Wikipedia talk:Translation/Archive 2

"proofreading" clarification
The role of a proofreader in the translation process should be clarified on Translation. In particular, the instructions should say if a proofreader is expected to (a) check the literal translation by reading both the original and translated articles (b) do 'copy-editing' tasks in the translated article such as changing word order/choice and editing for flow. KellenT 08:46, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Anybody? KellenT 10:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * In my opinion proofreading involves both checking the translation and copy-editing. But that is just my opinion, as anyone is free to do as they see fit on wikipedia there are no rules about what a proofreader should or should not do. Vrac (talk) 15:25, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Improving on probably ;) less-than-perfect English
Hi, I'm uncertain whether this is the best place to ask, as it is not about the translation of another WP article. The artist in question, Karin Schäfer, is not focused on German language at all, although sources used for the article are mostly German (she's Austrian). Could someone please improve on the text edited by two native German speakers?

Or, if not here, where to ask for such?

Thanks, Wolfgang, --WeHaWoe (talk) 09:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The use of English seems to me (a native speaker of American English) to be fine as is. Fewer bullets and more full sentences would probably be desireable.  Pzavon (talk) 02:41, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Problem on article talk page and Translation/Hayko_Cepkin
Translation/Hayko_Cepkin and Talk:Hayko Cepkin look messed up in my Firefox 2.0.0.14 - source code is showing through:

 BNutzer (talk) 22:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * It's showing up messed up for me too. I think part of the problem is that the stage has been set to 2, but the information for the person translating the page was put in the commented out portions of the code, not the actual code, so it is trying to reference things that haven't been set yet. -- Nataly a  12:19, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Help
I need help to translation from es:Latinos to Latins. (I translated it:Latini to es:Latinos) Thanks, Shooke (talk) 00:32, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Citations and References
I've just started proofreading, and it seems many articles really don't have sufficient citations or references (either in English or in the original language). What is the position on this - should translators be encouraged to endeavour to go back and find references? Or do we operate a lower standard of verifiability with translated articles? I should mention that the problem seems to stem from the original versions of the articles many of which have few or no references. Can anyone tell me - is there a general policy on how this should be handled from the proof-reader's point of view? Thanks Burntfingers (talk) 20:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, nobody will keep you off adding references ;-). The problem is that most time one has no access to good refs (books etc.), so we have to take what is there and add the refs of the original article. —  Tirk·ﬂ  “…”  07:16, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Common places for working on translations?
Is it common practice to work on the translation on a usertalk sub-page, or, rather, if we are generally confident about what we've translated (even if the article is not fully done), is the translation portion usually put right into the article? Thanks -- Nataly a 12:03, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the best place for in work translations would be "Wikipedia_talk:Translation/Article", but one has to put on top of the talk page in order to prevent SineBot to sign any edit. —  Tirk·ﬂ   “…”  07:12, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion. I'm working on a user subpage for now, but may go to that later. -- Nataly a  11:16, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikicommons pages in need of translation
Commons:WikiProject Canada needs a translation please from English to French. The substitution templates work in wikipedia, but I cannot get them to work in wikicommons. Is it possible to still have a translation from En to Fr? Thank you. Kind Regards SriMesh |  talk  03:35, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Translation/Jutoupi
It's been six months since the initial request. Any chance on getting started on Translation/Jutoupi? Thanks. Bebestbe (talk) 15:58, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I suggest directly contacting a translator: Category:Translators_zh-en. —  Tirk·ﬂ  “…”  07:20, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Talk page archival
I suggest setting up MiszaBot I to archive this talk page. —  Tirk·ﬂ  “…”  07:34, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a good idea - it certainly is getting long. -- Nataly a 11:26, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Translating infrastructure (e.g. image EXIF metadata boxes)
Hi - I'm new to translating... I noticed that the translation of the Wikipedia infrastructure (tab headings, exif data field descriptors, etc.) are incomplete for the Afrikaans language. I would like to improve this aspect, but can't find out where one can change or improve the translation of actual Wikipedia infrastructure. Just to reiterate -- I'm not talking about translating the content of articles, but rather translating the wikipedia navigation and infrastructure text -- Can someone point me in the right direction? FMalan (talk) 23:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you should post this at the Wp:Village pump talk page, which is for technical issues. I think they can point you to the right direction. Maybe you should make a request at Translation_requests too. Kind regards —  Tirk·ﬂ  “…”  07:58, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Translation needed..
Not sure if this is the right place, but could someone translate this into english and email it to me? The english article for Running gag is barely even a stub, and the version i found ( I think it's from Denmark's wikipedia) has MUCH more context. - - [ The Spooky One ] | [ t c r ] 19:11, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Please make a regular translation request here! The language of the original article is German (language code "de"). Kind regards —  Tirk·ﬂ  “…”  08:18, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Help section/FAQ
What about creating a FAQ or help section on the main page? I noticed that there are often the same questions arising (e.g. copyright questions, technical issues etc.). —  Tirk·ﬂ  “…” 10:38, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That would definitly be helpful (as long as we can find all the answers!). -- Nataly a  11:25, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Just a few questions we might want to answer (I'm sure there are more):
 * What to do about sourcing translated articles.
 * Places to work on translations.
 * Maybe something about the formatting of the Translation in Progress box, since it can sometimes get messed up.
 * -- Nataly a 11:28, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Doubt about atribution of copyright
Hi. I have a question about atribution of credits to the editors of the original article. Do you just mention in the edit summary that the article was translated from this or that wikipedia article? GoEThe (talk) 15:19, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * At the bottom of the article (or in the "sources" section) you have to put the Translation/Ref template, which refers to the translated article according to the GFDL licence. I personally mention it in the edit summary too. Kind regards, —  Tirk·ﬂ  “…” 09:16, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Talk pages filled with stuff to be translated
It seems that some users posted public domain text to talk pages hoping to have it translated, but with no explanation in English as to what the items are. Please see Administrators'_noticeboard for some details (or this if the section has been archived). For an example, please see Talk:Poznań Voivodeship (from 2004!). Is this that unusual or is there some procedure so that someone can actually know about this text and translate it or just junk it? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 08:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Image translation from German to English
Was not sure how to post this request to the German translation section as the image is from Commons and the german translation talk page redirects to here. This image is to be used for the Novels WikiProject Collaboration of the Month, Steppenwolf (novel). This is the image that requires the translation and then can be placed on the article,. If someone is able to translate the wording it be appreciated and welcomed for our collaboration. Boylo (talk) 23:10, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem, this should be done easily. Is there a vector graphics version of the image too? Where should the translation be put? —  Tirk·ﬂ  “…” 07:41, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Have replied to his talk page. Boylo (talk) 11:50, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

this is not working today
Is something wrong with the coding? Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 05:25, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Stub template with translation comment?
Hello all- Is there a tag that we can use on a new article to indicate that it's a stub based on or translated from an article on another language's Wikipedia? I thought I saw something like that once, but can't find anything now. Thanks in advance for any pointers. -Eric talk 11:01, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

