Wikipedia talk:Pages needing translation into English/Archive 5

Rewording of "Not English" user notice
Does anyone have a view on my proposal here to change the wording in the notice that goes to the creator of an article not in English? We could include a link to Translators available Noyster (talk),  15:10, 10 November 2016 (UTC)  Updated by Mathglot (talk) 19:16, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Esperanto translations
How often do EO to EN translation requests come up? I would like to improve my Esperanto. Thanks. Uamaol (talk) 08:53, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I have never seen one. I think almost all of the items listed here are by people who are posting text in their native language, with the hope someone that someone else will translate it to English. Occasionally material intended for a different language wiki is put here by accident. There's apparently only 2,000 native Esperanto speakers, so I would be very surprised if one of them added an Esperanto article to the English wiki.
 * The Esperanto wiki only has 200,000+ articles, compared to the English wiki's 5.2 million. Have you tried translating from EN to EO? They would surely appreciate having more articles added. AtHomeIn神戸 (talk) 10:00, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * in particular, you could try the Esperanto requested articles page. --HyperGaruda (talk) 19:50, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Oooo, thanks! :) Uamaol (talk) 21:05, 14 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your reply. 2000 is supposed to be a conservative guesstimate, no one really knows how many there are as I doubt most of them put it down as their first languages, instead opting for a national language. Esperanto is pretty useless on its own unless you live in a super remote commune where everyone understand you such as with family or a part of a religion order (see Bahá'í Faith and auxiliary language). It may only half a quarter of a million articles but it's currently the 32nd most populated by articles, which is ludicrous going by the number of native speakers but is far from an isolated case! I have tried EN to EO but my language skill isn't good enough. I find the other way round much easier but not sure where to start. There's lots of articles on eo.wiki which are a little bit out of context for en.wiki. But thanks for the suggestion. Uamaol (talk) 21:04, 14 November 2016 (UTC)


 * Uamaol Got one for you, maybe: please see #1375 here. Mathglot (talk) 08:27, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Edits to Procedures
Please review recent changes to § Procedures. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 22:33, 16 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Seems fine except for "Most pages get listed here automatically, after someone places any one of several translation-related templates onto the article page" which as far as I'm aware is wrong unless the tagger is using twinkle-- Jac 16888 Talk 23:46, 16 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks User:Jac16888, I was just fixing that as you commented; do you mind having another look? Mathglot (talk) 00:00, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Section rename request: Boilerplate text
Requesting consensus on a rename of section Pages needing translation into English to Template usage.

And maybe have some sub-sections of it, one for templates added to the article pages ( and the like) and one for Project page templates (,, any others?) that get substed here. And either a third section, or a link, to Templates for user talk pages, as mentioned in §Tagging. Mathglot (talk) 23:38, 16 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Assuming that crickets = nihil obstat, went ahead and did the move. Mathglot (talk) 02:06, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * With these procedure subpages, there are lot of sub-headings now which are bulking out the already vast TOC we've got, is there anyway you could either combine sections or turn the headings into "not-headings"?-- Jac 16888 Talk 19:35, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Have you ever tried TOC limit? --HyperGaruda (talk) 21:49, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Excellent point; deserves its own section. See  below. Mathglot (talk) 23:15, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Table of contents
Wrt HyperGaruda's comment just above, template is totally the way to go for this. I'll try one, and let me know how it looks. (Just tried (see ver. ); ToC is shorter now, but less useful, imho.)

I think to get it right, we might want to rethink what we really want to see in the ToC, and how long is too long? I.e., what "deserves" a subsection title and what doesn't for maximum utility of the Project, and of the page ToC? Once we've got that, we can tweak the other section levels to get the ToC to show just what's useful.

For example: with ta 3 of '3' installed just now, you'll see a whole lot of month-year section titles, which are actually not very helpful (imho). We could switch all the month-years to bold (thus styled, but no appearance in TOC) and promote the actual article names one level higher, so the TOC shows articles, but doesn't show months? Or, do we not want to see the name of every single article listed on WP:PNT in the ToC either?

