Should have added that the remaining points are somewhat less interesting in this context. Preloading a set of articles is a bad idea, the translators should be able to chose for themselves. Articles should also be pretty broad, not very narrow technical or medical, ie vertical articles, as the number of editors that can handle those will be pretty small.
In particular: Do not believe you can turn a teanslator into a new editor! You can although turn an existing editor into a translator. On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 3:34 PM, John Erling Blad <jeb...@gmail.com> wrote: > 1) You must start with high quality content and thus all articles are >> extensively improved before being proposed for translation. > > > Note that to much pressure on "quality" can easily kill the project. > > 3) The "Content Translation" tool developed by the WMF made efforts more >> efficient than handing around word documents. Would love to see that tool >> improved further such as having it support specific lists of articles that >> are deemed ready for translation by certain groups. Would also love the >> tool to have tracking metrics for these types of projects. > > > Didn't mention ContentTranslation, but it should be pretty obvious. > > 4) We used volunteer translators mostly associated with our partner >> Translators Without Borders. One issue we found was that languages in >> which >> their are lots of translators such as French, Spanish, and Italian there >> is >> often already at least some content on many of the topics in question. The >> issue than becomes integration which needs an expert Wikipedia. And for >> languages in which we have little content there are often few avaliable >> volunteers. > > > I used projects below 65k articles as an example, as the chance of > competing articles are pretty low. > > 5) With respect to "paying per word" the problem is this would require >> significant checks and balances to make sure people are taking the work >> seriously and not simple using Google translate for the 70 or so languages >> in which it claims to work. We often had translations undergo a second >> review and the volunteers at TWB have to pass certain tests to be >> accepted. > > > I'n my original email I wrote "verified good translators". It is as > simple as "Has the editor contributed other articles at the project?" > > On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 2:26 PM, James Heilman <jmh...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> We learned a few things during the medical translation project which >> started back in 2011: >> >> 1) You must start with high quality content and thus all articles are >> extensively improved before being proposed for translation. >> >> 2) A lot of languages want "less" content than is present on EN WP. Thus >> we >> moved to just improving and suggesting for translation the leads of the >> English articles. >> >> 3) The "Content Translation" tool developed by the WMF made efforts more >> efficient than handing around word documents. Would love to see that tool >> improved further such as having it support specific lists of articles that >> are deemed ready for translation by certain groups. Would also love the >> tool to have tracking metrics for these types of projects. >> >> 4) We used volunteer translators mostly associated with our partner >> Translators Without Borders. One issue we found was that languages in >> which >> their are lots of translators such as French, Spanish, and Italian there >> is >> often already at least some content on many of the topics in question. The >> issue than becomes integration which needs an expert Wikipedia. And for >> languages in which we have little content there are often few avaliable >> volunteers. >> >> 5) With respect to "paying per word" the problem is this would require >> significant checks and balances to make sure people are taking the work >> seriously and not simple using Google translate for the 70 or so languages >> in which it claims to work. We often had translations undergo a second >> review and the volunteers at TWB have to pass certain tests to be >> accepted. >> >> 6) I hired a coordinator for the translation project for a couple of >> years. >> The translators at TWB did not want to become Wikipedians or learn how to >> use our systems. The coordinator created account like TransSW001 (one for >> each volunteer) and preloaded the article to be translated into Content >> Translation. They than gave the volunteer translator the user name and >> password to the account. >> >> 7) Were are we at now? There are currently just over 1,000 leads of >> articles that have been improved and are ready for translation. This >> includes articles on the 440 medications that are on the WHO Essential >> List. We have worked a bit in some 100 languages. The efforts have >> resulted >> in more than 5 million works translated and integrated into different >> Wikipedias. The coordinator has unfortunately moved on to his real job of >> teaching high school students. >> >> 8) The project continues but at a slower pace than before. The Wikipedian >> and retired orthopedic surgeon Subas Chandra Rout has basically single >> handedly translated nearly all 1,000 leads into Odia a language spoken by >> 40 million people in Eastern India. The amazing thing is that for many of >> these topics this is the first and only information online about it. >> Google >> translate does not even claim to work in this language. Our partnerships >> with WMTW and medical school in Taipai continue to translate into Chinese. >> There the students translate and than their translations are reviewed by >> their profs before being posted. They translate in groups using hackpad to >> make it more social. >> >> I am currently working to re invigorate the project :-) >> James >> >> On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 5:51 AM, John Erling Blad <jeb...@gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >> > This discussion is going to be fun! =D >> > >> > A little more than seventy Wikipedia-projects has more than 65k >> articles, >> > the remaining two hundred or so are pretty small. >> > >> > What if a base set of articles were opened for paid translators? There >> are >> > several lists of such base sets. We have both the thousand articles from >> > "List of articles every Wikipedia should have"[1] and and the ten >> thousand >> > articles from the expanded list[2]. >> > >> > Lets say verified good translators was paid about $0.01 per word (about >> $1 >> > for a 1k-article) for translating one of those articles into another >> > language, with perhaps a higher pay for contributors in high-cost >> > countries. The pay would also have to be higher for languages that lacks >> > good translation tools. >> > >> > I believe this would be an _enabling_ activity for the communities, as >> > without a base set of articles it won't be possible to build a >> community at >> > all. By not paying for new articles, and only translating >> well-referenced >> > articles, some of the disputes in the communities could be avoided. >> Perhaps >> > we should also identify good source articles, that would be a help. >> > Translated articles should be above some minimum size, but they does not >> > have to be full translations of the source article. >> > >> > A real problem is that our existing lists of good articles other >> projects >> > should have is pretty much biased towards Western World, so they need a >> lot >> > of adjustments. Perhaps such a project would identify our inherit bias? >> > >> > [1] >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_every_ >> > Wikipedia_should_have >> > [2] >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_every_ >> > Wikipedia_should_have/Expanded >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ >> > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ >> > wiki/Wikimedia-l >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> >> >> >> >> >> -- >> James Heilman >> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik >> i/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wik >> i/Wikimedia-l >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> >> > > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
