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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Paid translation (Gnangarra)
2. Re: Paid translation (Michael Snow)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2018 03:05:41 +0800
From: Gnangarra <gnangarra(a)gmail.com>
To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid translation
Message-ID:
<CAD==kb+-mr3+rBBYC=mgp4AYkLz-aJZQTeFPLYHo6UR_+yKsfQ(a)mail.gmail.com>
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this would be a good practical exercise to develop for WiR / WikiEd
programs in universities where they can engage with International Students
and local students studying additional languages as means of learning the
written nuances of the individual languages. Any funding would be better
utilised in enabling such programs where the flow on impact is more
likely{fact} to be lasting. Though I can see value in using a gift/reward
system for technically disadvantaged communities like the case presented
about Swahili . The focus would need to be on basic health, hygiene,
biology, science topics rather than more social or political topics.
On 25 February 2018 at 01:08, Vi to
<vituzzu.wiki(a)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(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
>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
>>>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/
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https://meta.wikimedia.org/
>>>>>> wiki/Wikimedia-l
>>>>>> New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
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>>>>>> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> James Heilman
>>>>> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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Out now: A.Gaynor, P. Newman and P. Jennings (eds.), *Never Again:
Reflections on Environmental Responsibility after Roe 8*, UWAP, 2017. Order
here
<https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/never-again-reflections-on-environmental-responsibility-after-roe-8>
.
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 2018 11:41:11 -0800
From: Michael Snow <wikipedia(a)frontier.com>
To: wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Paid translation
Message-ID: <1bd83b4d-8be3-2eec-c330-57d28a605aca(a)frontier.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
I think the experience I've had with translating matches up well with
the conclusions James has outlined. Even though I'm more likely to
translate content into English rather than out of English, the
principles still hold.
Trying to produce a translation without quality content in the original
article is a frustrating and pointless exercise for the translator.
Unless the original meets certain standards, it would be better and
easier to write the article from scratch in the "destination" language
and translate it back to the "source" language.
Assuming we have a good article in the original language, I definitely
encourage translators to use editorial judgment in what they carry over.
Focusing on the lead section is one possible approach. In general,
because we are trying to translate information and not literature, we
should have different priorities. It is more important that the
translation maintain fidelity to the facts than to the language and
structure of the article. Sometimes it makes sense to pass over certain
details, even a beginning-to-end translation might come out a bit
condensed. As one reason for this, making some details accessible to the
cultural audience in the new language can at times require a fair amount
of elaboration, more than may be ideal for the context under discussion.
The best approach to use is one of adaptation as much as translation.
I don't have strong feelings about whether a paid model will work, or
work better than purely volunteer activity, but I would be open to
seeing a trial. The essential thing is that we find translators who can
understand and apply standards of quality in their work, much like we
would expect if they were editors writing entirely new articles.
--Michael Snow
On 2/24/2018 5:26 AM, James Heilman 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
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
https://meta.wikimedia.org/
> wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
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