Re: [Foundation-l] Free translation memory
Amir E. Aharoni, 29/07/2010 10:17: Is there a Free competitor to the Google Translator Toolkit in terms of online storage and sharing? I've added an entry to http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_that_need_to_be_free table, you could write a paragraph to elaborate a bit. Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] A prerequisite for the neutral, notable sum of all human knowledge
Ray Saintonge, 30/07/2010 12:14: Brian J Mingus wrote: The WMF mission is to provide free knowledge to the world. Wikipedia, in particular, hopes to summarize all notable topics into a neutral sum. Accomplishing this goal means Wikipedia an the WMF will have to evolve. Consider the implications of the mission: Every single work that contains notable topics must have complete coverage in Wikipedia. While every article need not cite every work, every article must accurately summarize every notable opinion of every notable topic in every work. In its broad strokes I must say from the outset that I strongly support the WikiCite notion. Nevertheless, I think that there are a lot of pitfalls in the development of this idea. To begin with your use of the term notable is somewhat disquieting. Indeed. Brian, are you thinking about some reputation system? (But I suppose we had moved the discussion to wiki-research-l.) Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Discussion Questions for Potentially-Objectionable Content
Hi all. Thanks so much for all the encouragement my last email received. Replying to Ting's: Point 1-- NOTCENSORED isn't what you think it is: So, the first thing to realize is that our NOTCENSORED policies are far more narrow than you seem to suspect: • In the case of traditional fishing techniques or traditional medicine, no one claims those subjects are too offensive to cover. So our NOTCENSORED policy can offer absolutely no guidance one way or the other. • Our No pedophilia advocacy doesn't apply to our content. Indeed, we do cover pedophilia advocacy when it's encyclopedic (e.g. [[NAMBLA]]). • The debate over at Acehnese Wikipedia over Muhammad IS partially about censorship. But it's also about whether local-projects have self-determination via CONSENSUS.I feel Acehnese Wikipedia should be allowed to run their project as they think best, including revising or even outright rejecting their own version of NOTCENSORED if their true consensus supports doing so. (Ideally they could used some name other than Wikipedia, so that the Wikipedia brand would be preserved for NPOV/NOTCENSORED projects-- but in truth, even that doesn’t really disturb me. So, we're substantially less fundamentalist and fanatical than I think you believe we are. NOTCENSORED isn't a universal call to total inclusionism, it's just a reminder to not let potential-offensive make decisions for us. Look at the following dialogue: Question: Should we host content X? Answer:No, because I find it offensive. Reply: Offensiveness isn't a valid reason, per NOTCENSORED. Instead, ask-- is this content useful? That's it! That's all NOTCENSORED is. The NOTCENSORED policy just means we don't let cultural taboos dictate our editorial decisions. It's a core value that is really not as radical as you seem to think it is. Part 2: What a NOTCENSORED debate looks like: So, let's consider the EnWiki article [[Muhammad]] and the debate over its use of potentially-offensive images. Arguing that we should delete all images because they're offensive is automatically rebutted by citing Wikipedia isn't censored. But that's not the end of the discussion, it's only the very beginning. Once we agree that offensiveness isn't a valid criteria, we still have to tackle the actual work of making the best possible article. So, just a few of the current compromises that have been reached on [[Muhammad]]: * We all agreed that the top image should be Muhammad's name written in beautiful calligraphy, since that's a traditionally depicted in Islam and reflects its anti-depiction stance. * We agreed to be careful that our images weren't unnecessarily large or unreasonably numerous. * We decided, throughout the main article, to rely primarily upon images from Islamic cultures-- they seemed to best illustrate Muhammad himself, rather than using him as a just a symbol of Islam. * We agreed that Western images tell us more about Muhammad-as-viewed-from-the-West, and thus we only used them when in the Western Views of Muhammad section. * We all agreed that controversial cartoons of Muhammad had very very little to tell us about Muhammad himself, and thus had no place in the Muhammad article. * We made a Frequently-asked-questions list to try to sincerely explain that we truly we weren't trying to cause offense or be anti-Muslim. We also explained about image filtering and how a reader can decide for themselves what to view. * We recognized the need for on-going communication created a special talk page just to engage in respectful dialogue with people concerned about the use of Muhammad images. * Most of us tried very very hard to be as empathic and caring as possible in those discussions. Indeed, we routinely pointed to the Christian taboos like pornography and piss-christ, using our coverage of those taboos in order to prove that we weren't singling out Muslims. So, in practice, NOTCENSORED doesn't make things black and white at all. There are lots of shades of gray. There's respectful debate and civil discussion. There's an evolving mutual understanding