Wikipedia talk:Translation/Archive 4

Copyvios
Just a brief whinge really - is it unusual to find that articles in the source language (French in my case), are stuffed with copyright violations from their own references? This must mean that any reasonably direct translation would also be a copyright violation. I can only assume that in such a case, we either abandon the translation or effectively write from scratch in English based on the original sources, which is a very different prospect to doing a translation. 4u1e (talk) 05:33, 18 July 2017 (UTC)


 * 4u1e, you don't have to abandon the translation, but you do have to abandon the kind of translation that you would be allowed to do if the original were not a copyvio itself. Sounds like you're already familiar with WP:COPYVIO, so have a look at WP:CLOP also. Even just paraphrasing isn't enough.  In a nutshell: "Summarize in your own words instead of closely paraphrasing. Closely paraphrased material that infringes on the copyright of its source material should be rewritten or deleted to avoid infringement."  One thing to keep in mind about copyvio, and it sounds like you already know this, is that observing copyright is not a "guideline" or "policy" that you could sometimes ignore, it is a requirement that is part of the Terms of Use for using Wikimedia properties, including Wikipedia.  So it's not an option.


 * This is not quite as bad as writing from scratch using the original sources, but that would be another approach, if you wanted to go that route.


 * Finally, if you find stuff that you suspect is a copyvio at fr-wiki, please don't just leave it like that, but mark it. Just place &#123;&#123;Copie à vérifier&#125;&#125; at the top of the (French) page. See also fr:Aide:Plagiat and fr:WP:PCP. Hope this helps, Mathglot (talk) 06:35, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * As I suspected...sigh. Your advice is helpful, thanks. I'll assess more fully just how bad the problem is in the article I'm looking at. TBH if I were editing, instead of translating, I'd probably excise quite large chunks of the copyvio text anyway (off topic and just too detailed), so perhaps that's a way through the problem. I'll signal the problems with the originals too. Ta. 4u1e (talk) 11:03, 18 July 2017 (UTC)

I often encounter this in Spanish, for what it's worth. That's one reason I probably wouldn't translate from French (even if I might be able to do a passable job)--my French isn't good enough for me to detect when things sound copied. In Spanish, certain text prompts alarm bells. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:53, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Just one of the perils of Wikipedia. You also have the normal problem of other websites copying Wikipedia without attribution, muddying the waters further... 4u1e (talk) 12:58, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * 4u1e, Follow-up on fr-wiki here and here, if you want to follow along. Mathglot (talk) 00:17, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Reverting Ettrig's edits
I've started reverting Ettrig's edits moving translation tags to the bottom of articles without consensus. I figured it would make sense to put a worklist here to track my progress and that of others. I initially started from the beginning but (at least for those with rollback) it probably makes sense to start at the end to get as many as possible while they still can be rolled back. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:26, 10 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Apr 18 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:26, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Apr 19 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:26, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Apr 21 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:58, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Apr 22 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:05, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Apr 23 (5 latest; 39 total) ✅ Mathglot (talk) 08:30, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Apr 24 (10 latest; 35 total) ✅ Mathglot (talk) 03:21, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Apr 25 ✅ Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 13:28, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Apr 26 (0 latest; 82 total) ✅  Mathglot (talk) 05:44, 23 July 2017 (UTC)
 * May 2 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:17, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * May 4 (0 latest; 80 total) ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:10, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
 * May 30 (0 latest; 79 total) ✅  Mathglot (talk) 03:14, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
 * May 31 (0 latest; 85 total) ✅ About 20% were already done, sprinkled throughout Mathglot (talk) 02:16, 22 July 2017 (UTC))
 * June 1 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:58, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * June 2 (0 latest; 72 total) ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:10, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
 * June 3 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:10, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * June 4 (0 latest; 56 total) ✅ Mathglot (talk) 01:53, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
 * June 5 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:45, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
 * June 6 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:07, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * June 9 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:14, 21 July 2017 (UTC)
 * June 10 (34 latest; 73 total) ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:36, 31 July 2017 (UTC)
 * June 11 (29 latest; 180 total) ✅ Mathglot (talk) 23:36, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * June 12 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:43, 24 July 2017 (UTC)
 * June 13 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:57, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * June 14 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:59, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
 * June 15 ✅ Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:27, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Reverting edits - threaded discussion
Wow, this is certainly a thankless task. I don't have that bit, how hard is this to do? My guess is it must be very burdensome. Would it make sense to enlist 5 or 10 other rollbackers to handle chunks of it?

