OKA/Instructions for editors: translating into non-English Wikipedia

This page contains the instructions provided to OKA grant recipients for translating Wikipedia (WP) articles. For transparency, it is publicly available. OKA editors are usually new, with no prior experience in editing Wikipedia.

Disclaimer to OKA editors: OKA is not affiliated with Wikimedia. The information below is provided as advice only – Wikipedia policies will always have precedence. When editing Wikipedia, you should make sure to comply with Wikipedia policies. In case any guidance provided in this document contradicts Wikimedia guidelines, please flag it through a comment in the document or by contacting infookawiki

Introduction

Each Wikipedia (WP) has its own guidelines, so when translating pages from English to another language, the process will look slightly different than when translating pages from another language into English.

This document provides an overview of the key differences, as well as general tips for publishing articles into other language WPs.

Before reading this, make sure you are already familiar with the more general translation instructions for the English Wikipedia, because the current document only covers differences. If something is not specifically mentioned, you should assume that the guidelines are the same as for English.

Prioritization of articles to translate

Other WPs are by far not as comprehensive as the English WP, so we need to be stricter when selecting which pages to translate.

Unlike EN WP, for which we translate almost all pages that meet our quality standards, for other languages we prioritize primarily based on the importance of the topic and the number of views. This means, for example, that an article that would have been ranked as “Priority 1” for English may be ranked as “Priority 6” for Portuguese or Spanish.

Because this is a more complex assessment, the prioritization is done primarily by OKA admins, using external tools (e.g., to find articles with the highest number of monthly views). This means that, unlike for EN, translators do not usually add articles to the list. However, if there are specific articles that you would like to translate (e.g., because you are interested in the topic), you are still free to pick any of them independently from the pageviews: the article tracker is only a recommendation and you do not have to stick to it.

Step by step guide

Prerequisites

The following step-by-step guide is sufficient to publish your first ES/PT articles, but it is not comprehensive. The ultimate reference for editing the Spanish/Portuguese Wikipedia should be:

ES Manual de estilo & Palabras a evitar

PT Livro de estilo & Palavras a evitar

You are not required to read the entire manuals in your first two weeks (80h of work) as an ES/PT wiki translator, but you should start reading them after that. Once you have completed your first month (173h) of translating for ES/PT wiki, you must have read and be familiar with both manuals before contributing further.

Initial setup

Disclosing your affiliation with OKA

As with the EN WP, to comply with Wikipedia's requirement to disclose paid contributions, you are required to add the equivalent disclaimer to your user page in the WP version in which you will publish:

ES

{{cuenta remunerada|empleador=OKA.wiki}}

Recibo un modesto estipendio de Open Knowledge Association (OKA) para apoyar mi trabajo en Wikipedia. Sin embargo, las contribuciones son mías.

OKA es una organización sin fines de lucro que busca mejorar el alcance de contenido proveniente de países no anglófonos, el cual suele estar poco representado en Wikipedia. Los traductores son libres de trabajar en cualquier artículo que deseen, sin obligaciones hacia OKA. Más información sobre OKA [https://oka.wiki aquí].

PT

Recebo uma pequena bolsa da Open Knowledge Association (OKA) para apoiar meu trabalho na Wikipédia. No entanto, as contribuições que faço são minhas.

A OKA é uma organização sem fins lucrativos que busca melhorar a cobertura de conteúdo de países não anglófonos, que normalmente são sub-representados na Wikipédia. Os tradutores são livres para trabalhar em qualquer artigo que desejarem, sem obrigações para com a OKA. Mais informações sobre a OKA podem ser encontradas [https://oka.wiki aqui].

{{Wikipedia:Userbox/Wikitradutor|en|Inglês}}

[ES-wiki] Become an autoconfirmed user (usuario autoconfirmado)

To edit ES WP fully you need to become an autoconfirmed user (usuario autoconfirmado) by meeting the following requirements:

The account is at least 4 days old.
You have made at least 50 edits on ES WP articles.

One easy way to reach the edit count is to go to other WP articles and add links within paragraphs. You can also add categories at the bottom of the page.

Article selection and setup

Check for duplicates and similar articles. Other wikis are not as well maintained as EN WP, so there is a much higher likelihood that the article listed in the tracker already exists. Therefore, you should be even more diligent when checking if the article already exists before starting to translate. More on how to deal with duplicate articles here.
It’s assumed that you have read and understood the OKA Instructions (into EN). The basic process of setting the article and saving your progress as a Draft is still the same. The difference is that we will no longer submit the Draft for revision. We will publish it in the Mainspace directly.
Start time recording and use the correct translation project. For example: "EN to ES" (which isn't the same as "ES to EN")

Main content

Check other sources before translating technical terms.

If the article uses technical terms (e.g., Machine Learning), there is a high chance that an official translation of that term already exists.

You should always check for what is the common use of a technical term before doing a literal translation. An easy way to do it is finding the term’s EN WP page and checking the translation given in your source language (if it has an equivalent).

Consider adding the original English term in parenthesis.

If you suspect that the translated term is not yet commonly used in the other language (e.g., because it is a new concept or because people often use the English term), then you should also add the English untranslated term in parenthesis.

For example, in French, Machine Learning is called Apprentissage Automatique, but many French speakers will know it under its English name. Therefore, the FR WP page shows both the French and the English names in the lead section.

You should not add the original English term in the following situations:

If it was already used previously on the page
If you have added a link to a dedicated WP page for that term (e.g., the French page Apprentissage supervisé refers to Apprentissage Automatique without mentioning the EN translation again, since this EN translation is present in the link)

Short citations

Sometimes you'll find short citations, which is a way of adding a reference that has already been quoted in the text, but without including all the details. This type of source is often used in EN WP articles when you need to repeat a reference but mention a different page, for example.

