​ WWII is not an universal truth. If some small country claim the Nazis was the good guys, then they are simply wrong.
​No even thats not entirely true for some countries WWII in Europe was foot note, for others WWII was the trigger for escaping colonial rule. Languages related to individual cultures do have different perspectives on events ​even on en.wp some FA can tend to have bias to US/UK perspective on events. There is no one truth for history its all about perspectives, about the significance of differing events, and the impact those events had.
Even when it comes to less disputed topics like biota there can differences, take Kangaroo there is referred to an Aboriginal Australian word but in reality there are over 300 different Australian Languages and each has their own name for a kangaroo. They each also have different knowledge and information simply because of the different environmental conditions.
Paid translations is not the ideal format, it even has flaws if money is to be spent then making tools and support projects that enable translations. Translations risk being interpreted at paternalism with a colonial language deciding how an indigenous language should speak about a subject.
​
On 27 February 2018 at 17:40, John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com wrote:
WWII is not an universal truth. If some small country claim the Nazis was the good guys, then they are simply wrong.
Yes there are a lot of projects where information diverge, but usually that is because someone added material that somehow seems more appropriate for readers in that specific language. Although sometimes the content is really wrong, and that happen on all projects.
On Mon, Feb 26, 2018 at 12:51 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
wrote:
Hoi, I have been involved in a translation project with professional
translators
translating featured articles of the English Wikipedia. The choice for featured articles was done because we expected that the content would not be in dispute. We found different. Several of the translated articles
were
not accepted.. one of them was about World War II.
I have also toyed with the idea of content that is not available in the language of a Wikipedia (including English). Translation is one solution
an
other solution is generating basic information from the data available at Wikidata. The benefit is not only to our readers; they will at least be informed up to a point and another benefit will be the quality of the Wikipedia involved. One problem that will be fixed is the one of false friends, when red links are linked to Wikidata, the information provided will always be implicitly correct. Another possibility is to provide the text of a sister Wikipedia.
We can do a better job by providing the sum of all knowledge that is available to us. Thanks, GerardM
On 25 February 2018 at 15:16, John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com wrote:
Sorry, but this does not make sense. The core articles apply globally. There will although be articles in additions to a list of core
articles,
but I don't try to advocate any of those lists as the one and only
list.
Actually I have toyed with an idea of automatically create a list of
core
articles, and that would identify important articles no matter if they
are
from a big western language or a minority language.
The main problem is NOT that minority languages should have articles
about
the major cities and important philosophers, *the main problem is that minor languages can't get started because they lack content*!
On Sun, Feb 25, 2018 at 2:41 AM, Vi to vituzzu.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Cultural appropriation is something different, by "forcing" the
contents
in
a minority language we would actually be at risk of implementing a
form
of
"cultural colonialism" which is the opposite of a cultural
appropriation.
NOTE: I refer to "the Western" in both cultural and "Wikipedian"
sense: I
mean cultures with a strong presence on the web plus developed and flourishing Wikipedia communities.
Helping minority languages with funds/workforce is not bad in my
opinion,
but I think a bottom-up process must be followed, with the "bottom"
being
as closer as possible to relevant linguistic/cultural communities. A Wikipedia full of "what the Westerns think is important" in a
minority
non-Western language would definitely fail project scopes.
This kind of problem almost does not arise with minority language associated to Western cultures since they share the same cultural backgrounds: back to my previous example the cultural background of Sicilian is substantially equal to Italian one. Still, as I already
wrote,
wikis in minority languages should focus on a certain aspect of wiki
scope:
Wiki has roughly two main scopes: 1) sharing knowledge in a certain language 2) also preserving the cultural heritage associated with
different
languages. For languages mainly spoken as first language the "sharing knowledge" aspect is predominant, while the second should take
precedence
in languages whose speakers are native speakers of a "bigger"
language.
Vito
2018-02-24 22:58 GMT+01:00 John Erling Blad jeblad@gmail.com:
Seems like this is mostly about cultural ownership and
appropriation.
Not
sure if it is possible to agree on this.
On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 6:08 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 > > 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: > > > > > 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 > > > > 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@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@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@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@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@lists.wikimedia.org > > > > > >> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/ > > > > mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > > > > > , > > > > > >> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
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