[Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?

Sun Jul 25 11:16:29 UTC 2010

Aphaia, any machine translation system that produces even remotely
comprehensible results should be able to be used in machine-aided
translation. It is reduced to low utility if the output is complete
gibberish, however this doesn't seem to be the case; regardless, it's
possible to turn off automatic translation and the system can be used
merely as a translation memory system, which would be useful in case
the automatic translation actually did produce gibberish. Still
useful, I think, because it automatically breaks text into segments
and is at least *intended* to preserve formatting (this seems to be an
issue for WP articles) without requiring users to re-type every single
wikilink.

-m.

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 3:47 AM, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for your clarification, Node.ue, I know it because I attended
> their presentation on Wikimania. It is an ambitious project I'd like
> to see it growing, but at this moment they seem to have a serious
> problem in its system. They seem to use English as a stem language,
> and assumes all translations are first done into English and then to
> another language. On the other hand, at least on major non-English
> Western language Wikipedia some amount of translations (1/3 IIRC) are
> not related to English.
>
> If you think it works for you, it's fine, but please be aware it might
> not work for non-English speakers as well as for you.
>
> Cheers,
>
> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 7:18 PM, Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Aphaia, a great deal of confusion has been created with regards to
>> this project. I hope you'll allow me to attempt to clear it up.
>>
>> These are NOT articles that were translated directly by Google
>> Translate. Rather, they were created using Google Translator Toolkit,
>> which requires human intervention by a speaker of the language -
>> someone to check and correct every single sentence translated, in the
>> case of languages where Google already has machine translation, or to
>> write entirely new _human_ translations, in the cases where no Google
>> Translate module exists (for example, Tamil), with the aid of
>> Translation Memory software.
>>
>> I currently work as a translator and have found that Google Translator
>> Toolkit is great for speeding up and improving the consistency of
>> translations, and at least the results of my work are usually better
>> with it than they would be without (I'm glad for the consistency - if
>> I'm translating a large document, I'd like to make sure to translate
>> the same phrases the same way every time they occur rather than using
>> slightly different wording the second time around). Since they're
>> revised and corrected by a human, they _should_ have the same level of
>> grammatical correctness, comprehensibility and translation quality as
>> a pure human translation. If they don't, this is the fault of the
>> person using the toolkit, not the software itself.
>>
>> -m.
>>
>> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 1:53 AM, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 3:52 PM, Jon Davis <wiki at konsoletek.com> wrote:
>>>> I think the answer is "Yes and No".  As with any new
>>>> project/concept/idea/trial there are pro's and there are con's.  The real
>>>> question is: Do the pro's outweigh the con's?
>>>>
>>>> From just reading what you linked (And not in any way being involved with
>>>> these language projects) and my own personal experiences of how I work on
>>>> Wikipedia.  Yes, I think it is a good thing overall.
>>>>
>>>> From what I've seen, it is much easier to convince someone who has never
>>>> edited, to fix grammatical, spelling or other "simple" mistakes.  Generally
>>>> people don't dive in and write/translate entire articles - it is simply too
>>>> high of a barrier to entry.  These pre-translated articles give people an
>>>> "in", they are already there, and have obvious errors that are easy to fix.
>>>
>>> In my experience at Transcom and my own as translator, people
>>> appreciate pre-translated articles only in a good quality, there are
>>> pre-translations in too bad quality which contains too many obvious
>>> errors not easy to fix in time frame.
>>>
>>> I've seen several requests, both on meta and on language projects,  to
>>> delete this kind of bad quality "translation" which people think
>>> better to scratch a new version.
>>>
>>> And in my observation Google translation is still in this level in
>>> many languages. And even if you handle Western languages, unless one
>>> of them in English, results may be in poor quality (e.g. they cannot
>>> keep the distinction between tu/vous, du/Sie etc.)
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> More "ok" content is better than no content, at least if I have my druthers.
>>>>
>>>> -Jon