between groups. We came together and hammered out a well-thought-out consensus that struck a balance between our sincere desire not to offend and our essential mission to inform. You may not think it's the perfect solution, and neither do I. I'm a free-speecher, so I'm not happy that we made agreed to make the images as smal as we did Of course, others feel the images are too big. The consensus there will continue to evolve over time-- but the process basically worked. Except for new users, our Muslim editors don't expect that their own offense can justify deleting legitimately educational images. Similarly, our free-speech editors don't expect that NOTCENSORED would justify inserting the anti-Muslim cartoons into the article. Everyone can see there's a consensus in place, and just about everyone understands that their individual opinions shouldn't be able
Re: [Foundation-l] Push translation
Дана Friday 30 July 2010 02:31:44 Andreas Kolbe написа: Having tried it tonight, I don't find the Google translator toolkit all that useful, at least not at this present level of development. To sum up: First you read their translation. Then you scratch your head: What the deuce is that supposed to mean ...? Then you check the original language version. Then you compare the two. Then you start wondering: How did *this* turn into *that*? Then you shake your head. (Note: everything up to this point is unproductive time.) Then you look at the original again and try to translate it. As you do, you invariably end up leaving the Google shite where it is and writing your own text. In the end, you delete the Google shite, and then, as you do so, you kick yourself because there were two words in there that you needn't have typed yourself. Interestingly, I have had a completely opposite experiences. When reading a Google translation, it is easy for me to decipher what does it mean even if it is not gramatically correct. When translating, I often hang on deciding what sentence structure to use, or on remembering how a specific words translates. GTT solves both problems. My estimate is that I retain half and rewrite half of every sentence it produces. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] [Language committee] Call for applications and advices
For those who don't want to read the whole email, we need: * A person who is well introduced in Wikinews. * A person who is well introduced in Wikiversity. * A person who knows to program in Python and willing to spend 2 hours/week in archiving our mailing list on Meta [1]. * Your advices in defining what substantial activity (at Incubator, Multilingual Wikisource or Beta Wikiversity) means for the approval of new projects, especially in the cases of new Wikinews and Wikiversity editions. Please, send your applications and comments to me at mill...@gmail.com. If you are applying for Wikinews or Wikiversity position, please write your thoughts on what substantial activity means for the project type for which position you are applying. It is not hard to define implicitly or explicitly substantial activity for new editions of Wikipedia and for new editions of other projects which have dynamics similar to Wikipedia (Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource). You can write an article, word definition, quote, book chapter or you can add a source once and you don't need to see that project for months. In the case of Wikinews, daily activity matters. In the case of Wikiversity, you need real people around. Thus, we need both: your input on question what substantial activity for new Wikinews and Wikiversity editions means; as well as two persons who would be willing to take care about new requests for Wikinews and Wikiversity editions. If you have some important note related to the same question, but about other projects (which have Wikipedia-like dynamics), please send your comments, too. If you have any other comment related to the Language proposal policy [2] (except that it would be good to have Wikinews edition in Sumerian or so), please send them, too. Our archives [1] are outdated because of Jesse's lack of time. It is 2 hours/week task. For that position we need a confidential person who knows to program in Python, but not necessarily (then, it is 4 hours/week task). All of the new members will be full members of the Language committee, which means that they will participate in other parts of the new language editions approval. [1] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_committee/Archives [2] - http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_proposal_policy ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Free translation memory
2010/7/31 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemow...@gmail.com: Amir E. Aharoni, 29/07/2010 10:17: Is there a Free competitor to the Google Translator Toolkit in terms of online storage and sharing? I've added an entry to http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_things_that_need_to_be_free table, you could write a paragraph to elaborate a bit. Thanks. I expanded it into a whole page: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Free_Translation_Memory . -- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni http://aharoni.wordpress.com We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace. - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?
On 31 July 2010 16:21, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias? Most of the chapters. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?
