Talk:Communications committee/Subcommittees/Translation/Archive 1

Interested party

If you are interested in joining Transcom, please sign here.

• I'm interested by this subcommittee also, if extra help were needed. -- Nick Moreau

• Also interested: Zanimum, Zocky, PZFUN, Solensean, Babbage, Patelurology2

Core Set

Basically I agree on that Sabine proposes here. As for core set language, I am not sure if we need to include Dutch. My alternative is Polish or Russian, if possible, because it could be a good start for other Slavic languages or just omitted Dutch and currently keep our list up to eight langauges. --Aphaia 09:48, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

No doubts, Russian can attract more translators. --Gabix 10:21, 28 March 2006 (UTC) (which would be great... Sj)

Getting latest statistics, Transcom members agreed on that we will be better to review our current "Possible core set of languages" ideas, refering those stats. At Communications subcommittees/Trans/core langs, I propose a system of review & esteem each weight of languages regarding points we mentioned on core lang sectionand also proposed a bit modified set of languages. If you have an interest, please give a look to proposal page and make a comment. --Aphaia 06:53, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

From Sabine

As I already said, I am creating an Italian foundation for professional translators. To keep them together the project will be a foundation but in a second stage will also do marketing for these translators - this means they will get business through this portal. As a result they will also be willing to give something back to the community by contributing, for example, to meta, wikipedia etc. with translations (it is up to us to tell them: we need this or that translated in this or that language combination). Relevant discussion groups will be listed and grouped on language-portal pages - these will be also connected to WiktionaryZ from where I suppose we can get further interested translators. Indirectly that portal will also bring other people to the wikimedia projects since potential customers in search for professionals will see what these people care about and did ... for this reason I created already one template to show who contributed to wikimania translations last year (not all people are subscribed yet). wordsandmore.org is also a place where they often do their first steps on a wiki - this means the FAQs (Help section) there are based on their questions and are in the language I got the questions. I am also very much interested in getting the minor languages there involved. Organising people here on meta would be problematic - I think creating connections and reach out to new people is easiest done through an outside but connected project.

• Italian ONLUS (foundation)
• People who contributed with translations during Wikimania last year

--Sabine 16:08, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Comments

Feel free to leave submissions for the next P&T update here...

Leaflet

Hello, I hope I can give a little input here, as being not a committee-member: Could the Leaflet maybe be translated in the same format into the major languages? (i.e.: Spanish, Chinese, Russian etc) That coule be very usefull for as well local communities as international conferences. Effeietsanders 21:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Translation organisation

Hi! Some questions and thoughts. jd ৸ 14:27, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

For each of these languages we need a team of people that works on it. One or two just are not enough ... not always people have enough time.

Translation itemizes volunteers for each languages, but I guess some of them are not active anymore or interested in participating to the translation process on a daily basis. On the foundation website and with the help of Translation requests history, I spotted names. What about contacting them to know wether they are interested in forming structured local teams to handle translation within the PT subcommittee? I can do that for French.

There need to be different levels of urgency and we should try to give deadlines - that makes it easier to people to decide to do a translation or not.

I once built Translation coordination/fr for the French people, but I never used it since Zocky showed me this blazing coordination system (see an example). We need this, right now :D I offered my help on irc, but we never talked again about this system and its deployment. It seems it has been used for Wikimania.

Babel templates and language combinations: Together with Nautilus, an admin of the w&m wiki, we are thinking on how to group translators in a way that we can easily determine who works in which language combination and who has which specialisations. Since we very likely will need similar information for the meta translations we should try to combine forces on that. It will be a bit more organisation work at the beginning, but it will be easier to find potential help in future.

Any news on this?

