Talk:Translation of the week/Translation candidates

Old discussions are found in /Archive 1.

Limit to the number of languages

If one of the current proposal with more than 10 languages is not approved, please let's discuss the possibility of a suggested threshold for candidates, a limit of existing languages if possible not to cross. I know myself that if the languages are "minor" ones the content is in theory not very accessible (but even I can understand some "dialects" of national languages decently) but when this rare occurrence happens that's probably the effort of some "POV-pusher" too.

Personally I have always imagined as a good candidate mainly article around 3-4 main languages at least, so I guess that a limit around 10 for a normal situation includes statistically enough of those. Am I the only one who has this idea? Exceptions will be always possible if motivated, of course.--Alexmar983 (talk) 11:48, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

New criteria

Do you think it should be suggested to propose article with at least an image or audio file? Some of these candidates are shown on main pages, and on some versions the presence of a media support is mandatory (or customary) for many of the other articles that appear there, even the new and curious articles. I think we should also try to suggest something of a decent level not only from the source and length point of view but also the overall impact. Images (and other medias) are a very important part of the reader experience. I got this idea looking at a candidate and feeling that I would have preferred to see a picture there, and I am sure I rejected some articles before proposing them here because I couldn't find a decent picture, so this idea is not coming from a sterile, pernickety perspective. I think it is a good suggestion.--Alexmar983 (talk) 11:57, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think media should be a criteria. Altough very useful and educational, media is always an auxilary complement to the text, which should be our focus. As such, I would like to propose a fifth criteria for candidates: "5) it must be well sourced". Verifiability (en, zh, es) is a core policy across several wikis, and must be considered on new translations. - Épico (talk)/(contribs) 00:47, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

I have no problem with that as well. Also, together with media file also template should be as a decent level and they are also part of the graphic output. Maybe "sufficient quality of media file and template" as a single line is enough?--Alexmar983 (talk) 05:33, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Épico. Verifiability should be adopted as a new criteria. Frisko (talk) 20:39, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Possible synergy to improve your enwiki page

In the end, 80-90% of selected articles here require a good enwiki page. That's why this is an area of wikiplatforms with a limited support from en-N users. So please consider also w:Wikipedia:Articles for improvement on enwiki. You can select a recently updated article from their list, or propose there to update an article that you want to suggest later to ToW.--Alexmar983 (talk) 08:24, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I come on this suggestion again after it:Wikipedia:Pagine_da_cancellare/Stella_verde. The enwiki page "green star" had issue before the final selection, me and User:Holapaco77 (who usually have as it-N users higher standard than enwiki, I am not a snob, that's a known fact) reported some issues. Before the final choice our comments were removed by User:Deryni without pinging us, so we couldn't check again and the article was approved.

Itwiki is a very critical environment but it is one of the few wikis who regularly translate these pages and show the proposal for creation or improvement on its main page, we it-N therefore try to avoid to submit "controversial" articles. As a result, the article must be rewritten to pass through the deletion procedures, and some of the comments led now to warning templates on enwiki too, mainly in the interest of other translators.

Based on this experience, I suggest that article change should be always minimal before the proposal and, since the level of enwiki can be very different depending on the article, I suggest again that users submit the page at least to the specific project for article improvement on enwiki (or a more specific wikiproject), so that we have better chance to keep the level high. Not just enwiki of course, a good candidate for me should say something like "I have submitted the page to this project or this expert user for an additional critical review", whatever is the page or the language, it is just that we mainly use enwiki and there are infrastructure there to use, so let's use it.

Thank you.--Alexmar983 (talk) 07:09, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

I ping also some of the recently active users here @Phille95, Shizhao, and Frisko: @Uruk, Zquid, and Erebuss:... so can we add few lines in the presentation of the page about quality?

For example suggest to discard pages with too many massive edits in the last days (to be proposed later), or to take a look to links such as recently improved articles, or to good class articles. Just add something to statistically reduce these problems. --Alexmar983 (talk) 07:21, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

@Deryni: FYI... // Zquid (talk) 07:29, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

I've pinged him BTW, in the previous paragraph.--Alexmar983 (talk) 07:47, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

I find the suggestions promising. However I also think the voting should be stricter and the rules more pronounced. Votes: The last year pretty much opposing votes say "Low-importance" or no reason at all. To give a positive vote without comment should be OK, but to oppose should call for better arguments. What is of importance or not depends too much on likes and dislikes. It you don't like a subject, then don't vote for it. The runner up en:Pioneer Cabin Tree is a good example. If three voters would oppose, because of "low-importance" the article will not be TOW, although there's a pretty good interest for making it TOW by the active voters. However, if there are good reasons for opposing, according to the rules, the opposing votes get very important. Otherwise, let the likes compete with likes for other articles ... The rules regarding TOW ought to be bettered. What I know of they today are Ideal candidates are 1) short, 2) easy to translate, 3) lead to potential translations of other topics. The goal is to have a wide range of topics covered in every language that we have.