How to propose a page to be translated - STOPPED WORKING
As chris noted already, i'm confirming that the script stopt working properly, adding a pagename with or withouth leading / it ends up in the wrong place. Mion (talk) 20:50, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Is this the right place?
Is this the right place to report a page that has been extremely poorly translated from German? The page is Germanism (linguistics). Parts of it are completely unintelligible, and having no knowledge of German I'm unable to do anything about it. If I'm asking in the wrong place, perhaps someone can report this article to the correct location. Emeraude (talk) 15:03, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Fr. Francisco Combés, S.J. text in Spanish removed, English translation inserted in its stead
In view of the objection to the non-English passages, I have removed the Spanish text. In its stead, I have inserted the English translation. I hope this sufficiently meet the objection. --Vicente Calibo de Jesus (talk) 15:08, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Problem with Viktor Mokhov
I'm not part of the translation project so I'm not sure how translations usually work. Something, though is wrong with Viktor Mokhov. Does anybody know how to fix it?&#32;-- kenb215 talk 07:40, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * What exactly is "wrong" with the article? —  Tirk·ﬂ  “…” 15:01, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Section translation
I needed only a sectional, not whole page translation from the Spanish Txeroki to the English Miguel De Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina. I was wondering how to request this? Or perhaps if someone could do it here. Lihaas (talk) 04:09, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Another technical issues
I just dove deep into the translation archive and noticed that there are some old empty pages. What about deleting them? It would be far more clearly arranged. Another big task would be to re-sort the articles into the right sections. There are a lot of proofread and completed articles in the request section. I am going to start work soon, but I could need some help. Kind regards,  Tirk·ﬂ  “…” 14:58, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Machine translations
There is discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know on whether "machine translations" of articles, such as that provided by Google are fine as "new content" added to Wikipedia. Is there a statement somewhere, regarding this issue? Thanks, &mdash; Mattisse (Talk) 01:49, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

FERDINANDUS DC ARCHIDUX —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.116.249.96 (talk) 20:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Template:Translation/Summary
Is the above template a talk or a article template? Gnevin (talk) 16:10, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Expiration of translation requests
I recently had a look on the German translation requests page, and there are a lot of requests, which are two years old and don't make sense any more (because the English article is as extensive as the German one). I suggest to remove this requests and mark them as "expired" or something like that. Maybe we should archive them on a separate page. —  Tirk·ﬂ  “…” 07:35, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * No objections or suggestions? —  Tirk·ﬂ  “…” 14:59, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the suggestion is very valid, I just don't know whether there is a way with the template to do so, other than removing the request, updating the translation request page, and mentioning this in the tag for the edit. I have the same problem with translations from Italian, some of which were requested in 2006 (in some cases the pages requested were spontaneously created by anglo users independently). Let me know what you ended up doing on my talk page or here. Thanks! --Campelli (talk) 01:54, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Does a request for translation become any less worth doing because time has gone by? - Jmabel | Talk 01:35, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Ability to translate from English to other languages... can I signal this through a userbox?
Hello, I perused the archived entries on this talk page but found no help concerning the use of Template:Proofreader or Template:Translator to signal that I can translate not only from language A to language B, but also in the other direction (which is not always the case).

If I use the template on my user page, as I did, I obtain the following

which indicates that I translate from Italian to English en, but I can do the opposite too.

How do I adapt the template to indicate this?

I have a user id on it.wikipedia and fr.wikipedia, where the user page redirects to my en.wikipedia user page, so it would be important for me to be able to signal to Italian & French readers what I can do there. Thanks!


 * The other direction would be more relevant on the Italian & French Wikipedias. After all, not a lot of people working on the en-wiki are looking for a translation out of English. - Jmabel | Talk 01:39, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Medical Translation Blog
Wikipedian translators may find this link to be useful: Medical Translation Blog -- Wavelength (talk) 23:12, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Is this the right place? (2)
I have a two page article in german that is needed as a source on Rudolf Wolters. I have run it through google translate and would be very grateful if a german speaker could turn it into accurate English. I can e-mail the pdf of the article and the Word 'translation'. Many thanks. Fainites barley scribs 00:53, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Confirmation of foreign-language sources
Hello, I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I have been maintaining the page List of weather records, which contains weather extremes for countries across the globe. Over almost two years, several countries have been added by anon IPs, with foreign-language sources, which I have allowed to stay on good faith. However, I would really like confirmation on these sources, and need to find people who speak Croatian, Czech, Danish, Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Polish, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Swedish, or Turkish, at least at a basic level, to confirm that these pages say what they are supposed to say. Thank you very much in advance.- Running On  Brains  17:56, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Using translated page template
I've made some changes recently to the translated page template, to give it additional functionality. It is designed to be used on talk pages of selected articles, to provide a link back to the source article so the original author(s) can be traced (required under the terms of GFDL). It also categorises articles into sub-categories of Category:Translated pages.

At present, there are several other templates in use, such as Frenchtrans, which are used on the articles themselves. Referencing other Wikipedias in this way is a violation of Self-references to avoid (see, for example, arguments used in this discussion). Therefore I propose that these should be replaced with translated page. This will resolve the problem of self-references (as it's on the talk page), and also bring all translated articles into the translated pages categories. It'll be a large job to do this, (possibly a job for a bot), so I'm bringing this up to gain consensus before continuing. —  Tivedshambo   (t/c) 10:04, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Test ran your new template and found myself mystified as to how it works. Try the links on Talk:Nils Henriksson and tell me why I'm linking to the wrong article (an astronomy article), please. Presume it's user confusion, but I've tried several variations. Thanks - Williamborg (Bill) 18:18, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I've fixed the templates - firstly, only the article title should be linked, not the full url. Version should refer to the version number (found in the url when looking at a page from the article history), not the date. I'll add a bit to the documentation page to give instructions how to find this. —  Tivedshambo   (t/c) 19:16, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks - Williamborg (Bill) 19:50, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for change in translation process
Hi everyone, User:Dr. Blofeld and User:AlbertHerring have developed some useful templates to put on the top of articles or sections (mostly stubs) that are better in other languages than in English. See the top of Uusimaa, for instance. This strikes me as a more effective way of managing translation requests, both so they can last longer without becoming stale and getting archived, and so they attract the attention of relevant editors more easily. I see some advantages of the existing translation templates (the in-progress system and subpages and so forth), but I think given the output of this project (only a handful of translations this whole month), there is probably a better way to manage this. (The current system also seems unnecessarily complicated for shorter articles - lots of bureaucracy with marginal benefit.) The way I see it, maybe translation would best be handled by templates on articles that link to some sort of page giving instructions on how to translate, along with optional templates to use while articles are in progress and a way to ask for help proofreading. The templates automatically categorize articles needing translation by language, so interested translators can browse the category. Thoughts? Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:25, 14 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Here’s one vote in favor of simplicity. To quote Keith D. Tyler, “Article content is WP's real product, everything else is administrivia.” This is not to say that administrative discipline is unimportant, but we must always remember it is NOT the end product.


 * Some observations on collaborative efforts (like those required for translation) follow:
 * I contribute to web collaborations for the intellectual stimulation; I do not come here for rule-based, structured activities.
 * And my job requires a fair bit of travel, so I must come and go in any web collaborative effort. It is hard to stay current with evolving rules and practices.
 * I used to volunteer for Distributed Proofreaders (DP), putting together Norwegian materials to publish on Project Gutenberg (PG). A small group of us put up a fair bit of what is there in that language today.
 * As time went on, the DP process grew ever more administratively top heavy – it now requires 4 levels of edit/review rather than 2 levels – to quote our Wikipedia article on DP, “Each page is proofread and formatted many times, and then a post-processor combines the pages and prepares the text for uploading to Project Gutenberg” – and for Norwegian materials, it was extremely hard to find 4 independent people to participate in putting material up on PG. As a result, no additional Norwegian material has been published on PG for several years.
 * By 2005 I felt that for DP the volunteer administrators overwhelmed the volunteer contributors and productivity dropped.
 * So I moved to Wikipedia (WP) back in ‘05 and was pleased that it was relatively straightforward – I could simply edit without having to master all of the ever changing administrivia.
 * I have translated several Norwegian articles (as well as an occasional Swedish, German and Spanish article) that interest me, when I suspect them of having broader interest, into English over the past 4 years.
 * The WP system for translation requests used to be simple – I could go to the translation page to see if there were any articles that captured my fancy and simply begin to translate them.
 * But the current system for managing translation requests requires more to master than I’m willing to invest.
 * So when I’m in the mood to translate, I just go out and find an article that relates to something I’m currently interested in that is not available in English and translate it (pretty much ignoring the translation bureaucracy).


