How are bad translations a valid resource?

Am Sa., 19. Sept. 2020 um 12:01 Uhr schrieb Gerard Meijssen <
[email protected]>:

> Hoi,
> First, a specific spelling stands for an article. It can be in any
> language.  Each lemma in Wiktionary has its own translations. So you can do
> without descriptions and still have meaningful information. Yes, that only
> works when you are at least bilingual.
>
> When a bot moves data between Wiktionaries, the validity of these
> translations exists because of it being moved from one Wiktionary to
> another.
>
> What is sad is that this is not  understood or considered as a valid
> resource.
> Thanks,
>        GerardM
>
>
>
> On Sat, 19 Sep 2020 at 11:53, Jan Wohlgemuth <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Gerard and others,
>> hello greetings from the new guy.
>>
>> I have to object an "anything is better than nothing" argument. Let's
>> just say the bot accesses an article "fork" and takes the first
>> definition. With some luck, something like "a tool for eating" will then
>> be translated as definition. That leaves out all other meanings of
>> "fork", like when a road splits up into two, but ok, that is a
>> completely different thread of discussion. But if "a tool for eating"
>> becomes the new lemma instead of the translated definition, that's when
>> the entries start becoming unusable, especially if translated again and
>> again. The bot programmer's fallacy is that there are 1-on-1 equivalents
>> in translation. Sometimes there are, more often there are not. Automated
>> "translations" liek the ones used in this case can not pick up on
>> one-to-many relations and can not adequately post them. Another thing is
>> register of synonyms. We certainly do not want any curse words to be
>> listed as the general term for certain body parts etc. This needs to be
>> verified by people who speak both languages or at least can make sure
>> the entry makes sense in the metalanguage (here Malagasy).
>> The review has shown that the output of these bot "translations" in
>> Malagasy Wiktionary are not good. Some of them might be acceptable (by
>> chance), but the majority must be considered questionable. The least
>> that should be done is mark them as unpatrolled bot translations and
>> hope that some speaker can check the accuracy.
>>
>> Greetings from Depok,
>> Jan (Janwo)
>>
>>
>> Am 18.09.2020 22:12, schrieb Gerard Meijssen:
>> > Asaf,
>> > That is not how I understand it. First, I do not mind bots. When
>> > Wiktionaries have information on words in Malagasy, I am perfectly
>> > happy for the translations to be copied from one Wiktionary to
>> > another. When the descriptions are translated using machine
>> > translation, the question becomes only slightly different.
>> >
>> > The question becomes about the quality of the machine translation. Now
>> > I do not mind key words in Malagasy without definitions. With dodgy
>> > translations it is ok because it is still better than providing
>> > nothing. When the quality of the machine translation is such that it
>> > is understandable but not quite there, I am  of the opinion that it is
>> > much better than providing nothing.
>> >
>> > The biggest problem I have with the notion of perfection is that it is
>> > the enemy of the good. The good is to provide the best we can offer.
>> > When it needs work, it is acceptable because it is a wiki.
>> >
>> > The biggest problem with language support is that products that are
>> > perfectly functional like Special:MediaSearch are not promoted because
>> > "the next iteration will be even better". It  also shows the extend we
>> > have moved away from our Wiki roots.
>> >
>> > The notion that a bot operator is not people... really...
>> > Thanks,
>> >        GerardM
>> >
>>
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