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

[Mark Williamson]

Well, my impression, and I'm by no means an expert in this (I'm not
associated with Google), is that they emphasized quantity over quality
and forgot to mention the importance of community to our projects.

I heard that for the Swahili Wikipedia contest at least, they gave
away prizes... but perhaps they should've included a requirement that
the articles they created be rated as "good" by the community, not
full of errors and nonsense sentences, and that all project
participants who want any chance at winning must respond to all
talkpage messages within 72 hours (or something like that).

I think telling a group of newbies that they'll get a big prize if
they translate the most articles is a recipe for disaster. What
incentive do they have to make sure their translation is of good
quality? What incentive do they have to stick around afterwards?

-m.

On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 9:10 AM, Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Mark Williamson:
>> GTTK can be used as a force of good if someone puts in the appropriate
>> time and effort; when used _properly_ by a careful, knowledgeable
>
>> It is my thought that the huge problem here is lack of engagement with
>> communities. Essentially, Google swooped down and started dropping
>
> Agreed. Again, in my experience it is quicker and delivers more
> quality to translate by your own. If others have different experiences
> (it may depend on the language), okay. It seems that something went
> very wrong when telling people who to contribute to a Wikipedia
> language version. Could you report more about that, Mark?
>
> Kind regards
> Ziko
>
> --
> Ziko van Dijk
> Niederlande
>
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