 * Anything that simplifies the process while not sacrificing quality has my strong support.
 * Skål - Williamborg (Bill) 19:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I did try to post yesterday but I lost my long message because of computer or server trouble. The translation thing is a huge project but I think adminstering these tags liberally in articles would be a strong move to hihglighting what needs to be done and working towards involving people outside ths group as it is clear the task is too great for a handful of editors. It would indeed simplify it and "keep it real" without editors unfamililar with how to list an article formally here having to do that when they can tag the articles. I also like your adjustments to the template. Jen. Dr. Blofeld       White cat 17:22, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Translation please
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but perhaps someone could advise me where to go if it's not. This page shows a number of stamps, including one from the Republic of China (just hover over image to enlarge). Can someone tell me please if the Chinese characters give any information about the picture shown on the stamp. Thanks, jimfbleak (talk) 07:49, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * this page isn't very highly trafficked. I'd recommend asking at WP:CHINA. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I've asked there, no reply jimfbleak (talk) 06:39, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Big changes
In case people haven't noticed, this page has been completely redone. For a description of the problem that led to this, as well as ongoing efforts to steamline this project, see Translation/Overhaul. Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Category? List?
Hello! I just ran across one of those "translate" tags for an English article (to be taken from the French). The following will sound callous: some articles just don't seem worth the time. Or, at the very least, it seems like there must be others that are more worth the time. But it seems that there is no way to find a list of these articles to decide between when it comes to allocating one's limited resources. I know that you can request photographs and such on general lists, so that people can just upload them as they find them. Is it possible to make one of those for this project as well? Thanks. --Heyitspeter (talk) 05:58, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

When did this change?
The last time I thought I'd look at request for translation, I came to a page where people manually entered articles to be translated, and each listing was accompanied by a set of statuses. This is not that; now the mechanism involves creating a stub and adding the article to a category. When did this change? I see no reference to a recent change on this Talk page, even in the archives. —Largo Plazo (talk) 11:16, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Please, help me Per favore, aiutilo
Moved from Template:Translated page/doc —  Tivedshambo   (t/c) 21:12, 5 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I do not speak Italian very well, so I am using a translation site. Though, the translation may not come out right, so I apologize in advance if it happens. I would like to know if I can use the info on Giorgio Vanni in the English Wikipedia. If any of you speak English, if you can, please try to answer in English. Thank you in advance.


 * Non parlo italiano molto bene, così io sto usando una traduzione del sito. Sebbene, la traduzione non può uscire a destra, quindi mi scuso in anticipo se capita. Vorrei sapere se posso usare le informazioni su Giorgio Vanni nella Wikipedia in inglese. Se qualcuno di voi parlano inglese, se puoi, cercherò di rispondere in inglese. Grazie in anticipo.


 * ~Garfield Turtle Anime~ (talk) 19:46, 5 April 2009 (UTC) Hajiru

TFD of article-space translation templates
Interested parties may wish to comment at Templates for deletion/Log/2009 April 13. – xeno  ( talk ) 15:22, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

How to request a proofreader
So, is it a secret? How does one actually start off the proofreading process?

The difficulty with a lot of Wikipedia help, I find, is it is written almost as a process reference guide rather than a tutorial or user guide. I find it one of the most frustrating parts of Wikipedia.

PLEASE don't send me on a wild goose chase of links. Just tell me, quite plainly and simply, how I mark up an article (or its talk page) to say "please proofread this, someone".

The articles I need proofreading are:


 * Rouvre
 * Les Tourailles
 * Trun, Orne
 * Swiss Normandy

Thanks. Si. SimonTrew (talk) 04:04, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Not sure if what you were looking for, but I made a few minor changes to Swiss Normandy, (and I agree that it's exceedingly difficult to find out procedures in Wikipedia Help). Irv (talk) 18:16, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Help with likely Indian user
User talk:Ironboy11 has been overlinking big time on a couple Indian-related articles. I feel the warning notes aren't getting through. Any have an idea how to suss out what language and help them? -- Banj e b oi   04:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not part of translation, but after looking at the user's edits, I'm guessing he's Pakistani in origin. In that case, you would want either Urdu, or Punjabi with the arabic script. Deavenger (talk) 01:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Cheers! Thanks for the lead! -- <u style="font-size:14px; font-family: cursive;color:#8000FF">Banj e  <u style="font-size:14px;font-family: Zapfino, sans-serif;color:deeppink">b oi   02:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

ja:ニュース系列
I don't know how proper English title should be. But the article explains how news department in Japanese networks is operated. -- 59.5.206.236 (talk) 09:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Inverse
What about translatin from english to another language, the english wikipedia has the most amount of articles, and the other wikipedias are still in the need. I know that some other wikipedias have their projects, but sometimes it´s missing, or is not as widely developed and crowded as the one in the english wikipedia. I think that a section for export trranslations is needed. - <font color="#007BA7" size="5">☩ <font color="#E52B50" size="3" face="Harlow Solid Italic">Damërung <font color="#007BA7" size="5">☩ <font color="#808080">. -- 15:44, 16 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the idea now is to just coordinate these on the importing wikipedias. It doesn't make a lot of sense in my mind to have one project on en.wiki exporting to French, and another project on fr.wiki importing from English. The interwiki links indicate where the respective pages are on other wikipedias. Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:59, 29 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, the project would be more suited to be on meta, and it is! I didn´t notice that earlier, so forget about my past comment. - <font color="#007BA7" size="5">☩ <font color="#E52B50" size="3" face="Harlow Solid Italic">Damërung <font color="#007BA7" size="5">☩ <font color="#808080">. -- 20:26, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

When not to translate
Are there times when a link into another langauge is preferable to a translation? I am currently having a dispute with other Wikipedians on this matter and opposing views have been expressed. The issue arose when I read an article about a sports event that is highly newsworthy in a country where English is not the main langauge, but is only of passing interest in English-language countries. Both the English language and foreign language versions of Wikipedia listed of past winners with links to their biographies, but most of the English language links were red. In my view, these winners would not pass the English-language notability test, so I amended the red links to point to the foreign language biographies. My changes were revoked, I reinstated them and they were revoked again. Does this forum have any view on this state of affairs? Martinvl (talk) 18:07, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Inaccurate, sometimes POV, translations
I've noticed the creation of a few interwikis lately of Canadian geography etc articles to Norwegian Wikipedia; I can read Norwegian a bit, so had a look at Great Bear Rainforest and Princess Royal Island. The Norwegian articles have different content than the originals and in the case of Great Bear Rainforest make some statements that were revised out of the Canadian edition, namely that this is not a region but the name given to a region by environmental groups, i.e. a rebranding effort for the North and Central Coasts. While a widespread name, it's not the most common name nor is it accepted by most of the people who live there (who are vast-majority aboriginal and have their own placenames in the area). Also the Princess Royal Island article repeats part of the enviro-hype, claiming this to be the world's largest temperate rainforest, which is a claim also made re the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. The GBR is only part of the regional rainforest, with pick-and-choose boundaries made by enviro-orgs only. I haven't looked around other Interwikis for that article, but I'm starting to wonder what the content is re many articles in their other-language versions; shouldn't materials on a certain country/region reflect the home-country/language version? This really makes me wonder what's in, for example, the Chinese language versions of Chinese Canadian or History of Chinese immigration to Canada; the latter in particular had in its first incarnations a lot of outright lies and misrepresentations and tons of POV language incl. invective. Between environmental campaigns on the one hand, and ethnic-history articles on the other, I can think of a few dozen articles where I'd suspect that the interwiki articles are "tainted" or just not written/cited properly/factual. Is there any way to tag articles in other-language wikis to have someone check to the "original" and make sure the facts and citations are carried over? Neither of the Norwegian articles in question have citations though they're pretty well stubs; it's also a concern to me that the pick-and-choose nature of what gest translated may leave out major articles that should be translated, while those on someone's agenda will get translated over; in this case the regional article is British Columbia Coast.Skookum1 (talk) 12:31, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

TFD of Expand language templates
Interested parties may wish to comment on the proposed deletion of the entire family of Expand language templates at Templates for deletion/Log/2009 August 24. --RL0919 (talk) 17:22, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Deferred here, section below. Skäpperöd (talk) 17:36, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

RfC: Expand language template family - Should editors be encouraged to translate interwiki articles?