People who have helped copyedit Transcom documents

• Amgine
• Cbdorsett
• Mindspillage (note: board member, busy)
• user:Cowardly Lion(note: student, busy in school terms)

Suggestion on simple versions

What if we, for texts to be translated, started with preparing a simple version with as simple words as possible, and all less knows concepts explained? It should be used as a bases of translation in itself, since the language might be too low level or even childish to sound good, but it would be a great resource for translators, and eliminate many questions on the texts. Also, in preparing this simple version one discovers and can weed out all ambiguities in the text. // habj 12:34, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

• Actually, it should be direct, and stripped down, but not simple. A good example is the bible - its language is direct and clear, yet I would not call it childish. Sophisticated concepts are fine (e.g. standard anthropological, computing or economic terms), if they are standard and there are standard translations. Terms loaded with connotations (empower), and use of accidental equivocations ( free) are problematic; every instance of their use should be explained. -- Hillgentleman 20:25, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Many standard terms are culture dependent, however. Financial stuff is a perfect example where standard translations really don't exist. Instead, you have to choose different terms or serveral-words-explanations, depending on context. First mentioning the term, then giving a brief explanation of what it means in context, would IMHO be a perfect help for translators. I.e., part of the work that all the translators have to do by themselves could instead be done by someone preparing a help for them.

As a very minimum, texts for translation should have a link to someone who answers questions about the content of the text. The authors do obviously not check the talk of the pages in question. // habj 13:14, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

• Fair enough. I would like to see, for example, "free (as in freedom)".
• The point is, and I hope you agree, that the original author should convey clearly and precisely the kernel of the message; And they should let the translators decide upon the embellishing, for it is too language-dependent. Hillgentleman 01:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is my rough list of suggestions to the PR department:

0. Whereas the mission of Wikimedia is ..., etc,

0.1. Whereas reaching the maximal number of people is best for achieving such lofty goals,

0.2. Whereas, a translator working for free (as freefood), understands and appreciates the mission as well as anybody, and would only do her best in creating the best propaganda in her own language,

0.5 The PR folks, in drafting any communication to be translated into diverse languages worldwide and around the globe, should

1. Make sure that the article is correct, gramatically and logically correct; Check it with an English teacher;

2. State your points; State the facts; Do not mince words;

3. Write unequivocally; Explain and clarify every ambiguity; or, if need be, explain what ambiguity you are trying to make;

4. Whenever possible, translate it into another language and translate it back, and see if the result agrees with the original; Even better, do it for two languages; this is only a very basic test, if the text is to be translated into tens or even hundreds of languages;

5. The authors should sign their drafts; and they should keep their eyes on the talk pages; or find somewhere public (ie not mailing list) and make it an institution for such discussion; The basic line is that, questions should be answered efficiently.

-Hillgentleman 02:09, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Haitian creole team translators

Hi,

i'm from the haitian creole wikipedia (ht:Paj Prensipal) and i'd like to start a team for translations requests.

i've yet created a subpage for : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Translation_teams/ht

What should i do by now?

thanks for your replies.

Masterches 17:36, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please do. We welcome you guys (or girls?). --Aphaia 09:19, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

hi, i don't manage to create the Translator template, what should i do for ? I've added the necessary to the translation combinaison board (for [[Category:translators hat-eng|Haitian Creole to French]] for example. cordially, Masterches 10:47, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

You mean like that? {{translator eng-fra}}--Aphaia 11:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

hi, exactly like that, it appears inside categories but not as a template ! how to?what happens? thx, Masterches 22:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

i try {{translator hat-fra}} --Masterches 22:22, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

in case , the text should be "Itilizatè sa a kapab tradui nan kreyòl Ayisyen depi Angle"

OK, so 1) click the red link you presented.

and 2) type {{subst:translator eng-fra}} and save.

3) modify the template you just created. (change "eng-fra" to "hat-fra", change the message to the one you just gave etc.)

4) Do the same to {{translator fra-hat}}.