And I did have one other thought, and maybe it's off-the-wall, but see what you think. Although Ettrig was very single-minded of purpose and did not see things the way the majority saw them on this particular question, nevertheless I think he was unfailingly polite and motivated by the good of the encyclopedia, and in this case tried to stimulate a conversation about the proper location of the template, which conversation he saw as perpetually being avoided, ignored, or left to die on the vine. Now that he has had that conversation in the form of the Rfc, my guess is that he believes that that proper procedures have been followed, even though the outcome may not have gone the way he had wished. Nevertheless, I think it may be worthwhile asking Ettrig if he would aid in the reversion effort; he used to do about 200 moves per day, which actually involved pushing text around. Just hitting the "Undo" button (as someone without rollback rights would have to do) should be much quicker than a text move, a preview, and a save, and with his great propensity for bursts of activity, I don't doubt he could do 400 or 500 reverts a day, if he wished to. Why not reach out to him, and see if he will help? Call me crazy, if you want, but I think it's worth a shot, and I think he would seriously consider it. Unless it would be too painful for him to assist, in which case I understand, and would not press him further on it. Mathglot (talk) 00:45, 12 July 2017 (UTC)  edited to add ping; by Mathglot (talk) 00:47, 12 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Also, if you want to share the burden, I can volunteer for taking on 100 of them or so, and maybe if you get other volunteers, it will go faster. Just assign me a batch and coordinate, and I'll do them. Mathglot (talk) 00:51, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * If you want to claim a day to work on, just put Working by the date and proceed! I just left a message for Ettrig on his talk page -- I guess we'll see what comes of it. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:48, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I just gave you rollback rights in case that's helpful with this. And in my view this fits under the rollback criterion "To revert widespread edits (by a misguided editor or malfunctioning bot) which are judged to be unhelpful to the encyclopedia, provided that you supply an explanation in an appropriate location, such as at the relevant talk page" given that there is discussion at Ettrig's talk page that links to the ANI and RFC, which explain the need for reversion and note the cleanup effort. Calliopejen1 (talk) 23:55, 18 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, when you or others are cleaning up, don't use rollback unless the edit is close to 0 in terms of text difference (sometimes its +/- 1, 2, or 3 from spacing changes). Ettrig sometimes made helpful edits simultaneously with moving templates, and I'd rather not undo those edits. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:00, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Understood. I may do a few tentative ones to see how it goes at first, and perhaps add a comment on your TP if I have any questions or issues. Mathglot (talk) 03:25, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Did one date. What scutwork; sheesh! You need to find 25 more helpers! I'll do another date, and see how much more I can stand. Mathglot (talk) 10:47, 19 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, so turns out I only did the first 50 of that date (6/11) due to that being the default when you first pull up the history; so 130 more to go. (I had already linked 6/10 by the time I realized it, so setting 6/10 back to 'available' but leaving the link I placed there.) Mathglot (talk) 20:05, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Here's the answer to your previous question: Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:06, 21 July 2017 (UTC)

Editor making extremely poor machine translations from other languages without attribution
See my comments at User talk:بلهواري محمد فيصل. They've created quite a few new articles and most have a lot of garbled English. If they do speak and write English it isn't apparent except perhaps in Infoboxes, and I'm not sure they are capable of fixing the problems. Doug Weller talk 15:36, 15 October 2017 (UTC)


 * And also on on ar, fr, ( and other wikis ); and they have uploaded some files to commons without observing sourcing requirements. Based on their choice of content, it seems likely that they're Algerian, and if so, French-speaking (although they have not responded on their French talk page to actions by French users Nonopoly or ALDO_CP).  I've appended a brief note in French to بلهواري محمد فيصل (Houari Mohammed Faisal's) talk page just below your note to invite them to respond. Mathglot (talk) 19:39, 15 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's no surprise. Given that, I think if they don't respond and keep editing I'll have to block them until they do. Doug Weller  talk 19:58, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Overhauling the lang-xx templates for more selective italics behavior
Please see: Template talk:Lang

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  07:17, 30 October 2017 (UTC)

Translating incomplete wikipedia in other languages
Hi i'm using wikipedia in central kurish and there's too many parts of the website are still not translated to the language how can i help to fix that i know the langauge and i can translate, i mean the website parts not the pages Muhammed kamaran (talk) 19:25, 9 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Do you mean that, on Central Kurdish Wikipedia, there are "project pages" (like, on this Wikipedia, Notability, User pages, etc.) that are still in English, or that haven't been created yet, instead of having been translated to Central Kurdish? If that's what you're asking about, we do have some information about translating from here at Translate us, but you should also ask questions about working on that Wikipedia at that Wikipedia. I see that Central Kurdish Wikipedia's equivalent to our Help is ckb:یارمەتی:ناوەرۆک. That might be a good place to ask about getting involved. I'd refer you to an equivalent to this page, but there isn't one listed among the interlanguage links. Largoplazo (talk) 21:05, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
 * It sounds like you're referring to the interface messages. When I just went to the Central Kurdish Wikipedia Main Page, I noticed that the "Alerts" and "Notices" links are still in English, for example. To fix this, you need to go to translatewiki. Hope this helps. Graham 87 04:07, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Please remove the suggestion to use machine translations from the template!
The Expand template says "Google's machine translation is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia." This directly contradicts this article itself, which has a section on avoiding machine translations.

The amount of work it takes to fix a machine translation is often more than it takes to do a proper translation in the first place. Please don't encourage people to do what is considered extremely bad practice.

