Thank you James for this detailed feedback. It is very interesting. JP
On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 8:27 AM James Heilman <jmh...@gmail.com> wrote: > We learned a few things during the medical translation project which > started back in 2011: > > 1) You must start with high quality content and thus all articles are > extensively improved before being proposed for translation. > > 2) A lot of languages want "less" content than is present on EN WP. Thus we > moved to just improving and suggesting for translation the leads of the > English articles. > > 3) The "Content Translation" tool developed by the WMF made efforts more > efficient than handing around word documents. Would love to see that tool > improved further such as having it support specific lists of articles that > are deemed ready for translation by certain groups. Would also love the > tool to have tracking metrics for these types of projects. > > 4) We used volunteer translators mostly associated with our partner > Translators Without Borders. One issue we found was that languages in which > their are lots of translators such as French, Spanish, and Italian there is > often already at least some content on many of the topics in question. The > issue than becomes integration which needs an expert Wikipedia. And for > languages in which we have little content there are often few avaliable > volunteers. > > 5) With respect to "paying per word" the problem is this would require > significant checks and balances to make sure people are taking the work > seriously and not simple using Google translate for the 70 or so languages > in which it claims to work. We often had translations undergo a second > review and the volunteers at TWB have to pass certain tests to be accepted. > > 6) I hired a coordinator for the translation project for a couple of years. > The translators at TWB did not want to become Wikipedians or learn how to > use our systems. The coordinator created account like TransSW001 (one for > each volunteer) and preloaded the article to be translated into Content > Translation. They than gave the volunteer translator the user name and > password to the account. > > 7) Were are we at now? There are currently just over 1,000 leads of > articles that have been improved and are ready for translation. This > includes articles on the 440 medications that are on the WHO Essential > List. We have worked a bit in some 100 languages. The efforts have resulted > in more than 5 million works translated and integrated into different > Wikipedias. The coordinator has unfortunately moved on to his real job of > teaching high school students. > > 8) The project continues but at a slower pace than before. The Wikipedian > and retired orthopedic surgeon Subas Chandra Rout has basically single > handedly translated nearly all 1,000 leads into Odia a language spoken by > 40 million people in Eastern India. The amazing thing is that for many of > these topics this is the first and only information online about it. Google > translate does not even claim to work in this language. Our partnerships > with WMTW and medical school in Taipai continue to translate into Chinese. > There the students translate and than their translations are reviewed by > their profs before being posted. They translate in groups using hackpad to > make it more social. > > I am currently working to re invigorate the project :-) > James > > On Sat, Feb 24, 2018 at 5:51 AM, John Erling Blad <jeb...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > This discussion is going to be fun! =D > > > > A little more than seventy Wikipedia-projects has more than 65k articles, > > the remaining two hundred or so are pretty small. > > > > What if a base set of articles were opened for paid translators? There > are > > several lists of such base sets. We have both the thousand articles from > > "List of articles every Wikipedia should have"[1] and and the ten > thousand > > articles from the expanded list[2]. > > > > Lets say verified good translators was paid about $0.01 per word (about > $1 > > for a 1k-article) for translating one of those articles into another > > language, with perhaps a higher pay for contributors in high-cost > > countries. The pay would also have to be higher for languages that lacks > > good translation tools. > > > > I believe this would be an _enabling_ activity for the communities, as > > without a base set of articles it won't be possible to build a community > at > > all. By not paying for new articles, and only translating well-referenced > > articles, some of the disputes in the communities could be avoided. > Perhaps > > we should also identify good source articles, that would be a help. > > Translated articles should be above some minimum size, but they does not > > have to be full translations of the source article. > > > > A real problem is that our existing lists of good articles other projects > > should have is pretty much biased towards Western World, so they need a > lot > > of adjustments. Perhaps such a project would identify our inherit bias? > > > > [1] > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_every_ > > Wikipedia_should_have > > [2] > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_articles_every_ > > Wikipedia_should_have/Expanded > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > > wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ > > wiki/Wikimedia-l > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > > > > -- > James Heilman > MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