The Expand language template family (Template:Expand language, whereas "language" can be either language of another wikipedia) encourages editors to expand the tagged articles by translating a distinct article from another wikipedia. That strikes me as a call to ignore all content-related wikipedia policies, as it implies that the interwiki text (and thus its invoked translation) stringently follows WP:V and WP:NPOV. The template is encouraging editors to use wikipedia as a source.

If the other wikipedia article pointed to by the template actually has good sources, a mere translation will not ensure that the sources are properly represented - one has to read and evaluate them anew to ensure compliance with WP:V and WP:NPOV, and if one has done so, a translation of the interwiki is superfluous as one should then be able to write the same in one's own words even better. If the interwiki-sources are however not good, misrepresented or missing, a translation of the interwiki-article eventually does harm to this wikipedia. An example is Karl Frenzel, where the template encourages editors to translate a completely unsourced article.

In a nutshell, the "Expand language" templates only work under the premise that the interwiki articles are written according to the en.wikipedia policies, based on sound sources which are properly evaluated and presented. This hoever can not be taken for granted, and most certainly many interwiki articles flunk that as do many en.wikipedia articles. Even if the interwiki article is a FA, one can not unconditionally trust that WP:V and WP:NPOV are fulfilled, there or here.

Thus, the template family must in my view be deleted, but I was deferred here when I brought this up at TfD. Please read Templates for deletion/Log/2009 August 24 for this discussion. Alternatively, the template family must be radically converted into an unobtrusive template family proposing to check what interwikis there are and what sources they use. Skäpperöd (talk) 17:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * 1. You were supposed to post "a brief, neutral statement of the issue."
 * 2. Translation from one Wikipedia to another is an important, longstanding source of encyclopedic content. In no way are editors encouraged to set aside the normal policies and guidelines (including Verifiability and Citing sources), and no radical conversion is necessary to ensure that this is clear; the addition of a simple reminder that those standards are applicable would more than suffice.  —David Levy 18:26, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't get it. Editors are "not encouraged to set aside..." and yet are advised to translate dubious unreferenced texts? Most of the "translation wanted" templates I've seen point to just this (if not outright copyvio). NVO (talk) 07:51, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Inb this page I read:
 * The translation templates have links to machine translations built in automatically, so all readers should be able to access machine translations easily.

but Template:Expand Basque does not have these links. --Error (talk) 00:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, you're right. You can put in a request at Requested templates for someone to add the relevant links to the existing template. –Whitehorse1 18:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

FLC of Takeo Kimura filmography
Not so much a translation request as a how'd-I-do? Takeo Kimura filmography is currently a featured list candidate here. The filmography is primarily based on Japanese language sources and I'm having a lot of trouble finding reviewers able to verify that aspect of the list. Even reviews of a single section will be appreciated (currently one person has looked over the 1940s section). Thank you, Doctor Sunshine (talk) 03:25, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Why is attribution of translated pages placed on Talk page?
Why is the source of a translated article given in the talk page and not on its main page? I do understand that Wikipedia articles are not considered reliable sources, so this question is regarding attribution, not sourcing.

In general, when an outside site uses a Wikipedia article, according to Copyrights, they must provide credit to the authors by providing a hyperlink or URL to the page or pages they are re-using.

Shouldn't these attribution requirements apply for inter-Wikipedia re-use of material through translation, and be done so on the face page of the re-used article, like external users are expected to do, rather than its talk page, which is not obvious to casual readers? --İnfoCan (talk) 17:46, 8 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I have the same question, in WP:FR, they ask to do both (article + talk page). I would expect the same policy on all WP. --Anneyh (talk) 05:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Précis of of foreign language articles
I have seen a number of articles that that are a précis of an equivalent article that appears in a foreign language version of Wikipedia. Often the article discusses a matter that is more pertinent to the foreign language than to English, making a full translation into English inappropriate. Such articles are sometimes flagged for having insufficient references. Would it be appropriate for these articles to identify themselves as being a précis of the foreign language article in much the same way that the "Main article" byline is used in English language articles and thereby implictly use the references in the foreign language article? Martinvl (talk) 07:00, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Environmental Terminology Discovery Service
This message is about the following external link: Environmental Terminology Discovery Service &mdash; EEA. I added this link under a new heading "External links", but it was removed at 16:55, 9 December 2009. The edit summary says: "[rv] Pg discusses translation of foreign-language WP articles into English; added link to dictionary of environmental terms doesn't fit?" The glossary has not only same-language definitions in the 28 languages but also translations among the languages. For example, from the linked page, one can select the ISO 639 code "de" for German, and open the page http://glossary.de.eea.europa.eu/. Selecting "A" opens http://glossary.de.eea.europa.eu/terminology/list_html?letter=A. Selecting the first entry, "abbau" (for "Abbau"), opens http://glossary.de.eea.europa.eu/terminology/concept_html?term=abbau. Under "Translations" there is for "en" (English) the translation "decomposition" (linked), and there is for "en-US" (American English) the translation "degradation" (linked). Maybe this is a better way to add the link:
 * Environmental Terminology Discovery Service &mdash; EEA
 * (multilingual environmental glossary in 28 languages, with same-language definitions and multilingual translations)

-- Wavelength (talk) 21:03, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
 * From what has been written above, it would appear that the removal of this link was unneccessary. My advise is firstly to check the user page of the editor concerned. Then restore the link and to add a note on the talk page of the article concerend.  If the original editor appears to have been a monolingual script kiddy, who is vandalising anything that appears to be non-English, then they will probably not revisit the article and therefore not challenge your restoration. You should tune the amount of effort that you put into the talk page comments to your perception of who removed the link in the first place.
 * -- Martinvl (talk) 08:46, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Leaving aside personal remarks and advising bad faith presumption as better addressed on a user talkpage, let's focus on the content issue here. The above editor added the link to this page, i.e., Wikipedia:Translation. This is a projectspace document giving brief explanation of the steps to take if you wish to translate, or desire somebody to translate, a specific article on a foreign language Wikipedia that has superior content to its en-wikip counterpart, into the en-wikip article. The external link, is an A–Z glossary of terms of a distinct field (environmental topics). When I looked at and followed the link, I found that as far as I could see it didn't correspond to this page, and therefore decided to remove it. That's why I gave a brief explanation of the purpose of this page, drawn from this page, with a note the link didn't correspond followed by a question mark indicating I thought there may've been some confusion, in my edit summary—which the editor repeated and linked above. The editor added it to another projectspace page one minute earlier (WikiProject Environment), and three articles (Glossary of environmental science, Glossary of climate change; Index of meteorology articles) shortly afterward. Those, fall within the distinct topic field as well as format of the external webpage. At present I still don't see it's a suitable fit for this page, but am open to collegial discussion as always. –Whitehorse1 20:48, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Whitehorse1 – The fact that you picked this up within 24 hours means that you had a definite interest in the discussion, so I apologise for any insult that you might have had personally. Had you not picked it up, then my description would have held. Since I could not see the changes in context, I did not know who had made the changes and I had to make some assumptions.  I might add that my judgement was coloured by a request that I had regarding an article that I had written from somebody called “FeinianHunter’”.  This person had their account closed shortly afterwards for having an offensive name.