2A02:8388:8500:E200:1070:F4AE:C3F4:FC06 (talk) 15:40, 15 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's an inconsistency. The text you quoted says not to copy-paste a machine translation into an article and that, should the person producing a translation want to start with one, it's that person's responsibility to fix it up into a proper translation before publishing it. As long as the result is good, it's none of our business how the editor got there. Largoplazo (talk) 15:46, 15 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) 01:56, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Another editor making very poor machine translations
See my comments at User talk:Master Studio and Barozzi family. Thanks. Doug Weller talk 17:26, 6 January 2018 (UTC)


 * had these translations but appears to have stopped now. Mathglot (talk) 11:26, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Related deletion nomination
I've just nominated a newly created page, Translation/Discussion, for deletion; the nomination is at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Translation/Discussion. Graham 87 16:16, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Images with text
Where do I go for help with translating text in an scanned image? Thanks. SharkD  &#9742;  23:02, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Our recommendation for getting other-wiki articles into English
Just throwing this up for comment: We current state:
 * If the English article does not yet exist:
 * you can:
 * create the article on English Wikipedia using the process described at Your first article;
 * once you have created the article, tag it with a translation template, as mentioned above.
 * or
 * add a page request red link in the Requested articles Project section with the proposed title of the article which will contain the translation adding an interwiki link to the foreign-language Wikipedia page(s). Note that fewer people will likely see a request created using this method.

Our recommendation, then, is to make the (relatively small, I admit) effort to create an article here in another language that is a copy of an article on another language's Wikipedia, wait two weeks while it probably doesn't get translated, and then see it submitted for deletion. Another week after that, it's gone. At least with the second alternative, the request to have the page translated, while possibly little seen, will persist indefinitely; and it allows for the further possibility that the article may be created by someone who knows the subject matter, can supply sources in English (which, while not required, certainly makes life easier for English Wikipedians who'd like to read the sources), and doesn't even need to resort to translation. Largoplazo (talk) 23:57, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I just took another look at the language and realized it was unclear and that I'd probably misinterpreted the intent. This time, I'm understanding that the point was to create at least a starter article (a summary or WP:STUB) in English, so that the "translation template, as mentioned above", would be relevant. In the absence of input here, I've WP:BOLDly revised the language to express more clearly (I believe!) this interpretation, with which I agree.


 * If the English article does not yet exist:
 * you can:
 * create a starter article (at least a stub) in English, using the process described at Your first article;
 * once you have created the article, tag it with a translation template, as mentioned above.
 * or
 * add a page request red link in the Requested articles Project section with the proposed title of the article which will contain the translation adding an interwiki link to the foreign-language Wikipedia page(s). Note that fewer people will likely see a request created using this method.

Largoplazo (talk) 16:36, 27 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)

Publishing to my own sandbox was blocked
I was translating something from English to Dutch. I got warnings that my text was not altered after machine translation. That figures and I tótally agree with that. But then I wanted to publish it to my own Dutch user page as a 'sandbox', and then thát was blocked. This is frustrating because in the translation page I cannot see the source code, and I wanted to see that. (Especially how it translated refs et cetera.) After changing some text I could publish it to my own space. But I would like either be able to see the source code in the translation page, or always be able to publish it always to my own user page. But for the rest this is a lot better than using a dictionary like we did 20 years ago. AntonHogervorst (talk) 09:33, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Since your message does not directly concern a translation *to* the English Wikipedia, it is more suitable for the Dutch Wikipedia or the talk page about content translation on the MediaWiki wiki. Graham 87 14:11, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Did you resolve this, it looks like you were able to create w:nl:Gebruiker:AntonHogervorst/Vrouwenrechten_in_Saoedi_Arabië? — xaosflux  Talk 15:07, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes. In the end I did get it published to my own user space, and I am continuing from that. And of course I will only publish it when it is properly translated. I just wonder what the exact restriction are. But I am working on it, and is it quite a laborious task! A very big lemma, hard work, but I promise to finish it. AntonHogervorst (talk) 20:34, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I did not see any filter blocks on nlwiki for you recently, did you get an error message? — xaosflux  Talk 21:00, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
 * The extension's own restrictions appear to be evolving constantly, see T221359. Nemo 21:51, 20 April 2019 (UTC)
 * No. Uhm may I have not expressed myself in English correctly. I mean publishing to my own user space was flagged down until in the first dozen paragraphs I made a little change. I was not blocked 'as a user'. I know this is a new tool that is evolving. It is a very good tool. Thumbs up! The above is my 'two cents' how it still could be improved. AntonHogervorst (talk) 05:35, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Self-translation
Hiya! Does anybody know the protocol for attributing (if necessary) the translation of a small portion of foreign text? Specifically, if I quote a sentence of French, and then translate it, how (if?) do I say "my trans." or the like? Many thanks in advance! Cheers, ——  SerialNumber  54129  15:55, 12 October 2019 (UTC)
 * You shouldn't attribute the translation to yourself, any more than you would sign any other content you had written. The attribution is via the edit history of the article. Of course, if the translation is by another, you should attribute it to them, ideally with a reference. 178.164.248.238 (talk) 16:23, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Romanian Wikipedia Translation article
Is the English language Wikipedia article below present on the Romanian language wikipedia?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Translation#Requesting_a_translation_from_a_foreign_language_to_English

Do the guidelines on the translation page in the link above also work for the Romanian language Wikipedia? Xyxyzyz (talk) 11:31, 24 February 2020 (UTC)