Here's a link to WP:TOC, which is one subsection of the Help page Help:Section; afaik there's not a full WP or Help article on ToC. Mathglot (talk) 23:15, 27 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Another fix: to address HG's comment about subsections on subpages, we can demote the sections header levels on the subpages to below the limit; I'll go do that now. (This doesn't require a change to the main article page so should show up almost immediately, although I've noticed there's a time lag in seeing the effects of transcluded subpages, so if you don't see the change right away, wait a few minutes and try again.) Mathglot (talk)

ToC trial quick-ref list

Just gonna keep a quick ref bullet list of versions here so you can compare and comment. Or, if it's preferable not to try new versions live, could put them as sub-pages instead, or in Draft space. (Feel free to comment in-line if you wish; I'm using abbreviated sig, .)  (Note: as of  below which changed the transcluded subpages, the first four trials will operate at the level of #5; to view operation of trials 1–4, you have to revert the changes to the two subpages first.)


 * 1)  - the "old way" ; this is the default, before fiddling with toc limit.
 * Comment Was already too long; does every article back 3 years have to be there? Plus, you have to scroll way down just to see body content. --u:mg
 * 1)  – toc limit 3; full-width ToC.
 * Comment Pros: Toc is slightly shorter? Cons: but not that much; still very long at full width. --u:mg
 * 1)  – restricted width, right-floated ToC.
 * Comment - Pros: you don't have to scroll to see the page text, it starts right away; also, you can see ToC and Project page at same time. Cons: page width somewhat restricted for body text, at least near the top part of the page.  --u:mg
 * 1)  – As above, but fixed a white-space problem following the ToC by using notice in place of a   on the page.
 * Comment - (Thought I was happy with this version, but #5 below is better.) --u:mg
 * 1)  - This is the "Jac16888 special request" version, which reduces the main ToC further. This suppresses expansion of the subpage headings and also requires subpages  and .  (Presence of those versions will change the results from the first four trials above.)
 * Comment - Currently, only the top level header of the two subpages are included; they could also be suppressed if desired. The ToC for each subpage is visible on the subpage itself, and is transcluded as well, but in situ, and not in the main ToC.  This could be suppressed as well, possibly conditionally so it only shows up when viewing the subpage.

Mathglot (talk) 01:12, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
 * That template is exactly what I was looking for HG thanks. Mathglot my main issue is that there are so many headers in the procedure and template sections that it is a large chunk of the toc when you first open the page, more ideal would be if the actual problem article sections were much close to the top. The procedure subsections are small anyway so i'm not sure there is a need for each to be listed on the toc-- Jac 16888 Talk 22:09, 28 February 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with you; I'm going to try a few other combinations and quick-link one or two above, but I'd love to get broader feedback to see if there are pros and cons I'm not seeing, or if people just have different preferences and wishes. Feel free to comment inline above, if you see a version you like, or don't like; and keep coming back, because I'll hopefully be updating it with more choices.  In the meantime, I'm going to look at the procedure subsections and come up with some sort of solution for that.  Stay tuned... Mathglot (talk) 04:45, 1 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Okay, User:Jac16888, this one's for you: please see  above. Mathglot (talk) 08:01, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Works for me :)-- Jac 16888 Talk 21:18, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Please try out the new Duflu
I made a request for a new parameter  to be added to  to provide a link to the original-language article, and it is now in operation. You can see the description of it at Template talk:Duflu. Here's a demo:

This is a demo of usage of the upgraded template, described here. Note that instructions for using the template have always required subst'ing it, and that has not changed. The code below invokes the template without ing it however&mdash;that is so you can examine the code and see how it works.

Here's the example from the request page (minus the ) :



This generates the following: -- Mathglot (talk) 09:59, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Here's a bunch of examples taken from WP:PNT from February 2017, modified to remove  and to add the new   param:

The old way
If you don't include the new param, it works as before:

When you use it, please invoke it with, as usual.

