Wikipedia talk:Pages needing translation into English/Archive 7

Was there a memo?
I've been struck by a plunge during recent months in the frequency of non-English articles showing up in the New Pages Feed and posted to this page. Did a worldwide memo go out that drove home the point that this is English Wikipedia? Largoplazo (talk) 19:18, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I assume this is the result of WP:ACTRIAL, which means that only autoconfirmed editors can create pages here. That also means that editors who don't usually edit the English Wikipedia can't accidentally create pages here. (While I am generally opposed to restrictions on page creation, this seems to be a positive effect). —Kusma (t·c) 20:12, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Makes sense, thanks. Largoplazo (talk) 20:36, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I had noticed the same thing. So that's why... Well, you will not hear me complaining about it :) --HyperGaruda (talk) 05:14, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
 * The trial obviously just ended. The floodgates have reopened. Largoplazo (talk) 15:59, 15 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Seems like it has been made permanent (WP:ACPERM) a month ago. No wonder it has been rather quiet lately. --HyperGaruda (talk) 15:18, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Attack of Tasooki copyedit assistance requested
Given the good faith request by Saff V. at WP:PNT for what seemed to me to be a request for copy-edit assistance from native English speakers, I think someone should be able to accommodate them. Can someone have a look and help out? Mathglot (talk) 12:00, 10 February 2018 (UTC) ✅ Mathglot (talk) 07:32, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

WP:QTN shortcut
Anybody ever get curious about that WP:QTN shortcut on the project page? It was created in 2005, earlier even than the WP:PNT one. Does anyone have a clue what QTN is about? Any objection if I request deletion, or at least blanking, of this shortcut, so some other project can use it if they have a need? Mathglot (talk) 11:46, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
 * After digging through a few revision histories, I came to the conclusion QTN stands for "Quick translation needed". --HyperGaruda (talk) 17:55, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Feedback requested about MT at Indian painting
Your feedback concerning a proposal to roll back machine translated content from Indian painting is requested at Talk:Indian painting. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 01:57, 11 March 2018 (UTC) ✅ Mathglot (talk) 07:33, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

Feedback round May 14- 27 June 3: A proposal for referencing sections of the same work more easily
I thought the community might be interested in a feedback round open for the next two weeks, regarding referencing multiple sections of the same work in an article. This is currently cumbersome, and a proposal has been made to address it, and WMDE is requesting feedeback. Details at VPP. Replies and feedback should be added here. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 08:56, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

This has been extended to June 3rd. Mathglot (talk) 07:17, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Feedback requested at Talk:Origins of the French Foreign Legion
Your feedback is requested at Talk:Origins of the French Foreign Legion. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 02:06, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

New subpage for serial offenders
In order to keep track of articles created editors who are serial offenders with multiple articles having machine translation or other translation issues, rather than add dozens or hundreds of articles to the main page that get scattered all over the place, I've created one place where they can be found, and organized by user.

New subpage Articles by user is an index page which currently has two links on it; please check it out: WP:PNT/by user.

This was inspired by the recent addition on the main page of Origins of the French Foreign Legion. This is a machine translation by (now indef blocked), and it turns out that OJOM has over one hundred equally crappy articles created by MT. So figured this is a better way to handle this kind of situation, than dumping 130 articles onto the main page, but I'd like to hear what others think. Mathglot (talk) 06:24, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I see your point, but will people be able to find them? It's already tough to get people in here. Apart from that, I don't really care how we format this. How many of his pages are from French? Elinruby (talk) 13:38, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Gah. I'll start by doing a screen for notability. Elinruby (talk) 13:41, 26 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Hey, I nominate the guy with the user name in Arabic script and the articles about Algerian history Elinruby (talk) 02:17, 27 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Yeah, that's a good point as to how to find them. Not sure of the answer, but I don't think it makes sense to flood the main page with articles that aren't being looked at.  Maybe a cot-collapsed index of articles with just the names on them, which point to the subpages?  Not sure. Mathglot (talk) 09:28, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

We have four links on the index page, now, corresponding to lists of MTs created by Cadejoblanco, OJOM, PootisHeavy, and Slowking4. Mathglot (talk) 10:20, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