 * Regarding my actual comments - I can understand why the original editor concerned might have been reluctant to publicise the page – I have been in the same position as him. I had resolved some red links in an English-language article by linking to a foreign language Wikipedia page on the basis that there would probably never be an English-language article to satisfy the links.  I then made the mistake of asking for some views on what I had done.  A respondent, who appears to have had no interest in the subject, picked up on the discussion and removed all my links.  I waited a few weeks and then re-inserted them.  I believe that I did the right thing.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Martinvl (talk • contribs) 21:59, 10 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Okay. As before I'll leave issues of personal remarks or bad faith presumption to address in user talkspace. Regarding the content matter at hand, it took a while before I understood the second part of your comment. We seem still to be at cross purposes. Again, this, i.e., Wikipedia:Translation, is the page the original editor added the external link to. The original editor (Wavelength) linked to the removal in his 2nd sentence, above. We're on its associated talkpage. –Whitehorse1 01:56, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Translation project
User:Proteins and I are in contact with a technology company that wishes to use some software it has developed that is a kind of graphic interface for translators to increase the amount of health-related information in developing-world languages. Since this is quite a large company, this project might eventually cover many languages, but we are thinking about starting off small at around five (eg Swahili is one leading option). The real work will be in developing a community of translators and bilingual experts in each destination language, and the company is willing to help with this as well, but at our end we will need to provide a list of articles on "essential health information", internationalize these as much as possible, and polish them a bit. This proposal is still in its initial stage, but could people who would be interested in participating sign up here. Thank you Tim Vickers (talk) 17:11, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This seems confusing to me. "The company is willing to help with this"? What does "willing to help" mean? Is this a paid project to provide services to this company? If not, as is implied by the "willing to help" incentive being thrown out, why is anybody providing services to this company for free? It isn't clear how this project benefits Wikipedia or what is has to do with the company's software. It isn't even clear why the company isn't able to browse Wikipedia on its own and identify appropriate articles for their project. —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The company will provide the software and help recruit volunteers to transwiki articles, we would be translating articles from the English Wikipedia to the Swahili Wikipedia. The company of course can do this just in collaboration with the destination Wikipedia, but we can also help on our end. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Article in French
I have a pdf article in French that I would like to use as a source for a dermatology-related article. Is there anyone that could help me translate it? ---kilbad (talk) 23:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Please improve instructions at top of page
This page states "To request a translation of an English Wikipedia article into another language, click on a sidebar link to do so at the appropriate foreign-language Wikipedia." The statement is not helpful. First, the page may not exist at all in the foreigh-language wikipedia. How does one find a sidebar to an article that does not exist? Second, I examined in great detail the sidebars of multiple foreign-language wikipedias, and found absolutely no link relevant to translation. How does one click on a link that does not exist? Please improve this very confusing statement and/or the procedure to request translation. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.165.239.118 (talk) 03:44, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Translation for Mosque of Uqba from the featured article in french wikipedia
Grande mosquée de Kairouan (in french wikipedia) is an excellent featured article about an important monument (architectural masterpiece) and religious building (one of the oldest great mosques and the oldest in the muslim west). The english article Mosque of Uqba is referenced but very short and do not give enough details while the article in French (Grande mosquée de Kairouan) is full of details about the architecture and decoration of this huge monument. It would be very interesting to translate the featured french article. I can help in the architectural vocabulary. Cordially Quincy2010 (talk) 21:07, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Translation/Airmail
Not sure if the page at Wikipedia talk:Translation/Airmail is in the right place or what stage of development it is at. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 18:51, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

Bill Vander Zalm, Dutch translation pls
Please see Talk:Bill_Vander_Zalm; Vander Zalm is an extremely well-known Dutch Canadian, I was very surprised to see there's only German, French and Finnish versions of his page....Skookum1 (talk) 16:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Medicine and molecular cellular biology Wikiprojects announce collaboration with Google.org
Announcement of the first stages of a project to peer-review, improve and translate medical and biology articles so that material can be transferred from the English Wikipedia to other Wikipedias that are written in languages used in developing world. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:54, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Spanish-language news sources
Today I discovered these two Spanish-language sources for news about the environment.
 * Últimas de bionero &mdash; bionero.org | IDEAS, DISCUSION Y CULTURA ECOLOGICA DESDE MEXICO
 * (This Spanish-language newspaper based in Mexico City specializes in environmental news.)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Wavelength (talk • contribs) 01:04, 12 May 2010 (UTC) [I forgot to sign my message, so I am adding an "unsigned" template to it. -- Wavelength (talk) 02:36, 12 May 2010 (UTC)] I just found another one. -- Wavelength (talk) 03:23, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * HidrocarburosBolivia.com | bolivia, hidrocarburosbolivia, gas, ypfb, mapas, sitio, gobierno, hidrocarburos, campos, bloques, argentina, boletín, brasil, mundo, petróleo, bolivianos ("es:hidrocarburo" = "hydrocarbon"; "es:YPFB" = "es:Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos" = "YPFB")
 * Medioambientalista. Medio Ambiente, Naturaleza, Sostenibilidad (based in Spain)

References?
What about the references? Should we put the ones listed in the foreign article that we are translating from? or put no references or cite wikipedia itself as the reference or what? - <font color="#007BA7" size="5">☩ <font color="#E52B50" size="3" face="Harlow Solid Italic">Damërung <font color="#007BA7" size="5">☩ <font color="#808080">. -- 06:42, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * My question as well.
 * --Gdje je nestala duša svijeta (talk) 17:49, 19 September 2010 (UTC)


 * The other-language Wikipedia is usually credited on the talk page (Translated page) and in the edit summary, but I don't know of any special consensus concerning references. Some people consider it a form of plagiarism (citation plagiarism) if you cite sources given elsewhere without crediting the intermediate source, particularly if you do not actually read the original source. For this reason, I would say that you should not copy unchecked references from a foreign-language Wikipedia without noting the fact. If possible, I would try to find alternative English-language sources and/or check the sources given. --Boson (talk) 18:33, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I fully agree on this, many thanks.
 * --Gdje je nestala duša svijeta (talk) 16:47, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Translate into Turkish?
Hi, I was fixing the work of a bot (removed interwiki links which went to redirects) when I noticed that the Turkish article for peak oil (tr:Petrol üretim zirvesi) had been deleted in March. Seems this is a very important topic and should at least have a stub over there. How do I request a translation to Turkish? Would it be kosher for someone to do a machine translation of our intro and create a stub? 69.116.144.208 (talk) 16:15, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Inline translation template for phrases
Note: ''I haven't written much for Wikipedia, so I'm not sure if the following exists. I searched around, so I'm sorry if I missed it.''

I think a template/tool to help translate phrases (such as titles in various jobs) is needed. While I can use dictionaries for most words, phrases are sometimes nearly impossible to translate well. For instance, while I was stuck on translating "Barne- og Ungdomsansvarlig" from Norwegian to English (lit. "Children and Youth Responsible"), I was fairly sure that there existed a more commonly used English title for the same thing (or a "norm" if you will, if the exact title/phrase didn't exist in English). Knowing that "Barne- og Ungdomsminister" (lit. "Children and Youth Minister") would commonly translate to "Minister for Children," I decided to copy that logic, but I'll ultimately say that it's not always easy to figure out. "Responsible for Children" sounds awfully awkward for a job position in English. I propose a template that allows users to request translation for a phrase in-line, noting that an uncertain translation has been used. Readers will see the note, and future editors with advanced knowledge of the language might fix it.

