Meta:Babel/Archives/2011-02

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in February 2011, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

Abuse filters?

Maybe an abuse filter can be written so that edits containing gibberish prompt users to make sure of what they're posting before they're allowed? I would suggest disabling "gibberish" edits altogether, but it depends on how strict the filter is written, I suppose. FWF has been getting a lot of crap due to the new interface thingy MZ has going on wmfwiki. Killiondude 07:53, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think the AbuseFilter extension is enabled at Meta-Wiki. And it seems like it'd be pretty difficult (if not impossible) to write such a filter. --MZMcBride 00:57, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Okay. Killiondude 01:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It is activated. -- Dferg ^{☎ talk} 14:03, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Possible unauthorized use of the Wikipedia logo

I have found this Wikipedia logo currently used close to the top right corner of the page at http://www.search.com/reference/Cass_Technical_High_School , where it is surrounded with many (3 on the left, 3 below) advertisements, which they call "sponsored links".

foundation:Trademark Policy#Reporting Trademark Abuse is evasive on the exact location of the "several Wikimedia forums" where this sort of incident is supposed to be reported. So I report it here.

Note that foundation:Trademark Policy#Things You Can Do, a Summary requires "including appropriate attribution" which is not being done (The names of the Wikimedia contributors are not provided).

you may access and use the Services only for your own personal, non-commercial use. in their Terms of use does not seem to be a fair enforcement of the requirement to provide the terms of the Free license to each reader. Teofilo 14:29, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi Teofilo, I'll pass this along to the legal team. Thanks! Regards, ⇒SWATJester ^{Son of the Defender} 07:56, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. If the legal team happens to read this Babel section, I would like to stress the following : Article 4 b of CC-BY-SA 3.0 requires that the credits must be "at least as prominent as the credits for the other contributing authors". That means that every picture picked up from Wikimedia Commons must bear a caption similar to the captions found on pictures on the CBS News website, for example "Britain's Prince Harry (left) and William are pictured at a World Cup match in June 2010 in Cape Town. (Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images)" found at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/14/earlyshow/leisure/celebspot/main20031748.shtml . Similarly, Wikipedia text writing authors' names should appear at least as prominently as "Author: Daniel Terdiman Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET" as seen on this page. Note that Wikimedia Commons users who want to reuse a picture on their own website are provided with a "

Use this file" link, in a header or sidebar located above or on the right hand side of the picture, providing basic attribution information, which, if copy-pasted in a prominent-enough manner, should be sufficient in most cases. Teofilo 17:07, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Same topic, different languages

Articles on the same topics but in different languages do not say the same thing. Are there plans to make sure that articles in different languages say the same things? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.119.192.163 (talk) 20:13, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess not. The only way to have near-exact content is by thorough manual translation (which will nearly-never happen), or machine translation (which will kill Wikipedia's trust). So, the current way is the only way; word-by-word steady translations by volunteers. Not that fast, but it works. ;) Reh man 00:16, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

No, and, actually, they shouldn't. This is because the different languages actually have different policies about what belongs in articles. This occurs because, outside of some basic ideas (like the restriction on original research), editing policies are allowed to evolve by consensus at each 'pedia separately. Furthermore, in general, a 'pedia should site sources in its own language wherever possible; since a great many documents are not translated, this sometimes makes it difficult to verify information across languages. Finally, what Rehman suggests isn't even possible in most cases anyway, since translation is not an exact science, and word-by-word translations are some of the least accurate. There's a reason why popular books get retranslate books and changes all the time--because different translators disagree on not only individual words, but even the philosophy of translating. (for example, should cultural references or metaphors be translated literally, or should they be translated in a way that makes the reference/idiom make sense to the target native speaker?). Qwyrxian (talk) 05:40, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Just clarifying that I was not "suggesting" anything. Was simple saying that the current methods of crosswiki development is the best way... Reh man 16:20, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I think that this should be a higher priority than it is, and that the language Wikimedias in general need to be more linked together. Also, for what Qwyrxian said, I can see where you are coming from, although I kind of disagree with some of it.:

1.) "No, and, actually, they shouldn't."

Personally, if we are trying to collect as much information about the world as possible, then in a perfect world that information should be available to anyone, regardless of what language they speak.

2.)"This is because the different languages actually have different policies about what belongs in articles. This occurs because, outside of some basic ideas (like the restriction on original research), editing policies are allowed to evolve by consensus at each 'pedia separately."

Although there may be different policies on different language wikis the facts themselves are still the same. In the case of a conflict, what we could probably do is just copy the information that conforms to the receiving wiki's policies. In the long run we should try to make the rules for all of the language wikis at least semi-unified for big things like original research and citing sources. (The smaller things like naming conventions and infobox formatting can be quibbled over in the individual wikis.)

3.) "Furthermore, in general, a 'pedia should site sources in its own language wherever possible;"

I disagree. I think that information should be gathered using any means necessary. If a topic is indigenous to a culture that speaks a different language there may not be enough usable information in our language to make a cohesive article.

4.) "Finally, what Rehman suggests isn't even possible in most cases anyway, since translation is not an exact science, and word-by-word translations are some of the least accurate. There's a reason why popular books get retranslate books and changes all the time--because different translators disagree on not only individual words, but even the philosophy of translating. …"

I do not deny that this will have an impact on translation, although I suppose it helps that we are mostly translating raw facts, rather than something like a novel or story, where you may want to keep some words untranslated to preserve the atmosphere of the text. I think that cultural references should be translated if possible, unless it's something that is extremely specific and there's no literal translation that accurately describes the term (i.e.: A term for a general party could be translated, but a very specific type of celebration practiced only by a small, secluded tribe should probably not be translated), or the untranslated term is generally accepted in the language. You basically want to try to be politically correct. In general, references to things the person might not know about should be explained, and idioms should be avoided whenever possible.