 * Since your question would have to be answered by someone familiar with the contents and prevailing guidelines at Romanian Wikipedia, you're better off asking it in a help forum there where there are many such people rather than on this talk page where there may be none. I think it's unlikely that the guidelines at Romanian Wikipedia say "Follow the guidelines at English Wikipedia", so the only way our guidelines would "work" there is if someone there is actively keeping their guidelines on translation aligned with ours. Largoplazo (talk) 12:21, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Call to action!
pls see WikiProject COVID-19/Translation Task Force.-- Moxy 🍁 15:21, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 April 2020
Mro(Mru) people (talk) 11:58, 28 April 2020 (UTC) <--Hi, I request to your wikipedia community translate to english language my article-->
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Translation. Please make your request at the talk page for the article concerned. creffett (talk) 12:35, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Well&mdash;this Wikipedia page, the page of which this is the Talk page, gives the procedure for seeking a translation to English of an article in another language on another Wikipedia. And you'll find that leaving a semi-protected edit request here isn't given as the way to do that. Largoplazo (talk) 13:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Articles which could be expanded using non-English sources
Is there any place where an article which can be expanded using non-English sources (but not a foreign-language Wikipedia) ought to be mentioned? I have found a source for Villanubla but it is in Spanish and my abilities are relatively limited. Thanks, RandomCanadian (talk | contribs) 01:12, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
 * , yes. There's no specific policy or guideline about it, but there are a few possiblities.
 * The easiest way, and a good place to start even if other methods work, is to create a citation like cite web, cite book, etc., and add it to the Further reading section in the article. If it doesn't have such a section, add one, following MOS:ORDER for proper placement.
 * Another possibility, is if the source you have is brief, or if you can use chapter headings, book index, web page section titles, and so on to target the relevant section, even in a language you don't understand well, you can then just pass a limited amount of text through machine translation, to see if there is relevant material there. If so, you can cite the Spanish source yourself. If the source is in Spanish but you suspect sources just as good in English exist, you can still make your addition with the Spanish &lt;ref>, and then tag it Better source.
 * You can ask bilinguals for help in various places, either to add the material, or just point you to the right place, so you can apply one of the other methods. Bearing in mind that this is an all-volunteer project, you're going to get better response for the second request, than for the first. As an example, I might help you by indicating where to look. Some places to try, are the WikiProject for the language or country, e.g., WP:Spain; the WP:Village pump, users belonging to proofreader or translator categories such as Category:User es-3, es-4, or the Talk page at WT:PNT.
 * This should get you started; hope this helps. Mathglot (talk) 21:58, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Machine translation "worse than nothing"
This essay says that Wikipedia consensus is that an unedited machine translation, left as a Wikipedia article, is worse than nothing. (This is partly because translation templates automatically carry links to machine translations, so readers can easily access machine translations anyway‍—‌pasting a machine translation into an "article" really achieves nothing).

What translation templates is this talking about? I assumed expand language, but that doesn't include any links to machine translations.

And is this only referring to articles which consist entirely of machine translated text? Can it be useful to include autotranslated sections where the rest of the article is solid? This came up today because somebody was adding Google translated plot summaries to films which lacked them, all flagged as rough translations, and being reverted because this was "worse than nothing". --Lord Belbury (talk) 16:15, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Depending on what the user inputs into Expand language, there can be a link to a machine translation. I don't see why it would be any different if the rough translation is in whole or in part. Users can already machine translate other languages easily (several browsers have this capability, or they can go to Google translate), and machine translation can introduce inaccuracies into Wikipedia that aren't easily solved by slapping a "rough translation" template on it. That template often prompts gnome editors to fix grammar issues, but not necessarily someone with dual language competency to check the accuracy of the translation against the original. I agree with the reversions. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:14, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Documentation for the expand language template says to use a named language version like expand german, with no mention of inputs given for a machine translation.
 * The step I don't follow in the essay here is if that flagged, machine-translated content is deleted for being "worse than nothing", how does the reader know to make their own machine translation from a particular foreign-language Wikipedia project, with no obvious prompt that the foreign text exists? For The Brave One (1956 film), if the rough translation plot section were blanked, I would not think to check the German Wikipedia for a plot summary of this American film.
 * In the situation of film plots, is the best case (short of writing a full plot summary) to add a expand language to the top of the section and write the barest one-sentence plot summary as a placeholder? --Lord Belbury (talk) 17:33, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the machine translation links have been deleted from the template, now that I'm looking more. Machine translations links used to be generated if the foreign-language article title is specified, but I'm not seeing this now.
 * The problem with pasting machine translated content is that it results in the contribution of mistranslation errors to English Wikipedia. I think the assumption is that readers who see a plot summary will look elsewhere for the plot summary and will be able to find it elsewhere. I'm not sure how many users are aware that Wikipedia is written in multiple languages, but perhaps many of those interested in obscure foreign-language films are aware that Wikipedia exists in the language of the films they are interested in. For example, if I'm looking at a Spanish/Latin American subject in en.wiki, and our article is incomplete, I'll have a look at the Spanish article. I speak Spanish, but this also for languages I don't speak as well. (If we have a terrible article on a German subject, I check the German article, etc.) Machine translation has significantly improved over time, but it is still not great, and the issue is importing errors where the grammar gets smoothed over by gnomes but factual inaccuracies remain. BTW this is an issue that has been hashed out extensively and the reason that machine translation in the content translation tool is disabled for articles getting translated into English. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:03, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 * BTW I was wrong, the machine translation links still exist, but only if you specify an article title. (I just posted at Requested templates because there is a solution, already used elsewhere in the template, that would allow the links to be generated even where the article title is not specified. Hopefully they can help improve the template!) Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:41, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 * And that using the expand language banner seems like a reasonable solution. FYI, they have never spurred translations in any great number (which is a shame, and a disappointment for me, the original creator of the template). But the banner can alert readers to the existence of another source for the information they're looking for. BTW the banner has a section parameter which would be useful for the purposes you describe. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:06, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, one more thought: The situation you describe, where an obscure Spanish-language article has a well-developed article in German, is a quite rare case on Wikipedia. I agree that users might not know to look there, but I don't think we should design our policies around a very rare case... Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:07, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