E.g.  

Explanation: Lang=no denotes the language and should accept standard country names or country codes. Phrase is the original phrase, Direct is a direct translation (to let non-Norwegian editors understand and fix it) and Proposal is a suggested translation. Proposal should be optional, but should be the phrase used in the article if provided. Otherwise, Direct should be used.

If a similar feature already exists, it should be linked in this article or made more visible. That said, I am fairly bit tired (desperately guarding myself from embarrassment, obviously). 158.37.73.100 (talk) 05:26, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Can't find template
Where is the template for the discussion page of articles that have been translated from e.g. German Wikipedia to English? I've seen it, but can't remember where, and can't find it in WP help. — ℜob C. alias ᴀʟᴀʀoʙ 20:28, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Translated – xeno <sup style="color:black;">talk 20:34, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Requesting German to English assistance
I've been a bit busy lately and haven't been able to give Mungonzazal Janshindulam (Artikel auf Deutsch) much attention. I've been working on this per the request of. Anyone who has a moment to spare to contribute to the translation, please jump in and help speed the process up. Please note the part about receiving the Tchaikovsky Award is incorrect-- that should be the "Wettbewerb den Sonderpreis". Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 21:46, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Finished, disregard. Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 21:47, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

A bit of a Catch-22
This page's format changed some time ago, though I don't know anything about that decision; I once made several translation requests by adding redlinks according to the language from which the needed article is being translated. The new format requires that you actually create a stub article to request the translation. However...if you create a stub article to request a translation for a living person, your article is going to be deleted per WP:BLPPROD. This actually happened to at least one article whose translation I requested. Being as the main reason why one would make such a request is the paucity of available English-language sources...this ends up being a catch-22. Perhaps this should inspire a change in procedure? Chubbles (talk) 14:09, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

User Translator/Proofreader 2
Proposing an alternative for users who are interested in translating/proofreading, but don't want to be branded "a translator ... on Translation", because they don't wish to be a member of the project, or because they dislike to imply that they are frequently active there (they may or may not be). I think we should name the variants Template:User Translator 2 and Template:User Proofreader 2. How about this:

Cheers, theFace 21:06, 11 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Another idea: why not merge User Proofreader with User Translator? The current proofreader userbox states "This user is a translator and proofreader", so they don't differ that much. - theFace 19:47, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I did the merge (with one false start), replaced proofreader with the new template, and renewed the examples. No previous functionality has been broken, afaics, so nothing needs to be updated. Of course, everything can be reverted if someone objects, but I seriously believe this is better. Cheers, theFace 19:47, 20 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I would sure prefer proofreading Filipino to English over translating it. Same goes for any language I don't know. Even proofreading a language I know is easier (for me) than translating, quite often. Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 18:42, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

User Boxes
How do I you create a user box that says I can translate from English into another language ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by PonyoOnTheCliff (talk • contribs) 17:52, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Translation at Wikisource
WikiProject Translation at Wikisource is a new multi-language initiative to cooperatively translate source texts from multiple languages, in order to make them more accessible to other-language speakers. If you are interested in sharing ideas or contributing to the project, please comment at s:Wikisource talk:WikiProject Translation. --Eliyak T · C 15:04, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Translation guidelines
Is there a set of guidelines for translators beyond that on this article? --Bermicourt (talk) 15:50, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Same question and is there somewhere to contact proofreaders ? (I’m now translating Hôtel de Blossac in english but I will need a proofreader). Cdlt, V IGNERON * discut. 19:30, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors. Fences  &amp;  Windows  00:28, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Translation requests
Creating a stub is impossible for a non-autoconfirmed user. Shouldn't there be a request page available? Similar to WP:RA ? 184.144.160.156 (talk) 07:48, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Missing English Translation Finding Tool is a Dead Link
JoanJoc's tool to find pages in other languages that are not available in English goes to a dead link. Is there somewhere else that has a similar tool to find pages in other languages automatically that need an English translation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neal.chambers (talk • contribs) 13:42, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:WikiProject Echo
Template:WikiProject Echo has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:17, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Translation from English into other languages
This project page concerns itself almost entirely with translation into English, but I cannot find anything about the converse. For example, at the top of WP:RT there is a hand-coded divbox (which I've just reworded) requesting translation into several other languages. There is also a request at the bottom (of the same page) for a template to produce just such a divbox/boilerplate message. I thought I might try to tackle this (code a new template) so I've had a look around to see what's already available. There's, which appears to perform the opposite function. To be honest I found the whole subject of translation on WP to be in a bit of a mess. My question is this; should I just be bold and try to organize something myself? The thing is, I won't be the one providing translations, I'm just a designer and a programmer. Regards, nagualdesign (talk) 22:06, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I just came to ask about that template, since no one has used it since I created it and the requester seems to be inactive outside of his userpages and asking for money in article space. Looking around, I've come to the same conclusion: no one is doing English to some other language translations. In that case I doubt the template will ever be used. If you (or anyone else from this project) wants it, let me know, otherwise I'm going to take it to WP:TFD. Thanks, — Bility (talk) 15:54, 28 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I now have a requirement for your template, although I gather that it has unfortunately been deleted. For the record I'm moving a topic I started earlier (having completely overlooked this one) into the following subsection. <span style="border:2px ridge #aaf;padding:1px 8px;font:normal 10px Verdana,sans-serif;"> Rubywine . talk 18:01, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Dual translation i.e. both from and to English
Could the process of requesting a dual translation (English to x, and x to English) could be made easier? Here's the background to my question. I have recently created a biography stub for the German photographer Frauke Eigen. It contains recent material which should be added to de:Frauke Eigen, where her biography is out of date, although it contains older material that needs to be added to the English article. What I really want to do is request the help of a translator to update both articles, not just the English one. So I really want to tag the German article as well. However, to do this, I'd need to go through German Wikipedia. I'm not unwilling to try, but it is difficult to do, error prone and possibly even discourteous.

It seems likely to me very likely that the scenario I've described won't be unusual, i.e., there'll quite often be a need to translate in both directions. Am I mistaken? What do other people think about this? Rubywine (talk) 02:16, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Should we have the Expand language template?
Our policy is not to use Wikipedia itself as a source for Wikipedia articles. In practise people do copy material from one article to another, as a shortcut way of building an article, though this is not the recommended way of working. Our preferred model is to research the most reliable sources on the topic and summarize what they say, with each statement in the article attributable to a source that makes that statement. While people may wish to shortcut the preferred model and utilise material from other language Wikipedias, I am unsure that we should be urging or encouraging people to do this, especially when they do not themselves know the language of the other Wikipedia, and are being instructed to use Google Translate. When I have come upon this template and examined the linked article I have all too frequently found that the the foreign language article was not adequately and/or usefully sourced. Our policy does encourage that we first use English sources.

