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Creation of this Help page
This page was redirect I have created this page by splitting text out of the Wikipedia:Translation page. I did this because some users were confused by the "how to" advise in "Wikipedia" namespace and thought it was a guideline. As the page had diverged from the guidence in WP:TFOLWP this was confusing. Fixing the divergence and moving the "how to" into the "Help" namespace ought to end this confusion.
This article discusses translating an entire article, but it does not address the question of translating a single phrase within an English article. For example, a recent edit to Geometry changed Theorema Egregium (remarkable theorem) to Theorema Egregium ("remarkable theorem"). I have no idea which, if either, is correct, or whether there is a template that generates the approved rendering. Also, if there is an article that discusses this then there should be a hatnote template linking to it, e.g., {{about}}. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:58, 13 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Avoid machine translation
Considerable advances in machine translation have been made since the section "Avoid machine translation" was drafted. While careful checking and copy editing of the output is still essential, results often provide a good basis for a new article in English. Knowledge of the source language is of course a major advantage. (cc: TSventon, Rosiestep, SusunW, Dr. Blofeld) --Ipigott (talk) 10:18, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, there should no longer be a major concern on some of the biggest western languages. I don't have experience with Chinese and Japanese so can't say for those, but I would guess very good now too. I wish more people would make an effort to learn languages themselves but not speaking the language absolutely shouldn't be a deterrent for translating. DeepL is of an extremely high standard in particular. ♦ Dr. Blofeld12:25, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Machine translation from Chinese is often still a complete joke full of embarrassing errors, or missing context and abbreviations (recently I read an article about Taipei where Taipei was abbreviated 北市. Google not-so-helpfully translated this as "Beijing"). "Don't use machine translations unless you know exactly what you are doing" is still a good message. —Kusma (talk) 12:34, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
One problem with machine translation is that it is too easy. If somebody uses DeepL or Google or whatever to translate a foreign language Wikipedia article without checking a single source, the output mimics a decent Wikipedia article but there has been zero source verification. I fear that we won't be able to control the unverified translators if we allow them to copypaste foreign Wikipedias at a large scale. Cleanup of such articles is often more work than writing them from scratch, and a lot less fun. Direct translate copies from foreign Wikipedias are also inferior to using browser translation on an interwiki link (where both the translation and the linked article are likely to improve over time; copying today's version is less likely to result in future improvement). —Kusma (talk) 12:39, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yes, you should never translate content from another Wikipedia without checking a source and avoid translating unsourced stuff. But we're talking about quality of translations. ♦ Dr. Blofeld15:25, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We can change Machine translation almost always produces very low-quality results to Machine translation often produces low-quality results if you like, but I oppose a removal of an unedited machine translation, left as a Wikipedia article, is worse than nothing. We need to make it crystal clear that cut & paste machine translating from other Wikipedias is not wanted.
What is great is that machine translation allows people to access more sources, if done with skill (SusunW is a shining example here, especially because she is aware of her limitations and networks with native speakers when necessary). We should promote the use of MT for this, but I do not think we gain by allowing unlimited trans-copypasta. —Kusma (talk) 15:38, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Machine translation almost always produces very low-quality results" is highly inaccurate. "Machine translation may vary considerably in quality of translation from language to language, and caution must be exercised" would be more ideal I think.♦ Dr. Blofeld15:45, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
My take is that machine translation is valuable but like anything should be used with caution and verified with multiple methods, just like one would do with any type of sourcing. If one doesn't know how to use it, it can be abused. Barring its use serves no purpose; however, if in doubt, ask an expert. SusunW (talk) 15:46, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. The consensus in 2021 (that section was written before then) may have been that unedited/lightly-edited machine translations are worse than nothing, but that's changing for large languages, where translations need less and less work to clean up. There are still different style guidelines and sourcing standards, &c. But that's another issue. If we leave in claims about consensus we should include an "as of" date for the last time there was a consensus check. – SJ +18:39, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, the quality is excellent between main European languages (but not others). I came to wonder whether in some cases, the rule should be inverted : 'Avoid human translation'. Indeed, when I searched a topic and could not find it in my language (French), but in another one, I had the habit of creating a new page containing my translation, thinking it could help others not versed in the other language. I can see that these pages are often poorly maintained. For these languages, shouldn't we instead rely on machine translation, choose a reference page, and translate dynamically on request so that maintainers of all these languages see their efforts shared? But a first step is needed, currently automatic translators don't know about varying Wikipedia conventions (personally, I think most of this variation could be standardized away). Pyschobbens (talk) 10:34, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pyschobbens those are some interesting suggestions, however I think that the problem of updating probably applies to all new articles rather than just translations. For controversial articles it is useful to have a choice of language versions which you can check for bias. TSventon (talk) 12:47, 12 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Improving guidance for newbies
I'd like to work on making this page more useful for new editors who want to start translating articles and aren't very familiar with wikipedia editing yet. (WP:TRANSLATION can then hold most of the technical information on translation that is more useful to experienced editors.) I expect most of the people who watch this page are very familiar with wikipedia editing, and aren't exactly that target audience, but just in case: does anyone remember what they found difficult when they started translating wikipedia articles? What information would have helped you most? What do you wish someone had told you before you started?
I'll leave this thread open for a few days before doing anything in case anyone has concerns. After that, I plan to make posts inviting input on the various individual country wikiprojects in hope of turning up some more newbie translators. -- asilvering (talk) 17:15, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Reorg without rewrite
I've gone through this page to figure out what we actually have here, and quickly discovered it had poor organization, epitomized by poor headings and section ordering. I've gone through it stepwise, changing section names, adding new subsection headings, dropping a couple that made no sense, moving like sections to make them adjacent, consolidating some of them, and adding {{Main}} and {{Further}} links throughout to get the reader quickly to more detailed information on vetted policy or guideline pages. With the exception of a major update to section § Attribution, which was both incorrect and incomplete, I've made almost no changes to running text on the page (diff).
I think this gives a clearer view of both the strengths as well as the weak points of this page, which should make it easier to analyze and figure out how to move forward with it (if at all). What it looks like to me, is a grab bag of selections from policy and guideline pages, not always those particularly relevant to translation, more than to any article. What really stands out to me, as someone who has done many translations, is what it does not say, which is a lot of things, including, for example, what happens with all the templates and wikilinks in the original, each of which could have a section on its own. Instead, there is a lot of pointless language covered better, and more accurately, in the actual P&G pages. It's as if the whole thing was written by someone who hasn't done translations, or does them so automatically, they forgot their own process.
Help:Your first article already provides an overview of all the most important policies and guidelines all on one page in an easily understandable format, does a much better job than this page at figuring out which ones to cover and how much, and we don't need another page like that that doesn't measure up. As far as this page goes, the whole thing could be thrown out and replaced with a link to H:YFA, with the sections on §§ Attribution, Citation Templates, and Tools tacked on at the end. Mathglot (talk) 23:58, 14 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