We really need editors who speak Arabic
A French speaker who is interested in military history would be mighty nice as well. As far as I can tell we also don't have anyone at all ,for Portuguese, or Italian. And the volume of bad translation from Spanish is fairly mind-boggling. Articles in some other languages sit around too, I think. Elinruby (talk) 02:13, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
 * We have them, we just need to implement this. I've been busy on other things, but might be able to help out with this, if there's interest. Mathglot (talk) 09:25, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

Due weight for the French Foreign Legion
The recent big dump of French articles almost all about regiments and generals of the Foreign Legion. The unit is famous of course, but these articles are written in a specific format apparently geared to military history, and there is a complicated history that was part of French colonialism. If we are going to trace out the reasons for given units to be awarded the fourragère or the right to wear the SAS beret -- which I am told is actually really important from the point of view of a soldier -- then we should fill out some context, since we are actually very light on Algerian history, and a lot of what we have is by people who are indef-blocked for bad MT. So a lot of work will be needed here, and I am not sure I want to embark on major structural work until I know for sure that it's not going to get zapped as not notable. I am already having this problem in the Congo. I would prefer to see someone else adopt this Foreign Legion project, so I am thinking of doing an RfC. I suspect someone out there cares passionately about the format of articles about military regiments, for one thing, and we might as well find out about that before too much more work goes into these. Anyone have any thoughts? Elinruby (talk) 13:19, 1 June 2018 (UTC) Elinruby (talk) 13:19, 1 June 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:MILHIST is one of Wikipedia's most active and organized WikiProjects. I am sure they can give some valuable input. --HyperGaruda (talk) 18:34, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Tried that. Crickets so far. Elinruby (talk) 11:31, 3 June 2018 (UTC) Elinruby (talk) 11:31, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, obviously, trying to get someone's attention at a redirect page will only get you tumbleweed. I have moved your request to their main talk page. --HyperGaruda (talk) 19:51, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Is that what I did? Thank you then. Nice catch. Elinruby (talk) 04:06, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Lang count stats
If anybody's interested, as of today (version 844589151) there are 27 languages listed (counting only those with 'The initial language of this article was xxxxxxx'; so just those in WP:PNCTU&mdash;the larger, bottom section). They break down as follows:


 * ca:4, zh:8; fa:10, fr:11; de:11; el:2, id:4; nl:4, it:11; ja:11; ko:6; pl:9; pt:18; ru:26; es:22; ta:2; tr:3 uk:9; vn:4; uncertain: 25, unknown:7
 * Languages having only one entry are: az, eu, cs, fi, ms, ro, sq, sr.

I did the count as part of an idea about reordering the page by major languages, followed by an "other" grouping, but now I'm not so sure that's a good idea. The point was, to make it easier for translators to find "their" articles. The rough translation (and other templates) already add items to categories, like for example, Category:Wikipedia articles needing cleanup after translation from Portuguese, and maybe we just need to create a new subpage (either transcluded or linked) which simply indexes them all like a See also list, so you can look up your language in alpha order, click, and there are all your articles. Mathglot (talk) 21:31, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Translation studies WikiProject
Volunteers at PNT may also be interested in the Translation studies WikiProject. Check it out! Mathglot (talk) 02:25, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Pages for consideration auto-header
Now that untranslated or misplaced pages are rarely created anymore since article creation became restricted to autoconfirmed and up, most edits to the section Pages for consideration are about replacing the daily date header. Would it be a good idea to lower the bot's frequency to monthly? Or perhaps even shut it down, as we already manually update the headers in the cleanup section? --HyperGaruda (talk) 15:45, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

Flagging a CWW article as needing translation attribution
Your opinion would be welcome at WT:CP. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:25, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

Automatic way to keep people from posting drafts here?
This is probably just venting that won't go anywhere, but since drafts are out of scope here, yet people keep tagging drafts with Not English and posting them here for translation, it would be nice if those actions could be repelled automatically. At least logic could be added to Twinkle to hide the option. Or conditional text could be added to the template that screams "Not Here!" when used to tag a non-article. Largoplazo (talk) 22:33, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I added a note to the template documentation saying that it's meant for articles, not drafts. It may avert a few. You could propose changing the language on the template itself. There may also be a way to prevent a template from being applied to pages outside of mainspace, but I'd be concerned about unintended consequences. BlackcurrantTea (talk) 02:39, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * And I added a litte sentence in the introduction...might keep 1 out of 1000 away :). Lectonar (talk) 12:40, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, folks. Largoplazo (talk) 14:26, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * I just posted a note at WT:TW. Largoplazo (talk) 15:32, 4 February 2019 (UTC)
 * And somehow it got done :). https://github.com/azatoth/twinkle/issues/604 Lectonar (talk) 07:03, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

