Hi Bala,
Thanks for the stats.
On Google:
While we have no new Google articles for the last 5 months, around 600
articles get created every month in Tamil Wikipedia. So concerning Tamil
Wikipedia's case, Google has not contributed much article number wise.
But all their articles are very lengthy and hence have contributed
significantly to the total number of words in all Indic Wikis they operate.
( Precise stats of number of words can be obtained from Google's
presentation in last Wikimania). Nevertheless, Google articles are still
under review in Tamil Wikipedia. they may be moved to user namespace in bulk
and will be moved back only after meeting quality guidelines.
While Google has contributed in some way in increasing article count, size
in the Wikipedias it operates, it is a thing of concern as their sub
standard translation can bring down the image of Wikipedias concerned. Also,
small Wikipedias which don't have a well knot community won't be able to
control Google's operation or improve the quality of the articles.
On Paid translation:
//*Why should regular Wikipedians be motivated to contribute when Google
pays to do the same ?"*
//
This is a very easy question. Many of the regular Wikipedians are
professionals of high calibre and their time is much more worth than what
the translators get paid. It is not money that motivates them but the spirit
of contributing / pleasure of doing something they like. So they will
continue to contribute. Especially, when paid translators do sub standard
work, they think better to stop it and just do it themselves.
Ravi
On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Bala Jeyaraman <sodabottle(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
In Tamil wikipedia, Google translated articles number
1,240 (barring one or
two which we might have forgotten to tag). This translates to roughly 4.4 %
of the total articles in Ta. wiki. Also about 100 or so of the translated
articles already had stubs/fair sized articles, before google translators
overwrote them.
Creation of new google articles stopped on August 15, 2010 because of
quality concerns. After an extensive quality review process we reached a
deal with google. In this second phase - we picked the translators and the
topics to be translated. They are done in the translator's user space and
moved to article space only after review by tamil wikipedians. So far 25
such articles have been translated and are waiting in the userspace for the
review to be completed.