There are different ways to create a short citation. On the EN WP, the main way is to use the Harvard citation and Sfn templates, which are part of Module:Footnotes, a component that has been replicated in several other Wikipedias.

ES WP: Cita Harvard
PT WP: Harv

You can find more information about short citations here (ES) and here (PT).

Finalizing

Short description:

ES

Not required although you can add one by going to the article’s Wikidata page and editing the description.

PT

Not required as it is generated automatically once the article is published

[ES-wiki] (Optional) Wikidata or “Control de autoridades” template

Add it by copying and pasting the template from another ES WP article.

You can also add it by pasting the following code to the bottom of your page:

{{Control de autoridades}}

Publishing

Step one: To satisfy Wikipedia's copyright and translation requirements, you have to fill in the Edit summary box as follows (only when adding new translated text, not for subsequent small edits):

ES

El contenido de esta edición está traducido del artículo de Wikipedia en inglés que se encuentra en [[:en: NOMBRE EXACTO DEL ARTÍCULO ORIGINAL]]; ver el historial para verificar su atribución.

PT

O conteúdo desta edição foi traduzido do artigo existente da Wikipédia em inglês em [[:en:NOME EXATO DO ARTIGO ORIGINAL]]; veja o histórico para a atribuição.

Step two: Add the following translation tags to the “Talk” page ( PT: “Discussão” ; ES: “Discussion”) of your article to indicate that you translated the article from a different WP:

ES

{{Traducido de|en|NOMBRE EXACTO DEL ARTÍCULO ORIGINAL|oldid=}}{{OKA}}

oldid= (required) Go to the original EN article > "View History" > click on the date of the most recent revision. The URL of the resulting page will end with "oldid=" followed by a number (e.g. "...oldid=1234"). Add this number after the "=" in the template above.

Example:

{{Traducido de|en|AI safety|oldid=1241770356}}{{OKA}}

PT

{{Tradução de|artigo|en|NOME EXATO DO ARTIGO ORIGINAL|data= }}{{OKA}}

Example:

{{Tradução de|artigo|en|AI safety|{{Dtlink|2|6|2023}}}}{{OKA}}

Step three: Do not add red links to the articles tracker, except if:

You are personally interested in translating them; or
They are part of a “Main article”, “Further information”, or similar tag (see example screenshot below). These tags should not point to red links, so it makes sense to translate them to improve navigation and completeness of a topic.

Our selection has to be more careful than for English, focusing on the most important articles - which are often not those marked as red links.

Important:
If you add a red link to the non-English article tracker, be sure to tag and/or notify a Manager before starting the translation so they can assess it, add relevant notes, and prioritize it. If you don't notify a manager, the page will be deleted from the tracker.

Tips and best practices

ES WP

Duplicates

Compared to EN WP, other often have many old articles that are not properly maintained. This results in sometimes incorrectly linked articles and duplicate content.

When an article already exists, you should first try to fix the interwiki language links if possible. If you're not sure how to do this, ask for the help of your manager. Once the interwiki link is fixed, you have two options:

Drop the article, mark it as duplicate in the tracker, as tag an admin as FYI
Expand the current article (if the existing article misses a lot of content). You should never create a new, separate article!

Sometimes, the opposite happens: EN WP has multiple articles, while other WPs have only one, which covers all topics at the same time. In such cases, it is usually better not to create a new article, but just to expand the existing one (if relevant). For example, both Photography (the art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light) and Photograph (an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface) lead to the ES WP page Fotografía, which displays content from both even though they're separate pages in EN WP.

Pre-translation research is essential to ensure that you don't add duplicate pages, and that you don't delete wikidata links to other relevant existing articles - which could result in your user profile being banned or flagged for "sabotaje" or "vandalismo".

If you are unsure whether an article with duplicate content should be translated, created or expanded, flag it in the tracker and/or let a manager know so they can assess the situation.

Title conventions

As with the EN WP, when deciding on a title for your ES WP article, you should try to use the same style as other ES WP pages, which you can find by doing a quick Internet search for similar articles.

Another thing to watch out for is the use of "La/El/etc." in front of nouns.

For example, if the article is called "Gulf War", the correct title would be "Guerra del Golfo", not "La Guerra del Golfo" or "Guerra Golfo". This rule also applies to section titles.

You can read more about article title conventions on the ES WP here, and about section titles here.

"Plantillas de navegación"

It often happens that you find articles in EN WP with useful navigation templates that you would like to recreate in ES WP.

However, due to ES WP's current policy, it is not recommended to create such templates. There is a high risk that these templates would be deleted by an admin, causing you to lose all the effort you put into the task.

If you still want to add the useful links to your article, you can add a new section and create a list of the relevant links. You can also use the "Lista de columnas" template to improve navigability.

How to translate "Lists"

Wikipedia has thousands of lists of things; some are even lists of other lists, many of them with thousands of views and covering relevant topics worth translating. The basic guidelines to list translation into Spanish are as follow:

Replace "List" with "Anexo:" in your title, otherwise your article may be challenged or even deleted. An example of how this works is the page List of Wikipedias, translated into ES-wiki as Anexo:Wikipedias.
- Replace the word "list" throughout the article whenever appropriate (e.g., in the introduction of the list). Here's an example:

Check the list's items for availability. If a list has too many "red links" in the target language, it's not worth translating and must be deprioritized.
Organize the items in alphabetical order after translation, otherwise the list will lose its comprehensiveness.

You can find more information on ES WP Anexos here.