Sorry for the angry list format, but I wasn't sure how else to get my point out. --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 00:31, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think this would go over well with the smaller projects. Who would decide and how would it be decided which language's version becomes the one used everywhere? It would be stepping on a lot of toes and removing a lot of people's work. The smaller projects would do almost nothing but translate articles from larger ones. Mr.Z-man 01:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

How about this? Many times, while doing research, I machine translate otherlanguage articles (I've a script which makes it a one-click action), and I get info from the articles, which are usually completely different. Why not choose an article on enwiki one by one, machine translate all of the otherlanguage pages, and then insert whaterver extra info gleaned from the translations into the enwiki page? This way, our content can increase tenfold (yes, tenfold, I know from experience... I get two thirds of my info from the German Wiki, and some more from Spanish and French.) The other wikis can use the enwiki article as a backdrop, and take info from there to add to their articles. ManishEarth^{Talk • Stalk} 07:25, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

If you don't know the language and can't check the sources, you really shouldn't rely on machine translation. Machine translation can sometimes use words that make sense in context but have different meaning than the original, or even invert the meaning of a sentence. Mr.Z-man 08:03, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

We're at least a dozen years away from decent quality machine translation. And, to go back to Vgmddg's points, you may want the different 'pedias to use the same policies, but the fact is that they don't and that they don't have to. For example, my understanding is that English Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living people is far more restrictive than in other countries. Similarly, other languages may have more restrictive rules on the inclusion of explicit (sexual, violent, etc.) material. And the different wikis certainly don't have concordant rules about exactly what constitutes a reliable source, which underpins the decision about what can and cannot be in articles. While you are certainly welcome to propose a unification of policy on meta, I don't think you'll get very far. Now, I think the idea in general of moving information from one wiki to another is a great one, as long as its being done not strictly by machine translation. But I don't think it would be appropriate to walk over to, say, es.wiki, and go to their article on Barrack Obama or even Vicente Fox and say "Well, our (English) article has more info, so we're going to scrap yours and bring over our translation." Qwyrxian (talk) 00:30, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

As for unifying each wiki's rules, I'd say that is a lower priority. I don't believe that the other wikis will appreciate being in any way forced to change their rules. However, that shouldn't stop people from bringing small parts of policies from one language to another and initiating a discussion about it. Keyword is discussion though. As for the existing rule conflicts what we will do is to only translate the material that complies with the receiving wiki's rules. If certain information can't be brought over due to policy issues it's no direct loss to anyone. Versions of articles should NOT be completely scrapped though (at least not unless it was headed for the dumpster anyway). I've also thought of some methods for transferring information from wiki to wiki, as in most cases trying to translate an entire article would probably be impractical and cumbersome. I've started a subsection on it below, as well as a section for possible policies. Feel free to add to both of them. --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 22:51, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

EDIT: Moved the following conversation above the subsections.--vgmddg (look | talk | do) 02:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

There's really no point in making a policy here. Our scope only extends to this project. What people do on other projects is the other projects' concern. I don't think we should be going to other wikis asking them to translate our articles. If they want to translate some, they can just as easily copy them themselves. Mr.Z-man 23:39, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not saying at all that other wikis should be told that they have to translate our articles. I think that the other wikis will act very negatively to being in any way forced to do anything by another language. All this is saying is that people can do this, not that they have to. However, if and when this goes into effect, it is important that we tell the other languages that this is happening, at least so that they know what is happening. This way, if they think it's a good idea they can join in, and if they want nothing to do with it we can generate sort of information treaties for it. (i.e: If, hypothetically, the Chinese Wikipedia said that they didn't want information copied from their wiki, we could generate a policy for this rather than unknowingly pulling information from them.) --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 00:27, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

No project can require that no information be copied from it. All text on Wikimedia projects must be released under a free license. My point was mainly that we shouldn't be copying things to other wikis unless we plan on translating it ourselves. Your suggestion seemed to imply that people should be copying things to other wikis if we think it would be helpful for them. Mr.Z-man 01:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you were talking about. No, what I meant was that people will copy it to the language themselves. We wouldn't push it on them or force them to take it or anything. If a person on a specific language wiki feels that their version of an article isn't up to snuff, then they can go look on other language wikis and copy information from there. Do you know what mean? --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 02:30, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but of course they can already do that. We don't need any new polices or processes for it, especially pointlessly restrictive and unenforceable ones like only allowing GA or better articles to be copied for translating. Mr.Z-man 07:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Although they can already translate information from other Language wikis, it is kind of hard to do so because you usually have to either a.) translate it all in one sitting, or b.) make a user subpage and translate it there, which won't get very much traffic for help. What I want to do is to make it easier to translate articles as a community by allowing different versions of articles to appear in subpages of the main article where it can be easily accessible by everyone. That way, instead of having to translate it by yourself all at once, other users can help translate it as a community. --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 16:19, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Attention: Before we continue building on this idea I ask that we move this topic to Meta-Wiki or another location where we can get input from other language wikis. This idea will not work otherwise. Thank you. --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 22:31, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

User:Queerguide

Authentic user or subtle outing? At work, so can't get to the website on the userpage. Kylu 15:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Looks authentic to me. He has posted his real name on his home wiki user page as well. Regards, Guido den Broeder 12:52, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Guido. Kylu 16:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Promoting the Southeast Asian languages projects

Hi, I've started a new page called Promoting the Southeast Asian languages projects, inspired from Promoting the South Asian languages projects. If anyone willing to chip in, be bold! Bennylin 15:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)