Please try it out with the new param, and add any bugs or comments at Template talk:Duflu. Mathglot (talk) 09:59, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
 * About the Vietnamese red links: Wikipedia's language code for that is "vi", not "vn". Otherwise, meesa liken diss :) --HyperGaruda (talk) 10:42, 25 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Fixed; thanks. Mathglot (talk) 17:06, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Section Template usage is unnecessarily long
I think that section #Translation template usage is unnecessarily long. Much of this section is made up of descriptions of how to use the various translation templates, but this duplicates material at Template messages/Translation as well as material on the /doc pages of the templates themselves.

In at least one case (Duflu) the section was necessary, because there was, strangely, no documentation at all on the Template page itself. As of yesterday, for example,  looked like  and now it looks like, so the documentation at WP:PNT doesn't seem as necessary as before. (We can also beef up any other templates lacking documentation on the /doc page, where it belongs, rather than being forced to document them here because it wasn't being done where it was supposed to.)

So, to shorten the section: what if we just keep the intro portion before the first subsection header, and then starting with section #Templates for article pages cut it way back, maybe just to a bullet list of the four templates used on article pages, with a few words of explanation of each on the same line, and ditto for the two templates used at WP:PNT. That would also, by the way, partially address HG's point about the ToC being too long. Mathglot (talk) 02:04, 1 March 2017 (UTC)


 * For starters, I've removed the (now redundant) banner expansion of the templates in the #Translation template usage section, so you don't have to scroll as far to find the pages for translation. I'm thinking of changing the way we provide the Template usage and #Standard procedures information, so that instead of transcluding the two subpages so that everything is presented all at once on a long, main page, we could just provide an introductory paragraph each about Standard Procedures and Template usage on the main page, and then provide links to the subpages for additional info.  That would mean getting to the actual list of articles to be translated much quicker, and less wading past initial info that only first-time users really want to see. Mathglot (talk) 08:25, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Join the discussion at Template:Expand language
There's an interesting discussion going on at Template:Expand language about the placement of the template (currently, top of article page) and secondarily, what it should say. (The Expand language template is the one that underlies all the language-name templates like Expand French, Expand Spanish, Expand German and so on.)

Feel free to join the conversation at Template talk:Expand language. Mathglot (talk) 05:32, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

WikiProject Translation anyone? see here
Translation Wikiproject anyone?[edit]

I've been thinking of trying to organize something where someone who needs help from a Fooish speaker can ask for help (to translate, check a reference etc), and which people who speak Fooish can put on their watchlist. I started a discussion at Translation#Translation Wikiproject anyone?, please reply there.Siuenti (talk) 13:30, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

New Template:Hidden translation
I've created a new Template called Hidden translation which is intended to fill a gap in existing translation tremplates, and address the problem of "good English does not equal good translation."

This is a topic I've seen raised in multiple forums (like WP:AN/CXT, WP:PNT, here, and elsewhere) about inaccurate translations (human or machine) containing factual errors which get papered over with a veneer of proper English in subsequent edits, and the factual errors end up getting frozen into the article with no oversight, due to the fact that "it looks good now". The whole fact that the article contained an iffy translation with possible factual errors at one point is forgotten in the shiny new facade of wonderful English.

Those of us who are multilingual know only too well that if a translation is involved, "good English" is not sufficient; it must be accurate as well. None of the other templates, like Rough translation fit this situation, so I created a new one.

The template acts similarly to Rough translation or Cleanup translation in that it tags and categorizes an article, and promotes bringing it to the attention of WP:PNT in the same way the others do. I've tagged one article so far, it is Nujood Ali. I've left it in  state, so you can see the generated Duflu code, including a new feature of adding to the   param.