, is this sitation resolved or at least satisfactory? We could add an edit filter, which should catch any of these if they are still a problem. Mathglot (talk) 07:10, 18 January 2020 (UTC)
 * It is at least satisfactory imho...haven't really seen drafts here for some months. Lectonar (talk) 05:25, 20 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Since the end of April, only three drafts have been posted here, on 1 October, 4 November, and 31 December. None of those edits are marked by the tell-tale "(TW)" in the edit summary. So the Twinkle tweak appears to be a success. Largoplazo (talk) 13:04, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

I am going slowly through the older listed articles...
...to see if they still need to be listed here; if anybody wants to pitch in, feel free. Lectonar (talk) 12:56, 23 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Well try to help too, please can you detag them when you delist them as well, to try and clear both the page and the category-- Jac 16888 Talk 17:45, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
 * Will work on in between checking Spansih pages.Juan el Demografo (talk) 02:09, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * I thought I had removed the templates...facepalming myself. Thx Lectonar (talk) 06:20, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Pages listed here from Twinkle not showing up?
Hello. I have recently tagged two articles with Template:Rough translation, with the option to file a report for them here left checked. The articles in question: Khorol River and Lohagara Upazila, Chittagong, and the original languages seem to be Ukrainian and Bengali respectively. But why don't I see them at the bottom of this page? 𝕎𝕚𝕜𝕚𝕎𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕚𝕠𝕣𝟡𝟡𝟙𝟡 (talk) 15:47, 18 October 2019 (UTC)

Interesting discussion going on about translation techniques
A collaborative translation project is underway right now at an article being translated from Desdobramentos da Operação Lava Jato. The article is still very much a work in progress, but the talk page there already contains several discussion sections regarding particular questions of translation, some of which go beyond issues narrowly focused on that topic, and which might be of interested to translators more generally: please see Draft talk:Developments in Operation Car Wash. And by the way, if you have any interest in Brazil, Operation Car Wash, or translation issues, your feedback there would be very welcome. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 21:33, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Portuguese glossary
If you are interested in translating articles from Brazilian Portuguese, you may find the glossary at WP:Brazil-G useful. This is a specialized glossary limited in scope to politics, law, government, and criminal investigations. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 07:27, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Sorted by language?
Wouldn't it make much more sense to sort the articles by their original language? --CommanderWaterford (talk) 19:56, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't think so. For the main section, it's fast-moving and tracking usually new articles or edits that contain untranslated text, so having a chronological log makes the most sense. For the cleanup sections, it might be a useful way to sort in some cases, so that editors can pick articles where they can refer to the source text well, but ultimately a lot of cleanup can be done without being fluent in the original language (copy-editing, additional research/citations to cross-reference information, etc.). Laogeodritt [ Talk 23:08, 12 May 2020 (UTC


 * Personally, I think it would be helpful, but perhaps as an alternate access method, if one could be devised. See also Archive_2#Categories by language, and #Pages needing cleanup after translation. Mathglot (talk) 17:00, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

New template Translation attribution shell
Introducing new template translation attribution shell: When you have an article with more than one translation in it and you have mulitple translated page templates on the Talk page, you can keep them together and boxed, or collapsed with the new template: Example:

Shortcut: T-attrib. Other redirects are available; see the documentation. Mathglot (talk) 22:19, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Is the code broken?
Recently articles are being posted to the "Pages for consideration" section with the sentence "The language of this article is ." When I turn to the articles in question, I see that the language is correctly displayed in the "needs translation" tag. The correct language name is also being displayed in the WP:PNT edit summaries. So it looks like the process being used to automate the tagging of the articles and the posting of notices has broken specifically in the code that adds the text to WP:PNT, causing the placeholder not to be replaced with the supplied string. Examples:, ,. Largoplazo (talk) 14:54, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
 * After discovering that the same thing was happening for rough translations and having received no feedback here, I posted an inquiry to Wikipedia talk:Twinkle and it's been dealt with. Largoplazo (talk) 13:19, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks Largo, wasn't something I'd have any clue how to fix-- Jac 16888 Talk 14:06, 31 October 2020 (UTC)