Thanks for your clarification, Node.ue, I know it because I attended their presentation on Wikimania. It is an ambitious project I'd like to see it growing, but at this moment they seem to have a serious problem in its system. They seem to use English as a stem language, and assumes all translations are first done into English and then to another language. On the other hand, at least on major non-English Western language Wikipedia some amount of translations (1/3 IIRC) are not related to English.
If you think it works for you, it's fine, but please be aware it might not work for non-English speakers as well as for you. Cheers, On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 7:18 PM, Mark Williamson <node...@gmail.com> wrote: > Aphaia, a great deal of confusion has been created with regards to > this project. I hope you'll allow me to attempt to clear it up. > > These are NOT articles that were translated directly by Google > Translate. Rather, they were created using Google Translator Toolkit, > which requires human intervention by a speaker of the language - > someone to check and correct every single sentence translated, in the > case of languages where Google already has machine translation, or to > write entirely new _human_ translations, in the cases where no Google > Translate module exists (for example, Tamil), with the aid of > Translation Memory software. > > I currently work as a translator and have found that Google Translator > Toolkit is great for speeding up and improving the consistency of > translations, and at least the results of my work are usually better > with it than they would be without (I'm glad for the consistency - if > I'm translating a large document, I'd like to make sure to translate > the same phrases the same way every time they occur rather than using > slightly different wording the second time around). Since they're > revised and corrected by a human, they _should_ have the same level of > grammatical correctness, comprehensibility and translation quality as > a pure human translation. If they don't, this is the fault of the > person using the toolkit, not the software itself. > > -m. > > On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 1:53 AM, Aphaia <aph...@gmail.com> wrote: >> Hi, >> >> On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 3:52 PM, Jon Davis <w...@konsoletek.com> wrote: >>> I think the answer is "Yes and No". As with any new >>> project/concept/idea/trial there are pro's and there are con's. The real >>> question is: Do the pro's outweigh the con's? >>> >>> From just reading what you linked (And not in any way being involved with >>> these language projects) and my own personal experiences of how I work on >>> Wikipedia. Yes, I think it is a good thing overall. >>> >>> From what I've seen, it is much easier to convince someone who has never >>> edited, to fix grammatical, spelling or other "simple" mistakes. Generally >>> people don't dive in and write/translate entire articles - it is simply too >>> high of a barrier to entry. These pre-translated articles give people an >>> "in", they are already there, and have obvious errors that are easy to fix. >> >> In my experience at Transcom and my own as translator, people >> appreciate pre-translated articles only in a good quality, there are >> pre-translations in too bad quality which contains too many obvious >> errors not easy to fix in time frame. >> >> I've seen several requests, both on meta and on language projects, to >> delete this kind of bad quality "translation" which people think >> better to scratch a new version. >> >> And in my observation Google translation is still in this level in >> many languages. And even if you handle Western languages, unless one >> of them in English, results may be in poor quality (e.g. they cannot >> keep the distinction between tu/vous, du/Sie etc.) >> >> Cheers, >> >>> >>> >>> More "ok" content is better than no content, at least if I have my druthers. >>> >>> -Jon >>> >>> On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 23:12, Shiju Alex <shijualexonl...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>>> Hello All, >>>> >>>> Recently there are lot of discussions (in this list also) regarding the >>>> translation project by Google for some of the big language wikipedias. The >>>> foundation also seems like approved the efforts of Google. But I am not >>>> sure >>>> whether any one is interested to consult the respective language community >>>> to know their views. >>>> >>>> As far as I know only Tamil, Bengali, and Swahili Wikipedians have raised >>>> their concerns about Google's project. But, does this means that other >>>> communities are happy about Google efforts? If there is no active community >>>> in a wikipedia how can we expect response from communities? If there is no >>>> response from a community, does that mean that Google can hire some native >>>> speakers and use machine translation to create articles for that wikipedia? >>>> >>>> Now let us go back to a basic question. Does WMF require a wiki community >>>> to >>>> create wikipedia in any language? Or can they utilize the services of >>>> companies like Google to create wikipedias in N number of languages? >>>> >>>> One of the main point raised by the supporters of Google translation is >>>> that, Google's project is good *for the online version of the >>>> language*.That >>>> might be true. But no body is cared to verify whether it is good for >>>> Wikipedia. >>>> >>>> As pointed out by Ravi in his presentation in Wikimania, ( >>>> http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ddpg3qwc_279ghm7kbhs), the Google >>>> translation of wikipedia articles: >>>> >>>> - will affect the biological growth of a Wikipedia article >>>> - will create copy of English wikipedia article in local wikis >>>> - it is against some of the basic philosophies of wikipedia >>>> >>>> The people outside wiki will definitely benefit from this tool, if Google >>>> translation tool is developed for each language. I saw the working example >>>> of this in Poland during Wikimania, when some people who are not good in >>>> English used google translator to communicate with us. :) >>>> >>>> Apart from the points raised by Ravi in his presentation, this will affect >>>> the community growth.If there is no active wiki community, how can we >>>> expect >>>> them to look after all these junk articles uploaded to wiki every day. When >>>> all the important article links are already turned blue, how we can expect >>>> any future potential editors. So according to me, Google's project is >>>> killing the growth of an active wiki community. >>>> >>>> Of course, Tamil Wikipedia is trying to use Google project effectively. But >>>> only Tamil is doing that since they have an active wiki community*. Many >>>> Wiki communities are not even aware that such a project is happening in >>>> their wiki*. >>>> >>>> I do not want to point out specific language wikipedas to prove my point. >>>> But visit the wikipedias (especially wikipedias* that use non-latin >>>> scripts*) >>>> to view the status of google translation project. Loads of junk articles >>>> are uploaded to wiki every day. Most of the time the only edit in these >>>> articles is the edit by its creator and the inter language wiki bots. >>>> >>>> This effort will definitely affect community growth. Kindly see the points >>>> raised by a Swahali >>>> Wikipedian< >>>> http://muddybtz.blog.com/2010/07/16/what-happened-on-the-google-challenge-the-swahili-wikipedia/ >>>> >. >>>> Many Swahali users (and other language users) now expect a laptop or some >>>> other monitory benefits to write in their wikipedia. That affects the >>>> community growth. >>>> >>>> So what is the solution for this? Can we take lessons from >>>> Tamil/Bengali/Swahili wikipedias and find methods to use this service >>>> effectively or continue with the current article creation process. >>>> >>>> One last question. Is this tool that is developing by Google is an open >>>> source tool? If not, we need to answer so many questions that may follow. >>>> >>>> Regards >>>> >>>> Shiju Alex >>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shijualex >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> foundation-l mailing list >>>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org >>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l >>>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Jon >>> [[User:ShakataGaNai]] / KJ6FNQ >>> http://snowulf.com/ >>> http://ipv6wiki.net/ >>> _______________________________________________ >>> foundation-l mailing list >>> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org >>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l >>> >> >> >> >> -- >> KIZU Naoko >> http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) >> Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD >> >> _______________________________________________ >> foundation-l mailing list >> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l >> > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > -- KIZU Naoko http://d.hatena.ne.jp/Britty (in Japanese) Quote of the Day (English): http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/WQ:QOTD _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
