Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid translation

24 Feb 2018


      I agree with the last part of Vito's message. For languages where '''all'''
the speakers speak another lingua franca, I think such process does not
have real value. The speakers will always go read in the bigger language
because the article is most likely to be better. The advantages of having
their own Wikipedia is to be able to express knowledge in their own way
according to their own culture.
Jean-Philippe Béland
Vice President, Wikimedia Canada
On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 12:09 PM Vi to vituzzu.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
...
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@gmail.com:
...
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@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
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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@gmail.com
wrote:
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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@wikimedia.ca
...
wrote:
...
I think the request for such projects should come from the
concerned
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...
...
...
language projects, same for the list of articles. If not, in my
simple
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...
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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@gmail.com
...
...
wrote:
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...
Should have added that the remaining points are somewhat less
interesting
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...
in this context. Preloading a set of articles is a bad idea, the
translators should be able to chose for themselves. Articles
should
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...
...
also
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be
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pretty broad, not very narrow technical or medical, ie vertical
articles,
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as the number of editors that can handle those will be pretty
small.
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...
In particular: Do not believe you can turn a teanslator into a
new
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...
...
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editor!
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You can although turn an existing editor into a translator.
On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 3:34 PM, John Erling Blad <
jeblad@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
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>> 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.
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...
And
...
...
for
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>> languages in which we have little content there are often few
avaliable
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>> 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
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>> seriously and not simple using Google translate for the 70 or
so
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...
...
...
...
languages
>> in which it claims to work. We often had translations undergo
a
...
...
...
second
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...
>> 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
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as
...
...
...
...
> simple as "Has the editor contributed other articles at the
project?"
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...
...
>
> On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 2:26 PM, James Heilman <
jmh649@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
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...
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@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
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...
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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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid translation