As this template appears to be running counter to good advice, good practise, and at least two core policies, is there a value to keeping it? <font face="Script MT" color="#1111AA" size="2">SilkTork  *Tea time 18:13, 8 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I think having a template is useful, since it indicates that the other-language article is a useful source of what additional information could be presented, but the content of the template and WP:NOENG should be changed to better reflect appropriate policy regarding verifiability. Any implication that machine translation is appropriate for verifying what reliable sources say should be removed. If the editor inserting the translation is not qualified to assess the adequacy of the machine translation, he/she should not use it; if he/she is qualified to assess the adequacy of the translation, he/she can supply his/her own translation. The template text should be amended to say something like "This article may be expanded using information from . . . . Please remember to check any sources given and, where possible replace them with English language sources. It is, generally, not acceptable to use references taken from the other article without checking them yourself.--Boson (talk) 22:48, 8 June 2011 (UTC)"


 * I have taken your comments on board and amended the text to read: As regards the Google translation - initially I removed it, but then considered that it served a useful function in translating the corresponding article so that it could be viewed by any en Wiki user to check if it was still a superior article. The text now reads: . Does this appear acceptable? Any further amendments? <font face="Script MT" color="#1111AA" size="2">SilkTork  *Tea time 18:59, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me.--Boson (talk) 23:28, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I have also amended the instructions to guide people to put the template on talkpages rather than directly on the article. This is a specialist editing template that has no relevance for the general reader and, indeed, for the general editor. It is similar to the findnotice template, which is a talkpage template. <font face="Script MT" color="#1111AA" size="2">SilkTork  *Tea time 19:21, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks good to me. --Boson (talk) 21:06, 9 June 2011 (UTC) Repositioned. Sorry, I had not intended to comment on the addendum related to the placing of the template on the Talk page. --Boson (talk) 23:28, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

No it does not look good to me and I created the templates. These templates were NOT designed to be stuck in hiding on talk pages, They are intended to directly encourage editors to trnalstae content. SOme articles are so extrmeely lacking that any translated content is useful. SilkTork's actions here indicate he has very little experience in actual transwiki work and how it works.♦ Dr. Blofeld  16:04, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * The discussion now is on where it is more appropriate to place the template. The template places articles into Category:Articles needing translation from foreign-language Wikipedias regardless if it is the talkpage or the article. The article page already lists all the foreign language wiki articles, and identifies those which are GA or FA. The talkpage might already have Find, so placing the expand language template on the talkpage would then have links to potential sources/material in the same place. The potential advantage of having the template on the article would be that it encourages a casual reader to get involved. The downside is that it might encourage a casual reader to get involved, and it adds to the general clutter on the article page. the template is not essential as it is not advising the general reader of the condition of the article, it is purely an editing function, and a very specialised one at that. Poorly done translations are worse than no translations at all. I would prefer that an experienced Wikipedian who understands our requirements for reliable sources, and our preference in the English Wikipedia for English language sources, and who is a skilled translator, to be doing the work. Better to have a competent paragraph than an inaccurate and misleading page. <font face="Script MT" color="#1111AA" size="2">SilkTork  *Tea time 17:42, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

"I would prefer that an experienced Wikipedian who understands our requirements for reliable sources, and our preference in the English Wikipedia for English language sources, and who is a skilled translator, to be doing the work." Yes that's me, only I can't be expected to do all of the translation work. Much of Fuerte San Miguel (Uruguay) was transwikied from Spanish, only sources were found to support the text for instance. Same with Fort Teremba from French etc.. But moving the template to the talk page will not achieve what you desire. The best thing is what you've already done, reworded the template to indicate sources need to be found to support translations.♦ Dr. Blofeld  18:55, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually the more I look into this the more I favour Hoverfish's suggestion of a collapsed template. For instance:

A corresponding article in Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedia may contain information and sources useful in building this article. As our policy is not to use Wikipedia itself as a source for articles, please ensure you do not use any uncited statements. Also, check the sources on cited statements before using - replacing foreign language sources where possible with English language ones. (December 2009) After translating, (Translated|nn|Hellisøy fyrstasjon} must be added to the talk page to ensure copyright compliance. Translation instructions · Google translation (for guidance only - text not to be copied into this article)

In my view the shrinkable part should be from "As our policy" downwards. If we can shrink that section down to just iclude "Guidlines" show, then all it needs is a "A corresponding article in Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedia may contain information and sources useful in building this article. "♦ Dr. Blofeld  18:58, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

The best possible solution would be a] Shrink the template down in the articles with a shrinkable "Guidelines" option. b] In this guidelines section we strongly assert that all articles being transwikied MUST be supported by reliable sources given in the articles and caution must be exercised with the google translations and if stuck with an awkward translation to ask for assistance. E.g if an editor is translating material he MUST try to verify as much of the information as he can himself. Right Silk?♦ Dr. Blofeld  19:20, 20 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll collapse part of the template and see how it looks. <font face="Script MT" color="#1111AA" size="2">SilkTork  *Tea time 08:46, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

Further discussion
The template is currently used on a mix of article pages and talk pages. I would argue that such meta-data belongs on the talk page and, while I understand the advertising idea of having it in a more prominent position I do feel that it should not be so public. violet/riga [talk] 22:32, 4 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't agree. Placing the Expand Language template on the article rather than the talk page greatly increases the chance that it will be processed. This means that either (a) the requested translation will happen, or (b) the template will be removed because the translator has deemed the non-English article to be unsuitable for translation, and has marked it for improvement in the other Wikipedia. Either of these outcomes is far preferable to situations where superior quality non-English content is available, but is not translated, or where a template is allowed to languish indefinitely on a talk page, and to clutter up the related Category page, while a low quality non-English article remains neglected.


 * The relevant guidelines say "English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones, assuming English sources of equal quality and relevance are available." This makes sense, because without English-language sources, readers will have to work much harder to find and use external sources. But there is nothing in the guidelines to discourage the translation of non-English articles where good English-language sources are unavailable. This is very frequently the case, as the numerous requests for translations show.


 * The guidelines even go so far as to say "Translations published by reliable sources are preferred over translations by Wikipedians, but translations by Wikipedians are preferred over machine translations." The first clause is sensible; the second clause is wrong, and should be revised (as a matter of priority) to categorically forbid the use of unassisted machine translations. But we should invite and encourage bilingual Wikipedians to translate articles, when good English-language sources do not exist, in the same spirit as we invite and encourage all Wikipedians to create and edit articles. There is absolutely no reason to assume that experienced editors will have better linguistic skills than anybody else. <span style="border:2px ridge #aaf;padding:1px 8px;font:normal 10px Verdana,sans-serif;"> Rubywine . talk 01:21, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Most of what you say here is tangential to the discussion - naturally I agree that translating good content from the other languages is a very good thing. My point is that the template should be used on either the article page OR the talk page, and I believe that it classes as metadata and it should therefore be the latter. It might be with taking this to TFD for discussion (note the true initialism). violet/riga [talk] 09:14, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * My comments are not at all tangential to the discussion; they directly address SilkTork's line of argument about the desirability of using translated material, and support my argument about the placement of the template. With regard to your own point, it does not follow that because the Expand Language template is metadata it should be hidden on a talk page. All templates, tags, and categories are metadata, so needless to say, a great deal of metadata appears on article pages. <span style="border:2px ridge #aaf;padding:1px 8px;font:normal 10px Verdana,sans-serif;"> Rubywine . talk  09:59, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * You are talking about machine translations, I am talking about the location of a template. Tangential and covered by another thread.  I'll list this at WP:TFD for further outside discussion.  violet/riga [talk] 10:20, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I am talking about the location of a template, and you are making an insubstantial argument, and then ignoring my response to it. <span style="border:2px ridge #aaf;padding:1px 8px;font:normal 10px Verdana,sans-serif;"> Rubywine . talk 10:33, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Template listed for discussion at Templates for discussion/Log/2011 August 5. violet/riga [talk] 10:51, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

How to translate
I strongly oppose the introduction of Orwells's advice, which is completely irrelevant here. Orwell was not giving advice for writing encyclopaedia articles. As regards his unreflected advice on the use of the passive, it appears that, in his essay which attacked the use of the passive he actually used the passive more than most people: 'Bryant 1962 reports three statistical studies of passive versus active sentences in various periodicals; the highest incidence of passive constructions was 13 percent. Orwell runs to a little over 20 percent in "Politics and the English Language." ' [Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, p. 720) Perhaps we should do as he does, not do as he says. Recommending translators to avoid using the passive will not lead to better translations. It all depends on what the topic of the sentence is, what one wants to say about the topic, and what constraints English puts on element order. Sometimes the topic happens to be the agent, and the active voice is fine, e.g.  Atropine increases firing of the sinoatrial node and conduction through the atrioventricular node of the heart, opposes the actions of the vagus nerve, blocks acetylcholine receptor sites, and decreases bronchial secretions. In general, atropine lowers the parasympathetic activity of all muscles and glands regulated by the parasympathetic nervous system. This occurs because atropine is a competitive antagonist of the muscarinic acetylcholine receptors. . . Therefore, it may cause swallowing difficulties and reduced secretions. Sometimes the topic is not the agent, and the passive may be more appropriate. Frequent use of the passive is normal and appropriate in many encyclopaedia articles. For instance, in the article on John F. Kennedy it is appropriate to write "'Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. Lee Harvey Oswald was charged with the crime but was shot and killed two days later by Jack Ruby before any trial'" Use of the passive allows the information to be introduced in the desired order.