, Regarding these points:

I agree. I've been involved with translations for years, and the longer I am, the more I think rough translations should be removed, not improved, for exactly the reason you specify. That grammar-gnoming cover-up situation bothered me enough, that I created template Hidden translation just for that case. I consider it more helpful now than Rough translation is, because anyone can see the problem in the latter case, banner or no, but not in the former case. The problem with the "Hidden" template, is that you have to be competent as a translator before you can even place it, and it's a non-obvious case to identify in the first place even if you are, unless something factual in the article seems sufficiently off, and leads you to do a deep-dive. Still, it's available for use, and when correctly placed, is very valuable, imho. Mathglot (talk) 01:08, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Citations problems
Hi, I've tried two translations and both have completely messed up the citations one was Spanish to English and the other English to french. I am guessing this must be a common problem. Is there an easy fix that I am unaware of? All the in-line citations seem to get lost and I've manually put them back in + the formatting for the citations is wrong. (Also on a side note, the translator into english doesn't seem to work for me. I believe with over 500 edits and an account that has been open for a few years I should be an extended confirmed editors, do I need to do something?)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thebaconfairy (talk • contribs) 09:11, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
 * What translators are you talking about? Have you read WP:MACHINETRANSLATION? Largoplazo (talk) 11:48, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
 * It's the machine translation through wikipedia. Nothing on the WP:MACHINETRANSLATION page is remotely helpful with this issue, but I am thinking it must be a common problem? I know how to fix it after the fact, but it seems that within the translator app it should work better. Maybe it mostly does produce usable citations and I have been unlucky? BF (talk) 13:56, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Machine translation into English is disabled because of consensus to do so among en.wiki editors. I've had mixed experience with the citations. I assume it depends on the citations templates being used in the foreign-language Wikipedia and whether there is an easy equivalent here. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:29, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I directed you to WP:MACHINETRANSLATION for the purpose of suggesting that you shouldn't be using machine translations at all. If you followed my advice to avoid machine translation, that would naturally resolve the problem of the still-not-identified translation application not handling citations as you were expecting. Largoplazo (talk) 18:33, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The translation tool can be useful for generating citations for manually generated translations. It basically automatically converts citation template fields to their equivalent in your language, so you don't have to do fecha= --> date=, etc. It leaves titles etc. in their original language. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:16, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Adding summary
Hi. Is there any option of adding summary for your edits while using wiki translation tool? The way we add summary into usual editin?Baltistani (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:45, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Deprecate or redo "Avoid machine translations"
Today's machine translations by Deepl's and Google's are good quality-wise for many languages, mainly for English. If one's to limit the usage of machine translators, it should be by any copyright limiting factor. talk &#64; TRANSviada 16:36, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I disagree, most machine translations I see are still poor, without major copywriting afterwards they should not just be used for articles-- Jac 16888 Talk 16:45, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Which ones are you talking about? The ones I talked, Deepl's and Google's, are good for English. talk &#64; TRANSviada  17:18, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't know Deepl, but Google's translations are not reliably good, or even intelligible. Even in the past month I've come across one or two here that were so useless that they were reverted. Largoplazo (talk) 17:21, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes this exactly. Machine translation is not terrible for some of the Latin based languages, but still not good enough to use without further work. For other languages, such as Middle-Eastern or African languages, machine translation is usually terrible-- Jac 16888 Talk 17:28, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That "almost always produces very low-quality results" is very citation needed and a false claim. For Eglish<->Portuguese by Google it's very good, with just some minor problems when translating to Portuguese. I've also found Deepl's very good for English with Japanese and Chinese. Also Wikipedia already has translation tools which uses Google by default to easy all the boring work. So that title and sentence is just trying to negate the reality. talk &#64; TRANSviada  18:27, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest all of the below by Largo is easily sufficient to prove that claim-- Jac 16888 Talk 18:33, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That do not prove the claim, but only seems to actually prove my point that it's a false claim because that are details. I'm talking about the 70–90% of the results, not the 10%. See my answer below. talk &#64; TRANSviada  21:17, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Here's how I reason this through: Editors are responsible for leaving articles in a state that isn't worse than it was in before. Therefore, if an editor decides to replace text in another language with a translation, the translation ought to be at least equally legible and grammatical to a person with the ability to read both languages. If an editor who can read the original article and knows what it says thinks it would be efficient to start with a machine translation, fine, but it's their responsibility to edit that as necessary so that (a) the quality and intelligibility of the writing are not substantially worse than they were before translation and (b) the same information is conveyed (other than intentional alterations as editors routinely make when they edit articles already in English). Otherwise they're just throwing words on a page that they can't even vouch for, like somebody copying and pasting from another Wiki without having any understanding of what the material conveys. It's Not Helpful and Possibly Harmful. Largoplazo (talk) 17:32, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That's great detailed analysis with all that below. I'm mainly talking about the most used languages in the world though, which also are better supported by machine