On 31 July 2010 16:27, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 July 2010 16:21, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias? Most of the chapters. Are you sure? Don't chapters come out of local meetups more than Wikimanias? Three chapters pre-date the first Wikimania and one was founded a week after (so I don't think Wikimania can take credit for that). Can you give some examples of chapters you know were founded as a result of a Wikimania? I can imagine some people being inspired to form chapters after meeting people from other chapters, but I don't know any definite examples of it actually happening. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?
On 31 July 2010 16:32, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: OK, but how exactly? Why did people have to fly to another continent to start a chapter in their own country? Did they use Wikimania as an opportunity to talk to the people who started the pioneering chapters (Germany, France, Italy) and learned from them how to start them? Anything else? You said personal meetings between Wikimedians, not specifically Wikimania. Do you mean only Wikimania, or do you mean personal meetings in general? - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?
On 31 July 2010 16:35, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: You said personal meetings between Wikimedians, not specifically Wikimania. Do you mean only Wikimania, or do you mean personal meetings in general? Ah, you were answering the first of the two questions in the text you quoted. I withdraw my questions to you, then. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?
On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Well, the board has real life meetings and, like David, most of the chapters do. :-) There's also been WMCON where a bunch of board members, developers, and chapter members had meetings in the same place at the same time, which seems to have been very beneficial, because they've had two-in-a-row. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMCON There was also a fundraising summit hosted by Wikimedia UK http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Fundraising_Summit, which Thomas could tell us more about. Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias? Something obvious is hacking days, which hopefully Brion could tell us more about. :-) Pages about previous hacking days: * http://wikimania2005.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hacking_Daysoldid=7240 * http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hacking_days * http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hacking_days * http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Days -- Casey Brown Cbrown1023 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?
On 31 July 2010 16:37, Casey Brown li...@caseybrown.org wrote: There was also a fundraising summit hosted by Wikimedia UK http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Fundraising_Summit, which Thomas could tell us more about. Indeed. For people involved in chapters, there are lots of in-person meetings and they are very useful. The Fundraising Summit enabled us to discuss fundraising in much more depth and breadth than we could ever have done online (face-to-face discussions are much quicker than online discussions - one major advantage is that you know when someone else is speaking and also when they are about to speak, neither of which you know with most online media). That is very different from the kind of meetings most people have at Wikimanias though (which are ad hoc meetings over coffee with no agenda). Of course, chapter people have more formal meetings at Wikimanias, but we aren't typical of Wikimedians. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?
2010/7/31 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: On 31 July 2010 16:32, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: OK, but how exactly? Why did people have to fly to another continent to start a chapter in their own country? Did they use Wikimania as an opportunity to talk to the people who started the pioneering chapters (Germany, France, Italy) and learned from them how to start them? Anything else? You said personal meetings between Wikimedians, not specifically Wikimania. Do you mean only Wikimania, or do you mean personal meetings in general? Other examples are welcome, too, but i refer mostly to Wikimania, since my focus now is organizing one. By Wikimania i mean a general worldwide meeting of Wikimedia project editors, developers, WMF staff and other interested parties. The advantages of local community meetings are rather obvious; i participated in many and organized one. Hacking days are also great, of course, but they are not general like Wikimania. It is also much easier and cheaper to organize such meetings, though. No-one needs to convince me that Wikimania is great. It is. But examples of past - 2009 and earlier - experiences that grew into successful projects will help us define a better rationale and motivation for having a Wikimania and to make the next ones even better. -- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni http://aharoni.wordpress.com We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace. - T. Moore ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?
2010/7/31 Casey Brown li...@caseybrown.org: On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 11:21 AM, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? There was also a fundraising summit hosted by Wikimedia UK http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/2010_Fundraising_Summit, which Thomas could tell us more about. Thank you very much for this link! Even though it's not Wikimania, it is very relevant and helpful. -- אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי Amir Elisha Aharoni http://aharoni.wordpress.com We're living in pieces, I want to live in peace. - T. Moore` ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?