Enjoy! --Aphaia 09:15, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

it works well as you can see ;-) many thanks ! Masterches 01:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Help:Unified login

Can Help:Unified login (Template:other languages/Help:Unified login) be added to the priority translation list? This is very important, because it will eventually affect people on every project and language. Superm401 | Talk 02:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't really fit into the scope of transcom, which is responsible for the translation of Wikimedia Foundation information. Cbrown1023 talk 21:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Dutch ( NederLanDs)

The code for our language used to be nl and in the templates this is still the case.
However the official ISOcode has been changed to nld. Now what? Patio 11:34, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

That's just the ISO 639-3 code, I believe we'll still use the ISO 639-1 code if one exists (which it does). Further questions might be directed to the Language subcommittee, as this is their area of expertise. :-) Cbrown1023 talk 14:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Malayalam Trans Team

I would like to make an malayalam translation team.Please tell me the procedures--Mwjesse 11:34, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

We already have a Malayalam translation team that you are free to join. :-) Cbrown1023 talk 14:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Transcom Priority Level 4

.I agree with the w:Anglosphere and the w:Francophonie covering the most geopolitically and that separating their levels would cause too much trouble. I also agree that next should be w:Hispanosphere. I further agree that the w:Sinosphere and the w:Russosphere (w:CIS ~+ w:Russian diaspora) should round out the next step as the rest of the UN languages and that Japanese is notable enough to just slip in although lower transcom level language comprehension (especially English) is higher in the w:Nipposphere (Japan + w:Japanese diaspora) than, say, in the Russosphere; and Arabic is noticeably absent despite its position in the six official UN languages, the size of the w:Arab world and the w:Arab diaspora, and the importance of the w:Arab League and its influence on the w:OIC and w:OPEC.

.I do not however see w:German-speaking Europe as analogous with the w:Lusofonia at all. Yes, the German population online now is huge, but Portuguese is one of four official languages of the w:African Union, along with Arabic, English, and French. It is also co-dominant with Spanish in South American discourse besides being an official w:EU language like German. German-speakers in particular have some of the highest English comprehension levels in the world. It feels like we are raising it artificially high to cope with German's enormous Net presence, but that is a measure weighted heavily by the German w:Sprachraum's affluence.

.Ultimately, because of the considerable effort German-speakers have exerted and continue to exert at Wikipedia, their priority should surpass that simply based on global population figures, but clear caveats should indicate that this position is subject to change as other realms expand on the Net. Furthermore, if we inflate German's importance beyond its forecast geopolitical potential to match its current web presence, it seems only right to increase Arabic's priority beyond its present Internet population to match its future one, as well as its geopolitical reach, because our goal is to bring the sum of all human knowledge to all of humanity. Our actions at Wikimedia are so profound that they, like the search engine giants, can increase web-literacy among sprachraums with huge growth potential simply by being more inclusive of them. Would it be so bad if we simply moved Arabic from 5 to 4? :)--Thecurran 02:54, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with much of what you posted above. I would like to see Ar and Hi moved to 4, and Zh moved to 2. Despite your comments, De should similaly be moved to 3. While people are often proficient in more than one language, there is an extremely strong preference to edit, pontificate, discuss policy and plan for the future in one's native tongue -- and you see a far greater number of contributions here by native english speakers than native german speakers, proportional to their editing communities. Considering the total amount of interesting Wikimedia work done in German by de:wikimedians, this is a loss. -- sj | translate | + 23:59, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Weekly review of translation priorities?

Similar to the original translation of the week, it would be nice to have something like a weekly review of translation status - where we are, what are the current priority translations, what else is out there to translate. It's hard to tell from the Babylon main page what's available other than the prioritized translations -- some of which are clearly not such a priority anymore (board election notice).

The page discussing this regular review might prominently highlight the priority levels of languages; something that might also change over time and should be more visible in the sphere of translators. I would like to move towards an environment where we are all conscious of having multiple top-level language priorities, and multiple source languages for announcements and new media [something which already happens at the chapters level but doesn't always make it to Meta, for instance].

Board resolution translations

At the moment, I would like to see new Board resolutions translated into the pri 1 and 2 languages. Currently there is only one such resolution (the appointment of Matt Halprin) - it should be a simple enough place to start. It was suggested at the last open meeting that this was not an important resolution: I beg to differ. It is quite important, when evaluating how a foundation works (say, to decide whether or not to trust it) to see its official statements, even when they convey only a few facts. -- sj · translate · + 17:18, 15 September 2009 (UTC)