translators. Also, I'm talking about the 70–90% of the results which from my experience are good, not the 10% bad results—details that can easily be fixed by human editors while the all the good result are kept to easy all the boring work. Right now I'm translating Gay panic defense to Portuguese using Wikipedia's content translation with Google Translate, and only some 10% of the automatic translation I needed to modify. So my point is that the title and that "almost always produces very low-quality results" is false, a negation to reality, editor-unfriendly, and just making translators suffer thinking they need to avoid machine translators. talk &#64; TRANSviada  21:09, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter that they can be fixed if the person who used the assistance of a machine translator left the translation as is and nobody else knows that the translation not only needs fixing but says things that aren't true or omits key points. It is the responsibility of the person using a machine translator as a tool to use it only as that and not to leave a "translation" that they can't vouch for. For example, you have no business leaving content that says the Pitcairn Islands were visited by a whale named James Arnold if that isn't what the original said, no matter how easy the machine translator makes your life. Largoplazo (talk) 21:34, 1 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Mate, I see you're pointing out machine translations aren't perfect (90% acceptable in my experience) and as so should be revised by humans on Wikipedia. Sure thing, but my point is that title and second sentence is false and misleading because 70–90% of the results by Google and Deepl is good when translating top 10 most used languages worldwide in relation to English, and as so that should be cleared and rewritten to something like "revise machine translations because sometimes it has bad results". And list the best languages translating from/to English by service, like English<->Portuguese was found 90% are good results by Google Translate, 10% bad. What do you think?  talk &#64; TRANSviada  01:16, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If 70%-90% of your bones are intact, how well are you doing? Largoplazo (talk) 01:30, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Since you asked, in a accident I got a lot of broken bones (not sure about the quantity tho), but people could still very well recognize me and what I said in the hospital. That just got better after professional treatment. So what do you think? talk &#64; TRANSviada  02:03, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * If your only concern is whether the text is recognizable as English and not whether it omits key information and contains inaccuracies or even falsehoods, then at this point I don't think I'm going to be able to convince you otherwise. In fact, I'll put it more strongly: If somebody edits a page already in English to remove key facts and replace others with inaccuracies and misstatements, that may be considered vandalism and the edits will be reverted. If your attitude is "who cares if 10%30% of what I've pasted from a machine translator is wrong?", I don't see that it's any different. That isn't a good-faith attitude for a Wikipedia editor. Largoplazo (talk) 03:47, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That's neither what I proposed to change nor my arguments. I agree it's important to fix the 10–30% of issues, but, as my actual arguments above, most of the results are good in my experience which should be reason to instead encourage machine translator usage with humans reviewing. This is what actually happens by default for example by using Wikipedia content translation tool. So the problem is mostly with that title and that sentence. So that's why I initially proposed either to deprecate OR redo.-- talk &#64; TRANSviada  16:53, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The crux of the section you're seeking to revise is "Wikipedia consensus is that an unedited machine translation, left as a Wikipedia article, is worse than nothing." You began this discussion about revising what the section says. Now it appears you don't disagree with what it says, that you do agree that an editor making use of a machine translation is responsible for fixing it rather than leaving it, with its flaws, in the article. Everything the section says about machine translation leading up the its bottom line is true, as I've elaborated on here, with specific examples. So now I don't know what it is you feel should be changed or what we're debating. Largoplazo (talk) 18:05, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I didn't point that sentence in specific (it's in discussion another section above), but in specific the title and the second sentence. I've also gave examples how the section should be enhanced (quantitatively informing the best and worse languages translations to/from English by service). Anyway, that "worse than nothing" mentality in the section should be shifted to instead encourage the usage of machine translators with 70–90% good results with, of course, humans reviewing it, as it's already covered on the section and with content translation tool section. I just didn't come with specifics in the first place so my point was clear because I know how Wikipedia is slow and bureaucratic.-- talk &#64; TRANSviada  22:06, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That one sentence is the sum and substance of the section. It is a true statement that a machine translation, as is, is too likely to be worse than nothing,, especially if posted by someone who doesn't have any idea how good or bad it is, and therefore that sentence expresses correctly that nobody should blindly post a machine translation.
 * If somebody is competent to produce a proper translation, via whatever means they find suitable for that purpose, they don't need us to point out that machine translations are a way to get it started and there's no reason for us to encourage it. That's like writing a guideline telling authors of new articles that "Hey, did you know there are speech-to-text apps you can use so you can speak an article instead of typing it?" and even encouraging them to use it. People competent to write don't need us to tell them how they either can or should do it. The same goes for people competent to translate. If they aren't competent to translate, we don't want them pretending to. Largoplazo (talk) 22:37, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That title deny the reality, and the second sentence is false. That "worse than nothing" is bad culture and technology-wise (both for human development). People doing Wikipedia are volunteers in the first place (not all of course), and that attitude is just more of a way of Wikipedia to scare away new contributors. This is my last reply, maybe things will change 10+ years from now. talk &#64; TRANSviada  01:58, 3 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't believe newcomers arrive and then get scared away because something mean is said about machine translations on a page most of them never see. Largoplazo (talk) 02:15, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Sample translation exercises