On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 July 2010 16:27, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 July 2010 16:21, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias? Most of the chapters. Are you sure? Don't chapters come out of local meetups more than Wikimanias? Three chapters pre-date the first Wikimania and one was founded a week after (so I don't think Wikimania can take credit for that). Can you give some examples of chapters you know were founded as a result of a Wikimania? I can imagine some people being inspired to form chapters after meeting people from other chapters, but I don't know any definite examples of it actually happening. Israel, to name just one. Not to call them out, but I remember sitting at the chapters meeting at Wikimania 2006 and hearing out some rather vocal arguments against a Wikimedia chapter in Israel. (Seriously, I think we were almost at fisticuffs.) We had extensive discussions during and after the conference, and clarified a lot of misunderstandings. A few months later, an exploratory committee was founded to investigate creating an Israeli organization, which resulted in what's now one of our most successful chapters. We get a few chapters a year out of Wikimania, not because locals can't meet with each other by themselves, but because a personal connection is made with other people involved with chapters and they see what it's all about. I know that I, personally, spend a few hours a day during Wikimania talking about nothing but chapters. To answer the original post, many projects have resulted from random talks at dinners during Wikimania, five-minute chats between sessions, and people just getting to know each other. I wish I could take the time to make a more complete list—I think it would be great if other people would weigh in on this thread, though. Austin ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?
On 31 July 2010 18:15, Austin Hair adh...@gmail.com wrote: To answer the original post, many projects have resulted from random talks at dinners during Wikimania, five-minute chats between sessions, and people just getting to know each other. I wish I could take the time to make a more complete list—I think it would be great if other people would weigh in on this thread, though. Yes. Basically: Wikimedians meeting each other in person is an excellent way to generate unexpected good things happening. Wikimania in particular gets the greatest variety of Wikimedians meeting and generating unexpected good things. It seems in practice to be powerful enough for people to keep wanting to put in the effort. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Why should Wikimedians meet?
2010/7/31 Thomas Dalton thomas.dal...@gmail.com: On 31 July 2010 16:27, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 31 July 2010 16:21, Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il wrote: But all of the above are nice dreams about the future. Is there any proven experience from the past that demonstrates why personal meetings between Wikimedians are not just fun for them, but actually beneficial to the Wikimedia community, the Internet, the Humanity? Can anyone here give me solid examples of successful projects that were born thanks to past Wikimanias? Most of the chapters. Are you sure? Don't chapters come out of local meetups more than Wikimanias? Three chapters pre-date the first Wikimania and one was founded a week after (so I don't think Wikimania can take credit for that). Can you give some examples of chapters you know were founded as a result of a Wikimania? I can imagine some people being inspired to form chapters after meeting people from other chapters, but I don't know any definite examples of it actually happening. In 2006 Wikimania in Boston there was a brief, informal meetup of chapter committee, existing chapters boards members and people thinikg to establish their own chapters. I don't know if it was the results of only this meeting but several weeks/months after this meeting Wikimedia Israel, Wikimedia Taiwan and Wikimedia Netherlands were established mainly by people who attended this meeting. See us 4 years younger: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_chapters_meetup_Wikimania_2006 -- Tomek Polimerek Ganicz http://pl.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Polimerek http://www.ganicz.pl/poli/ http://www.ptchem.lodz.pl/en/TomaszGanicz.html ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Free translation memory
On Fri, 30 Jul 2010 23:22:00 +0200, Nikola Smolenski wrote: Дана Thursday 29 July 2010 10:38:20 Samuel Klein написа: There is definitely a free TM project waiting to happen. It would be nice to see translatewiki [for instance] incorporate such a tool, but it may be a nontrivial amount of work. At Project Rastko for years now there is the idea of building something called Global Translation Project, where volunteers could collaboratively translate texts in a manner somewhat similar to Distributed Proofreaders. To give some detail: the idea is to first parse the original text with a rule-based machine translation engine (of course this should be free software with free dictionary). Hi. I'm a contributor to Apertium (http://apertium.org), a Free Software RBMT system which... is exactly what you describe. The basic problem that these engines have is that they are unable to resolve ambiguities in the text (a classic example is sentence Time flies like an arrow: does it means that time is flying as fast as an arrow or that there exist some insects called time flies (like there are fruit flies) which like some arrow?). This often ends in a mistranslation. The crux of the idea is that it would be humans who resolve ambiguities in this step. For example, these two possible meanings of the sentence would in another language be translated to two completely different sentences. A human could then simply pick the correct one. After several people have done this for several independent languages, and their translations agree, the system would know what is the correct parsing of the original text. Then this parsing could be translated fully automatically to a large number of languages, and it will be highly likely that the translations will be close to correct. Apertium has a sister project, Tradubi (http://tradubi.com), which is developing exactly this. An offshoot of this is a crowdsourced dictionary project in GalaxyZoo style. Instead of doing battle with Wiktionary's or similar interface, volunteers could build a dictionary by solving various simple tasks (say, pick a word's gender, or verify that a word is correctly declined); if the supermajority of the volunteers gives the same answer, the word enters the dictionary. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:04:42 -0300, Fajro wrote: On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 8:33 AM, Mark Williamson node...@gmail.com wrote: about the toolkit, but I got the impression you're referring to Google Translate, which I agree is always unsuitable to produce usable articles. Machine translation is always unsuitable to produce usable articles, but can help to start new ones in smaller wikipedias. Unedited MT is always unsuitable, rather. If we want to use machine translation we should try with a free project like Apertium: Apertium *is* used to translate Wikipedia articles. The difference is, we concentrate on producing rule-based translators between related languages, where the results can be quite impressive. I wouldn't recommend that anyone use our English-Catalan translator for a Wikipedia article - there will simply be too much work involved in making it readable. Our Spanish-Catalan translator, on the other hand, will do quite a good job of it. In theory, statistical MT should also be better with related languages (though I haven't seen anyone working on it). Google isn't 'pure' SMT though; much of their resources come from translating via English, so even when there's no ambiguity between two languages, Google will find some based on English. The quality of translation of an SMT system greatly depends on the type of text it was trained with. Articles relating to computing, law, and medicine will translate much better than, say, articles about history, because those are the types of text for which translations are most widely available. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Is Google translation is good for Wikipedias?
On Sun, 25 Jul 2010 18:10:54 +0300, Amir E. Aharoni wrote: 2010/7/25 Shiju Alex shijualexonl...@gmail.com: 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. At the same session at Wikimania a very sensible approach was presented by Mikel Iturbe from the Basque Wikipedia: * They didn't use Google Translate, but an academically-developed tool, which also happened to be Free Software - which diminished the arguments about commercialization. Probably Matxin (http://sourceforge.net/projects/matxin/) Matxin is somewhat related to Apertium, which I am involved with. Some Apertium developers tried to make it less Basque-specific, but weren't entirely successful. * The editors community was involved throughout the whole process. * Articles were not uploaded without correcting mistakes that the translation software made. * What's also important, the corrections were reported to the translation software developers, so they would try to improve it. Of course, not every language community can afford developing Free-as-in-speech academic translation software, but the other points are useful to everybody. Depending on the languages involved, the amount of resources available for those languages, and having realistic expectations, a usable system can be made in as little as 3-6 months by a single motivated volunteer, with help from experienced developers. Earlier this year, at the request of Crisis Commons, 3 of us built a Haitian Creole to English prototype in less than a week. Staying motivated is *hard*. We have 2-3 times as many half-working prototypes as we have released language pairs. Having realistic expectations is hard. People want English, and/or they want to include *everything* (budget at least a year of full time work for anything to English). If you know the difference between noun, adjective, and verb, understand Zipf's law, and want open source MT for a pair of languages, come find us on #apertium on FreeNode. We'll be happy to help. Mikel Iturbe's presentation: * http://www.slideshare.net/janfri/wikimania2010 The academic papers related to that project: * http://ixa.si.ehu.es/openmt2/argitalpenak_html * http://ixa.si.ehu.es/Ixa/Argitalpenak/Artikuluak/index_html? Atala=Artikulua_Itzulpen_automatikoa ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Free translation memory
On Thu, 29 Jul 2010 11:29:41 +0300, Amir E. Aharoni wrote: 2010/7/29 Amir E. Aharoni amir.ahar...@mail.huji.ac.il: Is there a Free competitor to the Google Translator Toolkit in terms of online storage and sharing? I heard about OmegaT, but if i understand correctly, it is a local application that doesn't offer online storage and sharing - but correct me if i'm wrong. Are there any other Free-minded translation memory services? ... Thinking out loud / replying to myself - translatewiki.net comes very close, but people are used to think about it as a tool for translating software messages and not for translating general texts. Maybe it can be adopted to that. Open-Tran: http://open-tran.eu/ Is something like translatewiki. Software here: http://code.google.com/p/open-tran/ They also provide their databases for download. For running your own server: TinyTM: http://tinytm.sourceforge.net/ Translate Toolkit includes an XML-RPC based translation memory server. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