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 23:12, Shiju Alex <shijualexonline at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Hello All,
>>>>>
>>>>> Recently there are lot of discussions (in this list also) regarding the
>>>>> translation project by Google for some of the big language wikipedias. The
>>>>> foundation also seems like approved the efforts of Google. But I am not
>>>>> sure
>>>>> whether any one is interested to consult the respective language community
>>>>> to know their views.
>>>>>
>>>>> As far as I know only Tamil, Bengali, and Swahili Wikipedians have raised
>>>>> their concerns about Google's project. But, does this means that other
>>>>> communities are happy about Google efforts? If there is no active community
>>>>> in a wikipedia how can we expect response from communities? If there is no
>>>>> response from a community, does that mean that Google can hire some native
>>>>> speakers and use machine translation to create articles for that wikipedia?
>>>>>
>>>>> Now let us go back to a basic question. Does WMF require a wiki community
>>>>> to
>>>>> create wikipedia in any language? Or can they utilize the services of
>>>>> companies like Google to create wikipedias in N number of languages?
>>>>>
>>>>> One of the main point raised by the supporters of Google translation is
>>>>> that, Google's project is good *for the online version of the
>>>>> language*.That
>>>>> might be true. But no body is cared to verify whether it is good for
>>>>> Wikipedia.
>>>>>
>>>>> As pointed out by Ravi in his presentation in Wikimania, (
>>>>> http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ddpg3qwc_279ghm7kbhs), the Google
>>>>> translation of wikipedia articles:
>>>>>
>>>>>   - will affect the biological growth of a Wikipedia article
>>>>>   - will create copy of English wikipedia article in local wikis
>>>>>   - it is against some of the basic philosophies of wikipedia
>>>>>
>>>>> The people outside wiki will definitely benefit from this tool, if Google
>>>>> translation tool is developed for each language. I saw the working example
>>>>> of this in Poland during Wikimania, when some people who are not good in
>>>>> English used google translator to communicate with us. :)
>>>>>
>>>>> Apart from the points raised by Ravi in his presentation, this will affect
>>>>> the community growth.If there is no active wiki community, how can we
>>>>> expect
>>>>> them to look after all these junk articles uploaded to wiki every day. When
>>>>> all the important article links are already turned blue, how we can expect
>>>>> any future potential editors. So according to me, Google's project is
>>>>> killing the growth of an active wiki community.
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course, Tamil Wikipedia is trying to use Google project effectively. But
>>>>> only Tamil is doing that since they have an active wiki community*. Many
>>>>> Wiki communities are not even aware that such a project is happening in
>>>>> their wiki*.
>>>>>
>>>>> I do not want to point out specific language wikipedas to prove my point.
>>>>> But visit the wikipedias (especially wikipedias* that use non-latin
>>>>> scripts*)
>>>>> to view the status of google translation project.  Loads of junk articles
>>>>> are uploaded to wiki every day. Most of the time the only edit in these
>>>>> articles is the edit by its creator and the  inter language wiki bots.
>>>>>
>>>>> This effort will definitely affect community growth. Kindly see the points
>>>>> raised by a Swahali
>>>>> Wikipedian<
>>>>> http://muddybtz.blog.com/2010/07/16/what-happened-on-the-google-challenge-the-swahili-wikipedia/
>>>>> >.
>>>>> Many Swahali users (and other language users) now expect a laptop or some
>>>>> other monitory benefits to write in their wikipedia. That affects the
>>>>> community growth.
>>>>>
>>>>> So what is the solution for this? Can we take lessons from
>>>>> Tamil/Bengali/Swahili wikipedias and find methods to use this service
>>>>> effectively or continue with the current article creation process.
>>>>>
>>>>> One last question. Is this tool that is developing by Google is an open
>>>>> source tool? If not, we need to answer so many questions that may follow.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards
>>>>>
>>>>> Shiju Alex
>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shijualex
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> foundation-l mailing list
>>>>> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Jon
>>>> [[User:ShakataGaNai]] / KJ6FNQ
>>>> http://snowulf.com/
>>>> http://ipv6wiki.net/
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>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>> KIZU Naoko
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>>
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>
>
> --
> KIZU Naoko
> http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese)
> Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD
>
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