 * "The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.” Mark Twain

Uyghur

 * An example: I used Google to translate this from Pitcairn Islands into Uyghur and back.
 * "The Pitcairn islanders reported it was not until 27 December 1795 that the first ship since the Bounty was seen from the island, but it did not approach the land and they could not make out the nationality. A second ship appeared in 1801, but made no attempt to communicate with them. A third came sufficiently near to see their house, but did not try to send a boat on shore. Finally, the American sealing ship Topaz, under Mayhew Folger, became the first to visit the island, when the crew spent 10 hours on Pitcairn in February 1808. Whalers subsequently became regular visitors to the island. The last recorded whaler to visit was the James Arnold in 1888."
 * Interesting transformations:
 * "the first ship since the Bounty" → "the first ship since Bonti"
 * "they could not make out the nationality" → "they could not be deported"
 * "did not try to send" → "did not want to send"
 * "Whalers subsequently became regular visitors to" → "Wholesalers visited"
 * "The last recorded whaler to visit was the James Arnold" → "The last whale to visit was James Arnold"
 * Largoplazo (talk) 17:53, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Yoruba

 * The same exercise with Yoruba:
 * "the first ship since the Bounty" → "the first ship since the Shadow"
 * "the American sealing ship Topaz" → "the American Topaz submarine"
 * Largoplazo (talk) 17:59, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Telugu

 * An excerpt from the result with Telugu (like the Uyghur version, featuring a whale named James Arnold):
 * "... it did not reach land and they were unable to make nationalization. ... Finally, in February 1808, when crew spent 10 hours in Pitcairn, Topaz, an American sealing ship under Mayu Folger, became the first person to visit the island. The last whale to visit was James Arnold in 1888."
 * I marvel at how good translation engines can be, but when they stumble, they can really stumble. Largoplazo (talk) 17:59, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Portuguese

 * Since brought up Portuguese:
 * "their house" → "his home" (because sua casa can be his or her or their house; casa → "home" instead of "house" is unexpected!)
 * "sealing ship" → "hunter ship"
 * "the last recorded whaler" → "the last registered whaler", where "recorded" means "according to records", while "registered" implies a contrast to, say, a pirate ship that isn't registered, which is definitely not what the original intended to convey
 * "was the James Arnold" → "was James Arnold" (because in Portuguese the definite article is commonly used with people's names when referring to them, and the translator took no hint from the context that o James Arnold was a reference to a ship and not a person)
 * Largoplazo (talk) 19:22, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Move to the Help workspace
I am going to be bold and move this page into the Help workspace, as this is a help article rather than guidence (a Redirect from Help:Translation to this page already exists so I am reversing it). The editing guidence in here is covered in the Wikipedia editing guideline Copying within Wikipedia. Having this page include a section "How to translate" is a potential source of confusion, because it may not be kept in syncronisation with the guidence in Copying within Wikipedia. Moving the page it into help will make the distinction clear. -- PBS (talk) 15:28, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I have decided not to move it immediately because of the number of subpages. I suspect it would be better to move most of the text over to the help workspace and leave a stub here to provice a main page for the sub-pages. Does anyone else have thoughts on this? -- PBS (talk) 15:38, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

What I have done is split the page into two. I have left most of the text here but have moved the "How to translate" section and the citations section into Help:Translation (Revision as of 20:44, 15 February 2021 of Translation, Revision as of 20:42, 15 February 2021 of Help:Translation). -- PBS (talk) 21:08, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

Translation is ready
Hi I translated a German Wikipedia article from another biologist into English. I have communicated with him, he is happy about it. Now I would like to put it in the English Wikipedia. I checked all the links to the English articles and made sure they work. The article is ready to be posted here. But the version history should go with it. What should I do next? Sciencia58 (talk) 17:59, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Hello. In a nutshell, the steps are:
 * Create the article (see Help:New article), crediting the German source as described at Help:Translation.
 * It's helpful to place a Translated page template on the article's talk page, also as described at Help:Translation.
 * See Help:Interlanguage links for instructions on adding a link to the German article to the sidebar. If you do that, that will simultaneously link the German article to the English article.


 * If you didn't develop the English version of the article through a series of edits on English Wikipedia, what do you mean by "the version history"? If you mean, how do you link the new English article back to the version history of the German article, that's taken care of by the step mentioned above for crediting the German article. Largoplazo (talk) 18:39, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

While I was translating, I previewed the translation step by step in the English Wikipedia on the page for the new article and, if necessary, selected the terms so that the links to the English articles would work. Also all sources, references, appear in the correct form. I am afraid that I am not doing the procedure right. Can you do it for me? This is the German article. The name of the author should be in the view history at the beginning, it is his work, not mine.

I don't know were to post the translation without committing a copyright violation. Sciencia58 (talk) 19:18, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I have the english version on my computer in a Word doc. The images are okay as well in the english version. Sciencia58 (talk) 19:47, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I asked Klaus Frisch to do it himself, but he doesn't want to, I assume he feels unsure because of the language.

Can I put the english version here? So you can handle it from there? Sciencia58 (talk) 19:59, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * if you translated an article from another WMF wiki (especially from German/dewiki) we can import the history of it for you here. Just drop us a note at WP:RFPI! Happy editing, —  xaosflux  Talk 20:29, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Proposal to move the Expand language template to Talk pages
A discussion about moving the Expand language template (and its associated templates, Expand French, Expand Spanish, and so on) from article pages to Talk pages is taking place at Templates for discussion/Log/2021 April 16. Your feedback would be appreciated. Mathglot (talk) 20:17, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Administrators' noticeboard
There is an ongoing discussion at WP:AN that editors who follow this page may be interested in. Please have a look and add your views. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:41, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Translation of text in images to English
I could not find a guideline of what to do in order to translate foreign text to English in an image from Commons being used in the English Wikipedia. I listed such an image at WP:PNT, and it was removed with the reason of "not in scope". See Wikipedia talk:PNT.

