Wikimedia Foundation/Communications/Organization communications translators group
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The Wikimedia Foundation organization communications translators group is an organized group of translators facilitated by the Wikimedia Foundation to support translation of the organization's communications materials.
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This translation model is coordinated by the Movement Communications team and began as an experiment supporting six languages. Over the fiscal year 2022-2023, we improved and scaled this model to support more languages as part of an initiative to connect the dots on translations and interpretation. It expanded further in 2023-2024, taking us to now being able to support more than 30 languages in our communications with the movement (with more languages being added regularly).
Purpose
The group supports translations efforts coordinated by the Wikimedia Foundation's Communications department, with a specific focus on organization communications developed by the organization.
Organization communications materials include (but not limited to):
- Wikimedia Foundation website
- Organization-wide used reports, such as:
- Transparency report
- Organization announcements
- Promotional materials
Organization communications for this group's purpose does not include:
- Department-specific reports that do not have a multilingual audience
- Project articles
- Fundraising materials
- Content successfully utilizing existing translation models
The translators will be paid (subject to certain legal terms) after providing translations within a set timeline and providing satisfactory quality and accuracy of the translations provided.
Process
Requests made from within the Wikimedia Foundation to the Communications department will be reviewed and considered for dissemination to this group. At this time, the department is only processing content which will be utilized on the Wikimedia Foundation website.
Each request should include:
- Assessment of volume of content to be translated
- Anticipated hours required
- Due date for translated material
Once the Communications department works out details with the internal team, they will share the request with the group via the group's private mailing list. The request will include:
- Information on project
- Estimated number of hours required for translation work
- Amount being paid per language for translation work
- Due date for translated material
- Languages requested
The first individual to accept the proposal for their language will be the designated translator for that project in their chosen language(s) and will be the one responsible for the translations into their language for that specific proposal. The department will continue to accept designated translators until one has been found for each language requested.
Once the work is completed before the due date, translators will be asked to complete a form which provides information on hours and process which will be used in part to help inform changes to the payment model. The Communications department will then process payment (subject to certain legal terms) based on the information shared in the project proposal.
Example
The Widgets team requests the Communications department support the translation of a report which they are planning to publish on the Wikimedia Foundation website. They would like the report translated into all of the site's core languages (Russian, German, Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, and French). The report contains three pages of text.
At one hour per half page, it is estimated to take six hours of translation time. The Foundation calculates based on $30 (USD) per hour of translation services, so the project will pay $180 for each translation. The total translation cost for the project will be $1,080. It will be paid to the translators by the Wikimedia Foundation and covered by the Widgets team.
Membership
Application for membership is open to members of the Wikimedia community with experience in translating content. Contact with the group will be maintained via an email based mailing list. Ideally there will be 3-6 individuals for each target language:
| Language | Username |
|---|---|
| Arabic | dezedien |
| Mervat | |
| Nada kareem22 | |
| علاء | |
| Azerbaijani | Eldarado |
| Bangla | Aishik Rehman |
| RockyMasum | |
| ZI Jony | |
| Chinese | Ericliu1912 |
| Venuslui | |
| Czech | janbery |
| French | Anass Sedrati |
| dezedien | |
| Guillotinado | |
| Linguistcorner | |
| German | XanonymusX |
| Greek | KStampoulis |
| Hausa | DaSupremo |
| Hebrew | drork |
| Hindi | Suyash.dwivedi |
| Hungarian | Lois131 |
| Igbo | Akwugo |
| Indonesian | Biyanto |
| Kunirasem | |
| Italian | Arabetta |
| Kazakh | Batyrbek.kz |
| Korean | *Youngjin |
| Macedonian | Bjankuloski06 |
| Malay | WAqil |
| Nepali | Tulsi |
| Norwegian | Jon Harald Søby |
| Persian | Darafsh |
| Polish | Wojciech Pędzich |
| Portuguese | ERtradutor |
| Linguistcorner | |
| Victor Lopes | |
| Romanian | Turbojet |
| Russian | AValkov (WMF) |
| Lilitik22 | |
| Mehman | |
| Spanish | andycyca |
| Guillotinado | |
| Jaluj | |
| Oscar_. | |
| Swahili | Rwebogora |
| Tagalog | Chlod |
| Thai | Azoma |
| Turkish | Basak |
| Ukrainian | Perohanych |
| Vietnamese | Tahoangthang |
Additional target languages will be added as the group develops.
Please note that this should not be seen as a reliable source of income as there will not always be a consistent amount of translation activity, and the process means an individual could go several months without any activity.
Applying to join
We are recruiting translators for Bulgarian. Please contact us at movementcomms
wikimedia.org to apply.
Membership is subject to approval by the Wikimedia Foundation as well as the applicant agreeing to legal terms and being able and eligible to work as contractor for the Wikimedia Foundation. Additionally, aspects of this model may change based on feedback from applicants and others in the movement as the recruitment process is underway.
History
This group-based translation model was developed by the Wikimedia Foundation Communications department based on an affiliates-based model which was tested for the soft launch of the Wikimedia Foundation website in 2018. The development of this model is a part of an ongoing effort by the department to promote increased availability of Wikimedia Foundation materials in languages beyond English.
The model was developed in early 2019 and introduced to the community on 2 May 2019. After reviewing feedback as well as identifying and onboarding the inaugural members, the project was initiated on 10 March 2020 with projects beginning on 11 March 2020. In July 2022, as part of the work to connect the dots on translations and interpretation across the Foundation, further changes will be made.
Future changes and possible future replacements to this model will be determined based on feedback.