I once proposed an article that was actually very good, but with only two languages, DeWp and SvWp. It got opposing votes for not being available in English. My answer was "so much better, than EnWp have got to get to work for once, too". I drew the conclusion that there was an unspoken rule in addition to the rules mentioned above "4) must be available in EnWp alredady". Deryni (talk) 09:43, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for pinging, Alexmar983 and Zquid. Deryni (talk) 09:43, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

I totally agree with Alexmark983. Deryni, is not a question of number of votes. An article must be choice with much foresight; when approved every local user think i must translate it whether it's a good article or not. Please think Articles for deletion amplified many times. Hi --Windino (talk) 13:16, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

@Windino:You misunderstand my point. it's not about number of votes, it's about arbitrariness. The voting must be understandable, not something like "Uninteresting" or "Low-importance". The point is quality and rules that are understandable. Surely you agree to that?! Deryni (talk) 15:32, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

@Deryni: I've understood. But in my opinion, as Alexmar983 said, expecially if a page argues for particular themes or by niche (history, science, medicine and so on, let's take green star for example) , the voice should be confirmed (ie. not a RO) by the required competent project, if possible. (All, obvious, in my opinion). It could be a simple one: hey you project, what do you think about this page?  :)--Windino (talk) 15:54, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

@Windino:As I said earlier, I find the suggestion promising. Better than now, when it's just a matter of votes. Still I think the rules for TOW and the rules for voting must be clarified, and modified. Otherwise it's still a matter of votes, what articles will reach required projects. Note also the proposition to suggest articles missing in EnWp. Deryni (talk) 18:10, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

I proposed an article not on enwiki last year, but in any case it was suggested or implied to translate to enwiki before the actual start of the week, to increase its chance. That is what people would suggest you to do.

I agree that the voting system is not perfect, with small numbers of voters few systems are. There was an improvement in the archive management and dismissal of candidature in the meantime, we need further steps.

Let's start to put more warning for the candidatures. Than we can propose more improvement. I looked around for new volunteers on different wikis months ago but so far no success...--Alexmar983 (talk) 09:00, 15 September 2017 (UTC)

Ok we can improve the banner adding few lines, but this require to translate the improved version asap, I see there are Spanish and Catalan translations encoded.--Alexmar983 (talk) 03:29, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

Okawa Shaznay

I've changed my mind about the Okawa Shaznay article. How do I do? Just change my vote to "oppose" or withdraw the candidate? // Zquid (talk) 10:04, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

@Zquid:As I see it there are too many positive votes for a withdrawal. The alternatives you should consider: 1. Cross out your vote and let other voters decide. 2. Change your vote to "oppose". The later choice if you don't want the article as a TOW, the former if you feel neutral. Deryni (talk) 19:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

@Holapaco77: @Shizhao: @Erebuss: @Uruk: // Zquid (talk) 10:02, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Deryni. Erebuss (talk) 20:18, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

Geographical diversity

I am reading the 2018 approved proposals and I notice how topics related to South Africa, China, Sweden and maybe Italy (but mostly the first three) seem kinda overrepresented. Is it just me? It's no big deal but we should try to shift the focus of some proposals next year. Just to be clear: it's nobody's fault, it's just something that emerged.

I will look for new users to come here and vote as I did few years ago, we need a little bit more diversity.

In the meantime, my advice for the users is to select more international topics even if related to a specific countries. For example international meetings or conferences, people emigrated to other countries, artworks from an author from a specific country but depicting other areas or hosted in a museum in another country, an international railway line.

In the end, you can still suggest something related to a specific country without being too much geographically focused. This is incindentally even better because we want topics that stimulate creation of new articles and something more geographically dispersed has more chance to contain various red links in more languages.--Alexmar983 (talk) 02:28, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

I have already informed three laguages (eu, el, sl), we'll see.--Alexmar983 (talk) 13:04, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

June Almeida

@Shizhao: Note that this week's TOW (week 21 2020) was not a correct choice. It had 5 - 1 in votes just like Siilinjärvi carbonatite, but was a month newer as a suggestion. I also noted that you yourself voted against so when it wasn't even wrong sorted, I wonder how you came to choose this article?! Deryni (talk) 14:47, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry. Thank you for your reminder. This is my fault. I see the wrong time--Shizhao (talk) 01:29, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

About ”No votes from~”

One thing I was wondering, does the ”No votes from~” criteria not account for negative votes? Is this the correct state to have "Last support factor" but not "Last oppose factor" in the template? If this question raising is due to my poor understanding of English, please let me know. --Kappa-Dori (talk) 04:53, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

I just noticed that the sentence for Group 5 at the bottom of the page "If a candidate has no vote after two weeks, it will be removed from the list (rule 4)" is a little different from the sentence at the top of the page "no positive votes other than the nominator's for two weeks". If the one at the top of the page is more correct, it makes sense that there is only a "last support" factor in the template, since there is no need to refer to "last oppose". (I mean, it's weird because if it wasn't, articles would be sitting in group5 if we just keep voting against it.)--Kappa-Dori (talk) 10:48, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

@カッパ鳥: Perhaps the instruction needs to be clearer. Regarding "no votes for ..." it always refers to positive votes. Deryni (talk) 13:03, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Upper limit to translation in group 5

Now the upper bound is 200, as indicated in a comment shown just under h2 heading group 5:

<!--NOTE:DO NOT ADD NEW CANDIDATES IF THERE ARE ALREADY MORE THAN 200. -->

I think 200 limit is a bit too much big. Maybe in the past there were so many translation proposed but now I think a zero 200 with one zero less might be fine. Also consider that the articles here cannot remain more than two weeks. ZandDev (talk) 16:54, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree. Mickey83 (talk) 21:05, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm going to apply the new limit. --ZandDev (talk) 09:38, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Applied in this diff. ZandDev (talk) 09:51, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Sorting of sections 2, 4, and 5

@ZandDev I believe you sorted section 2 by net support, and then by fewest oppose votes. However, the instructions don't mention sorting it by oppose votes. Should it be sorted that way? If so, we should change the instructions. Kk.urban (talk) 03:19, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

@Kk.urban: I sorted mechanically in that way following the rules for section 1. I didn't notice that the rule wasn't the same in all sections. It shouldn't be sorted in that way following the actual rules. If you want to change the instructions feel free to propose it. --ZandDev (talk) 21:41, 21 February 2024 (UTC)