Btw: one thing I'm not crazy about is the template name itself. I went through half a dozen different names, including Painted lemon which I rather liked, but in the end decided wasn't serious-sounding enough. It's hard to summarize the topic that this template addresses in a small space, but if you have an inspiration, by all means rename it or add your suggestions here. Mathglot (talk) 09:06, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * ´Thanks for the work on that, and in the translation-department in general, . As for names...."unverified/unscrutinized/unchecked translation" are the first things that come to my mind (but that might be the German part wanting out :)). Anyway, thanks a million. Lectonar (talk) 09:19, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Painted lemon is great. Use that. It's succinct and nuanced and informative to people who know without being derogatory. Needs an explanatory essay which we can generate together. How to identify them is more of a problem.— S Marshall T/C 10:18, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I think the default should be that, unless someone with competence in both languages asserts that information is correct, it doesn't belong in mainspace articles. Siuenti (씨유엔티) 11:20, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm happy with painted lemon. I also think the word evident in the template should be changed to obvious. Tazerdadog (talk) 21:55, 9 April 2017 (UTC)


 * My thought is that we need to decide the meaning of "translated". See if you guys agree with the following: translation into english occurs and the translated template applied. At that point the english article reflects the foreign-language article, although obvious flaws don't need to be translated. From *there* the article should be checked for English, and fact, and sources. So I suggest a multi-stage process. Can we agree that the "translated" template does not mean the accuracy has been checked? (Incidentally, an article does not have to be translated to potentially contain inaccuracies...) I could see the value in a template that says I have verified the fact in this article are true beyond accepting what the French, German or Polish Wikipedia might have to say on the subject. Ditto one that says the references are verified. But I still resist this pairing of "translated" with "inaccurate". It does not follow. But It's good that we are talking about this. For instance please please please can we decide that biography subjects are notable BEFORE we get a translator working on something? 01:17, 10 April 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elinruby (talk • contribs) 01:17, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * If you're talking about when to apply Translated page and what it means, your point is well worth a discussion, but I don't want to dilute or confuse that issue and that template with this one, which is about a different template designed for a completely different purpose. Whether "translated" means "inaccurate" would certainly be appropriate at Template talk:Translated page, but this template serves a different purpose. Please raise a discussion about your idea there, and let's talk about it.
 * This thread is really only an "announcement" or advertisement to draw the attention of possibly interested parties to a new template. Any substantive discussion of the new template should be started at Template talk:Hidden translation. Mathglot (talk) 03:09, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Just getting back to this after my earlier preliminary scan. I have looked at your proposed template now and might thing it's a good idea, depending on how it is used. More later. One of my main points though is that if we are trying to improve this process, let's improve this process. I avoid BLPs generally since I usually don't care very much about them. I am going to look at the list of articles for deletion and actually work on it since I have had comments pending on some of those articles for months without a response; thus some of the frustration I vented at you. Off to be bold now, later. Elinruby (talk) 03:24, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I welcome your comments as always. As far as how to use it, the intent was to cover that in the doc page, especially the section #Purpose.  But this is getting further and further from a simple "Announcement" so with your permission, I'll restart this discussion at the Talk page.  Mathglot (talk) 05:28, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Which you are kind enough not to tell us but I guess we must guess. I only do wordy translations from real languages at WP:PNT amd such, not sure why I am in on this. 20:44, 10 April 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by SimonTrew (talk • contribs) 20:44, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I did give the link (03:09, 10 April), and could have shared it again just above, but  since it was a red link until seconds ago I thought there was no point.  I'm sorry if it was unclear.  I can't be everywhere at once, and although it's blue now there is no content yet. I will eventually comment there, when RL permits, but feel free to start it, if you've a mind to. Here it is again, this time with #section-link:  Template talk:Hidden_translation.   Mathglot (talk) 01:32, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

discussion about Hungarian mathematician moved here from main page

 * This box contains a discussion that was previously located at Pages needing translation into English and moved here.