I looked at the archives and found multiple image queries unanswered in terms of guideline:
 * Wikipedia talk:Pages needing translation into English/Archive 2
 * Wikipedia talk:Translation/Archive 3 (The Resolved note indicates that the oddly named commons:Template:Requested translations page on Commons is one place where this can be done.)
 * Wikipedia talk:Translation/Archive 4

Can we have a one-liner on what is expected? Jay (talk) 19:23, 22 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Created an Images section with the direction from Talk:OLAP cube.  Jay (Talk) 06:54, 24 September 2021 (UTC)

Interlang policy shortcuts table grid
In doing translations, I sometimes want to check Wikipedia policies and guidelines in other language Wikipedias, but I can never remember the shortcuts, and it's such a pain to go find them. I finally got tired of it, and wrote myself a table of them, to make it easy:

It's not releasable because it's tailored to my own needs, so it's still in my sandbox user space, and there's no doc page, and but maybe others might find it useful. The rows are the stuff I tend to want to look up, without making the table too long. It currently has six static columns for the languages I'm most interested in (en de fr es ru it) and seven additional language columns you can pull in with parameters (pt nl ca pl sv zh ja). The example above shows the basic six, + ca/nl/pt added via parameters. If there's interest, I could add simple doc, and maybe finish the parametrization to make all the columns fully dynamic. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 21:59, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Please see WP:ANI
Turns out this is a University sponsored event asking editors to translate articles from other Wikis, part of a course and with a cash prize. It seems to be a number of editors doing this and it's also been raised at Education noticeboard/Archive 21. As they aren't attributed it's a copyright problem. Doug Weller talk 11:22, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Women in Red translation contest: April to June 2022
At the beginning of April, WikiProject Women in Red is launching a three-month translation contest focused on increasing our coverage of women's biographies.--Ipigott (talk) 09:51, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Expand Bashkir
Template:Expand Bashkir has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the entry on the Templates for discussion page. -- 65.92.246.142 (talk) 02:42, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Translation of articles written in foreign language
Just stumbled over this one: Villa Fundación, an article in EN Wikipedia written (years ago) completely in Spanish. Where can I turn to to find someone who would translate that into English? And is there something like a tag "wrong language" to mark such articles? I suppose this is not the only case where an article in EN WP is not written in English. --Proofreader (talk) 18:07, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, just found the respective template: . --Proofreader (talk) 18:10, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * if you look at the article history, it was previously an English-language stub. Since this cites a source, and the new Spanish version cites none, I've reverted it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:16, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * to answer your original question, there are Categories where you can search for someone who can help. You can start at Category:Translators es-en (around 480 members), and then try Category:User es-3 (2,600), Category:User es-4 (926), Category:User es-5 (365), or Category:User es-N (3,965). The problem with the categories, is you can't easily determine who was active this week, and who hasn't edited since 2011, so you have to check, one by one, which can be time-consuming, but if you persist, you will find them. (Count on 10% or less still active.)
 * Or, use the PetScan tool to limit results to active users; for example: users in Category:Translators es-en whose User or Talk page has been edited since 7 April shows these five results. Or, list users who rate themselves es-3, es-4, es-5, or es-N and have edited since 14 April, to show these 39 users. Hope this helps. Mathglot (talk) 05:57, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Announcing template Wiktionarylang
New Template:Wiktionarylang may be used to add a small box flush right with a link to a term in a foreign language wiktionary. If you're familiar with Wikisourcelang, the new template uses the same four positional parameters, and adds one more to allow you to specify 'section' (as above), 'paragraph', and so on instead of 'article'. Mathglot (talk) 02:29, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Empty translation categories
Hello, anyone who has this page watchlisted,

There is a list of empty categories that gets produced nightly and this week, we are seeing a deluge of empty categories involving translation. See Category:Proofreaders Needed, Category:Completed Translation, Category:Translation In Progress, and Category:Translation Request. Typically when an entire group of categories is suddenly empty, it's because a template that kept them filled has been deleted but I haven't tried to track down what template that might be.

The reason I'm posting here is that ordinarily, all of these dozens of empty categories would be tagged for speedy deletion, CSD C1 and sit for a week before they are eventually deleted. They sit for 7 days because often categories are only temporarily empty or they have been emptied "out of process" and that change needs to be reverted. But many of these categories are marked as "historical" so I don't know whether or not you all want them preserved. If you do, please add an tag to the page and these categories will stop showing up as empty and ready to be tagged for deletion.

Some of these categories have already been tagged for CSD C1 deletion over the past 48 hours but many of these empty categories are still empty and untagged. I hope that some editors will come across this talk page comment and have some inkling of what is going on, why these categories are suddenly empty and if it's okay to delete them. Thank you. Liz Read! Talk! 00:08, 4 August 2022 (UTC)
 * it seems these are all well populated now. Did you ever figure out what caused the emptying, or conversely, why they're back now? Mathglot (talk) 18:05, 28 August 2022 (UTC)