Joseph M. Williams (in Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace) explains it much better than Orwell: Some critics tell us to avoid the passive everywhere because it adds words and often deletes the agent, the "doer" of the action. But in fact, the passive is often the better choice. To choose between the active and the passive, you have to answer three questions:
 * 1) . Must your readers know who is responsible for the action? [. . .]
 * 2) . Would the active or passive verb help your readers move more smoothly from one sentence to the next? [. . .]
 * 3) . Would the active or passive verb give readers a more consistent and appropriate point of view?  [. . .]

For some views by a professor of Linguistics, see here: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2990.

--Boson (talk) 16:38, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * A cogent presentation of situations when passive and active voices have their appropriate places in text composition and translation. The article's suggestions for translators read well now.  I still miss the recommendations to consider, when possible, using shorter rather than longer words ("use" rather than "utilize," "though" rather than "although") and cutting out verbiage, but I suppose we can't include every bit of potentially good advice...  Nihil novi (talk) 21:25, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

I have had another stab at the advice for translators. I have reformulated Orwell's somewhat simplistic advice on the passive (see above). Although Orwell's advice may be taught in introductory writing courses, it must be treated with considerable caution. One of the arguments for avoiding the passive is that the passive lends itself to hiding the truth, by permitting omission of the agent. This might be useful in the context of a political essay; it is not appropriate in encyclopedic writing, particularly in connection with translation. The decision on whether to mention the agent is not the translator's. I have also phrased the advice on using everyday English more circumspectly. When Orwell wrote this advice, he was probably not thinking of encyclopaedia articles on quantum chromodynamics or verotoxin-producing Escherichia coli. --Boson (talk) 18:38, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Orwell wrote "Never use the passive where you can use the active." This doesn't mean that the passive voice shouldn't be used at all. Of course I also use the passive voice when it is a better option. Anyway, if this rule seems so controversial, we can omit it. It's not crucial here. I've just added "(or the other way around)" to avoid the impression that the use of the passive instead of the active voice is recommended in English.--Sylwia Ufnalska (talk) 21:48, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Requesting a translation instructions as clear as mud
Requesting a translation

''Requesting a translation from a foreign-language Wikipedia into English is easy. Simply place a translation template from the category Category:Expand by language Wikipedia templates on the article page which needs translating from the relative Wikipedia. For example, could be placed on the article Fuerteventura as the article is of a high standard on Spanish Wikipedia but not in English and thus needs to be translated into English.''

''If no English-language article exists yet, please start a stub article explaining or defining the subject of the article in a sentence or two. Then tag your stub article with a translation template.''

This is clear as mud. The explanation is incomprehensible. Do you place the template on the non-English article, or on the English stub article, or both? Why does this tell you firstly to place the translation template (somewhere) and then secondly to start a stub article in English if one does not exist? Is it assuming that in most cases, there will be already an English article of a lower standard? For something so simple, this is completely unclear and unhelpful. Rubywine (talk) 22:00, 31 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I have edited the instructions. Are they clearer now? --Boson (talk) 06:36, 1 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes thank you, the instructions are now perfectly clear. I'm starting another discussion topic below. Please take a look at it. Rubywine (talk) 01:37, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Machine translations
The guideline currently states: "Wikipedia consensus is that an unedited machine translation, left as a Wikipedia article, is worse than nothing."

In my experience, an edited machine translation is often even worse than an unedited translation. It conveys the impression that a knowledgeable editor would have translated the text, while still containing the content-related errors in a machine translation. I have often seen translations from English to German, or from French to German that got major issues wrong, such as changing an affirmative statement to a opposing statement. Translations of other languages are often even worse.

As long as machine translations do not improve significantly, I would suggest that we state unambiguously that machine translations should never be used to support the inclusion of any content in an article. Cs32en  Talk to me  21:50, 1 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I have only just seen your comment, after starting a new discussion about this on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability. I think the problem you describe is most likely to have been caused by somebody who is unable to read the source article attempting to edit a machine translation. I can't see why a fluently bilingual editor should be forbidden to use an automated tool as a preliminary step towards translation, provided they closely read and edit its output. So (in the absence of any evidence that bilingual editors are misusing these tools) I'd probably disagree with a complete ban, but I strongly agree that there should be tight guidelines on who is permitted to use machine translations, and how they are permitted to do so. <span style="border:2px ridge #aaf;padding:1px 8px;font:normal 10px Verdana,sans-serif;"> Rubywine . talk 02:44, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I would suggest deleting the last two sentences of the recommendation:

''Translation takes work. Machine translation often produces very low quality results. Wikipedia consensus is that an unedited machine translation, left as a Wikipedia article, is worse than nothing. The translation templates have links to machine translations built in automatically, so all readers should be able to access machine translations easily. '' :
 * The machine translation links should also be removed from the template, but this might mean advertising the change elsewhere to obtain consensus. Those who know the limitations of machine translation do not need advice. Those who don't should not be misled into thinking it provides a reliable gist of the original content that merely needs copy-editing. It is, however, conceivable that a domain expert might find a machine translation useful as an aid to writing his/her own text, providing he/she checks the results against sources and takes responsibility for the content. In this case, acknowledgement of translation is for the purpose of acknowledging the intellectual effort of others (i.e. avoiding plagiarism).--Boson (talk) 09:34, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that the first sentence in your strikethrough, "Wikipedia consensus is that an unedited machine translation, left as a Wikipedia article, is worse than nothing", should not be deleted, since most people are not knowledgeable about the limitations of machine translation. I agree with the deletion of the other sentence, and with everything else you've said. <span style="border:2px ridge #aaf;padding:1px 8px;font:normal 10px Verdana,sans-serif;"> Rubywine . talk 10:30, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * No one should be forbidden to use machine translations, of course. My suggestion is that the results of a machine translation should not be admissible as evidence in the resolution of content disputes, and that editors should be made aware of the serious flaws of machine translations. Cs32en   Talk to me  09:47, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, Cs32en. Given your preceding comments, which did not specifically mention content disputes, I misunderstood your argument that "machine translations should never be used to support the inclusion of any content in an article". <span style="border:2px ridge #aaf;padding:1px 8px;font:normal 10px Verdana,sans-serif;"> Rubywine . talk 10:11, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Probably, my comment has not been sufficiently clear. I did assume that that all policies and guidelines implicitly refer to what can be legitimately used as an argument in deciding disputes. For example, we can't stop editors from using all kinds of unreliable sources to gather information on a topic, and then adding a reliable source for every statement before creating a new article on Wikipedia. Cs32en   Talk to me  10:59, 5 August 2011 (UTC)