Please can you exlain the WP:ANIissue because I have had some page hits and looking back through here at WP:PNT, I don't visit much but take a French or Hungarian one when I can. The one up was for a Hungarian mathematics topic and I offered to give User:Mathglot and User:Elinruby a hand in doing the copy edit. I said so WP:AGF but I have possibly misinterpreted this, but lots of comments here at PNT are from [USer:Mathglot and User:Elinruby dismissing or discussing articles. I notice the one that I siad, I forget the Nobel-Prizewinner by name, well he wasn't awarded it becvause he predeceased the prize, and I said that here and let's rip that article up and start again, I said 'explicitly that obviously he is notable and gabe a ten point list of why the translation was inadeuqate. I don't mind translating articles, but my opiniopn was that it was not worth keeping and would be better to start again. Apparently User:Mathglot and USer:Elinruby should like to remnind us all of that, so they can have a go themselves. I'll stand by and see what they make of the French and Hungarian. (Clue: Hungarian prizewinner. Old Hungarian. Get the textbooks out chaps.) Si Trew (talk) 00:46, 11 April 2017 (UTC)


 * AFAIR, this is the first I have seen of Luoyang Bridge (Quan zhou) so I am not quite sure what you are referring to here. Can you please clarify what this is about? Mathglot (talk) 01:07, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Um I said I welcomed your help and for what it's worth I agree that a Nobel prize winner is notable. I don't think we're talking about this article though are we? I say this with love, as another editor who sometimes confuses other editors by format errors...maybe? Either way, the ANI issue is a proposed mass-delete. I sent you a link to the list of articles earlier. Feel free to ask me what the hell I am talking about on my talk page if you want. But not in Hungarian please :) I don't speak it, which is why I was soliciting the help remember? Elinruby (talk) 01:52, 11 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Glad you guys are having a fun little pajama party here, but actually, this is the Luoyang Bridge (Quan zhou) conference room, and I think your pj party must be down the hall somewhere.  So can you please pick up all your toys and pillows (i.e., the discussion above) when you leave, and carry it down to... wherever the heck it belongs?  Ta, Mathglot (talk) 02:15, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Discussion moved here; have at it, guys. Mathglot (talk) 00:53, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

turn the page upside down
What does anyone think about flipping the chronological order of the PNT entries around, so that the page always shows the latest entry at the top of the list, instead of at the bottom? I think this would answer some of the problems raised previously (here, and elsewhere) about having to scroll all the way to the bottom all the time.

I've thought about how to implement this and it's doable, using a temporary subpage to do the actual reversal work, while the PNT page would remain an almost empty page which could continue collecting new PNT entries from the public while the reversal work was going on. When the reversal is complete, we collect the few new entries (if any) and merge them to the top of the reversed list, and then move the subpage back to the main page. I think I can do this with a fancy regex; otherwise, I'd have to write a script or do it the hard way.

We could test it out before it goes live, so you could look at a draft of the new, reversed page to see what it would look like. Some documentation and a couple of templates would have to be modified at the same time, to tell users to place new entries at the top of the list from that point on, which should also make it easier for them.

Thoughts? Mathglot (talk) 03:45, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * There was a dicussion, to be found at Wikipedia talk:Teahouse, which kind of covers your idea from the other side. Perhaps creating collapsed entries for years and/or months might make the page more readable. Lectonar (talk) 07:27, 12 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that link, it's pretty persuasive, and somebody did a lot of research to post numerous links to archived discussions where the "top or bottom" issue has been discussed before. So unless someone else has some points that oppose that, I withdraw the proposal. It was mainly intended to address the excessive scrolling issue, which your idea of collapsed entries also addresses, and it's also worth it's own section title, so I'll close this one, and start another.  Mathglot (talk) 21:15, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The teahouse seemed to go the way it did just for consistency, did anyone suggest newest at bottom was superior in any other way? Siuenti (씨유엔티) 21:36, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I'd say consistency here has a quality of its own. Lectonar (talk) 21:58, 18 April 2017 (UTC)