before
being proposed for translation.
> > >
> > >
> > > Note that to much pressure on "quality" can easily kill the
project.
> > > >
> > > > 3) The "Content Translation" tool developed by the WMF made
efforts
>
more
> > >> efficient than handing around word documents. Would love to see
that
>
tool
> >> improved further such as having it support specific lists of
articles
> > that
> > >> are deemed ready for translation by certain groups. Would also
love
> > the
> > > >> tool to have tracking metrics for these types of projects.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Didn't mention ContentTranslation, but it should be pretty
obvious.
> > > >
> > > > 4) We used volunteer translators mostly associated with our
partner
> > > >> Translators Without
Borders. One issue we found was that
languages
> in
> > > >> which
> > > >> their are lots of translators such as French, Spanish, and
Italian
there
> >> is
> >> often already at least some content on many of the topics in
question.
> > The
> > >> issue than becomes integration which needs an expert Wikipedia.
And
> > for
> > > >> languages in which we have little content there are often few
> > avaliable
> > > >> volunteers.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I used projects below 65k articles as an example, as the chance
of
> > > > competing articles are pretty
low.
> > > >
> > > > 5) With respect to "paying per word" the problem is this
would
> require
> > > >> significant checks and balances to make sure people are taking
the
> > work
> > > >> seriously and not simple using Google translate for the 70 or so
> > > languages
> > > >> in which it claims to work. We often had translations undergo a
> second
> > > >> review and the volunteers at TWB have to pass certain tests to
be
> > > >> accepted.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > I'n my original email I wrote "verified good
translators". It is
as
> >
> simple as "Has the editor contributed other articles at the
project?"
> > >
> > > On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 2:26 PM, James Heilman <jmh649(a)gmail.com
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> We learned a few things during the medical translation project
which
> > > >> started back in 2011:
> > > >>
> > > >> 1) You must start with high quality content and thus all
articles
> > are
> > > > >> extensively improved before being proposed for translation.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> 2) A lot of languages want "less" content than is
present on EN
> WP.
> > > Thus
> > > > >> we
> > > > >> moved to just improving and suggesting for translation the
leads
> of
> > > the
> > > > >> English articles.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> 3) The "Content Translation" tool developed by the
WMF made
> efforts
> > > more
> > > > >> efficient than handing around word documents. Would love to
see
> that
> > > > tool
> > > > >> improved further such as having it support specific lists
of
> > articles
> > > > that
> > > > >> are deemed ready for translation by certain groups. Would
also
> love
> > > the
> > > > >> tool to have tracking metrics for these types of projects.
> > > > >>
> > > > >> 4) We used volunteer translators mostly associated with our
> partner
> > > >> Translators Without
Borders. One issue we found was that
languages
> in
> > > >> which
> > > >> their are lots of translators such as French, Spanish, and
Italian
there
> >> is
> >> often already at least some content on many of the topics in
question.
> > The
> > >> issue than becomes integration which needs an expert Wikipedia.
And
> > for
> > > >> languages in which we have little content there are often few
> > avaliable
> > > >> volunteers.
> > > >>
> > > >> 5) With respect to "paying per word" the problem is
this would
> require
> > > >> significant checks and balances to make sure people are taking
the
> > work
> > > >> seriously and not simple using Google translate for the 70 or so
> > > languages
> > > >> in which it claims to work. We often had translations undergo a
> second
> > > >> review and the volunteers at TWB have to pass certain tests to
be
> > > >> accepted.
> > > >>
> > > >> 6) I hired a coordinator for the translation project for a
couple
of
> > > >> years.
> > > >> The translators at TWB did not want to become Wikipedians or
learn
> how
> > > to
> > > >> use our systems. The coordinator created account like TransSW001
> (one
> > > for
> > > >> each volunteer) and preloaded the article to be translated into
> > Content
> > > >> Translation. They than gave the volunteer translator the user
name
and
> > >> password to the account.
> > >>
> > >> 7) Were are we at now? There are currently just over 1,000 leads
of
> > >> articles that have been
improved and are ready for translation.
This
> > > >> includes articles on the 440 medications that are on the WHO
> Essential
> > > >> List. We have worked a bit in some 100 languages. The efforts
have
> > > >> resulted
> > > >> in more than 5 million works translated and integrated into
> different
> > > >> Wikipedias. The coordinator has unfortunately moved on to his
real
> job
> > > of
> > > >> teaching high school students.
> > > >>
> > > >> 8) The project continues but at a slower pace than before. The
> > > Wikipedian
> > > >> and retired orthopedic surgeon Subas Chandra Rout has basically
> single
> > > >> handedly translated nearly all 1,000 leads into Odia a language
> spoken
> > > by
> > > >> 40 million people in Eastern India. The amazing thing is that
for
many
> > of
> > >> these topics this is the first and only information online about
it.
> > > >> Google
> > > >> translate does not even claim to work in this language. Our
> > partnerships
> > > >> with WMTW and medical school in Taipai continue to translate
into
> Chinese.
> >> There the students translate and than their translations are
reviewed
> by
> > >> their profs before being posted. They translate in groups using
> hackpad
> > to
> > >> make it more social.
> > >>
> > >> I am currently working to re invigorate the project :-)
> > >> James
> > >>
> > >> On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 5:51 AM, John Erling Blad <
jeblad(a)gmail.com
> >
> > > >> wrote:
> > > >>
> > > >> > This discussion is going to be fun! =D
> > > >> >
> > > >> > A little more than seventy Wikipedia-projects has more than
65k
> > > >> articles,
> > > >> > the remaining two hundred or so are pretty small.
> > > >> >
> > > >> > What if a base set of articles were opened for paid
translators?
There
> >> are
> >> > several lists of such base sets. We have both the thousand
articles
> > from
> > >> > "List of articles every Wikipedia should have"[1] and
and the
ten
> > > >> thousand
> > > >> > articles from the expanded list[2].
> > > >> >
> > > >> > Lets say verified good translators was paid about $0.01 per
word
> (about
> >> $1
> >> > for a 1k-article) for translating one of those articles into
another
> > >> > language, with perhaps a higher pay for contributors in
high-cost
> > >> > countries. The pay would
also have to be higher for languages
that
> > > lacks
> > > >> > good translation tools.
> > > >> >
> > > >> > I believe this would be an _enabling_ activity for the
> communities,
> > as
> > > >> > without a base set of articles it won't be possible to
build a
> > > >> community at
> > > >> > all. By not paying for new articles, and only translating
> > > >> well-referenced
> > > >> > articles, some of the disputes in the communities could be
> avoided.
> > > >> Perhaps
> > > >> > we should also identify good source articles, that would be
a
> help.
> > > >> > Translated articles should be above some minimum size, but
they
> does
> > > not
> > > >> > have to be full translations of the source article.
> > > >> >
> > > >> > A real problem is that our existing lists of good articles
other
> > > >> projects
> > > >> > should have is pretty much biased towards Western World, so
they
>
need
> > a
> > >> lot
> > >> > of adjustments. Perhaps such a project would identify our
inherit
>
bias?
> >> >
> >> > [1]
> >> >
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_every_
> >> > Wikipedia_should_have
> >> > [2]
> >> >
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_every_
> >> > Wikipedia_should_have/Expanded
> >> > _______________________________________________
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> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> James Heilman
> >> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> >> _______________________________________________
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