Grants:IEG/Translanguage noticeboard

status: idea

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project:

Translanguage noticeboard

idea creator:

Nouill

project contact:

Nounouill@gmail.com

participants:

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• Nouill

summary:

Create or improve a place for the discussions between the different projects, maybe on wikidata or maybe on meta-wiki, or any somewhere else.

created on: 19:31, 3 February 2013‎

The idea and goal of that proposition is to create several translangage noticeboards on wikidata, where people and contributors can discuss about structure of articles, help and rule pages and modele (By "structure", I mean the interrelationship between a serie of pages) between the different language versions of wikipedia and projects (wikipedia, commons, wikinews, wikisources, etc). One noticeboard for each process. The first noticeboards are: Merge, Deletion, Split, Help and rule pages, presentation pages, template.

Project plan

Where?

I think wikidata is the better place for that, because it is a decentralized structure which will have a page for each encyclopedic subject. Wikidata just have reached a consensus about the inclusion of non-article pages (it was in discussion in RfC : Inclusion of non-article pages). Moreover it will help the maintenance of interlangage links with Wikidata:Interwiki conflicts.

Scope

I think the creation of that IEG's project can be done in two steps. The first step is to just create a place of discussion and describe the difference and incomprehension between wikipedias and between projects (wikipedia, commons, wikinews, wikisources, etc). The second step is to gradually try to reduce problems between the projects through the creation of a noticeboard (with informal resquests). Then, interested contributors will have the opportunity to resolve the hypothetical problems if they want, with the help of experience or examples from other projects. Finally, it will perhaps introduce a little standardization between projects.

Merge process

The idea for this project arised seeing Interwiki conflicts process. I think something like that cannot work in long run without coordination of the merge noticeboard of the different wikipedia.

In plenty of cases, Interwiki conflicts will need merge, split or deletion processes. The resolution of a simple interwiki conflict can be made in wikidata by one person by just moving the links.

In several cases, it will perhaps (in the future) need a community discussion with people from different places, cultures, etc, to define the right article organization/structure. When this structure is consensual, it will needed to inform the projects which need to change their article organization, and then the project will have to accept or not this organization and to really improve this organization (It means not to wait 5 years and lose the discussion in meantime).

Currently, I don't have seen a consensus for a translangage intervention on a wiki, without the foundation or similar authority. And I did never see in 3 years a real translangage discussion to improve article structure, with the help of french Merge, split or deletion process contributors on wikipedia (In almost all the case I have seen, we just follow wp:en or a others wikipedia, or made the choice to not follow wp:en, without help of foreigner contributors.)

Deletion process

I believe each wikipedia has different rules for deletion process. The first step is to describe those differences, because nowhere there is a place where those differences are explained and where we can discuss about it. Then, we can create a noticeboard where coordination and transwiki deletion processes can be used.

Split process

For me, it's actually a relatively accessory aim. It can help to fight translangage POV fork - this thing is rather rare. But it can be created to offset the merge noticeboard.

Transfer and relation between same language's Wikiproject

The presentation and the information about how, when and where to put information in different cases is not optimal. There are often controversial discussions about where to put some subject like news, and often on deletion process some people ask to move the subject to others projects like wikinews, but it is often difficult because we don't know if others wikipedias do that. Others subjects can be discussed like the intermediate page between commons and wikipedia, when we click on a image. Some wiki have this intermediate page, others not. There are surely plenty of others subject of discussion.

Help and rules pages

Perhaps, it is the more consensual aim. Have the same structure for the help space (and not just the five pillars) will be useful to translate help pages, and permit to have more information on the others wiki when the page on our wiki is a stub. It also permits to know that a page exist in another wiki, when our wiki does not have this page (Wikidata is already a huge help for that, but we need to show the different wikidata help page). It is a more consensual aim, because the help pages are relatively stable.

Presentation pages

This goal is to try to have less differences on the presentation pages. Examples:

• Did we need 200 or 300 different presentations of the main page?
• Did we need on each different wikipedia, different disposition of the left menu ? Can't we have just several consensual disposition, and exception when it’s necessary?

Perhaps it can improve initiative like [1], which is a little laborious without translanguage help.

Template

Template (navbox, infobox) can be standardized. Wikidata will standardize the contents in the infobox and in the list. For the container, we standardize it. This is perhaps less important than the content, but it is perhaps much easy to standardize. The color, width, form of title and subtitle, in infobox can be standardized. Moreover, it can coordinate the merge, the split and the deletion of templates.

Comparison with existing process

If we compare with processes which can actually be seen to serve at the interlangage coordination, they are:

• The foundation : Who mostly manage financial and technical stuff. It is not the place to improve the organization of one or two subject in particularly.
• Meta-Wiki : Requests for comment: it is about mostly abuse, or about more important questions.
• Meta-Wiki : Interlingual coordination page, no more active since 2004.
• Wikidata, which in January 2013, is seen by a lot of people like it's just for interlanguage links, content in infobox and content in list.

Tools, technologies, and techniques and Budget

The project doesn't need money, travel or new applications. It just needs symbolic support and consensual agreement.

Intended impact and Fit with strategy

It can potentially improve all wikipedia page. It will certainly improve more the wikis that are not enough bigger to have a long run reflexion on deletion, merge and split process for articles, help and rule pages. The small wikipedias and projects will have much more information about the differences between each wikipedia and project. Those information are actually present essentially on blog, or on page like the "signpost".

The different Wikimedia projects and wikipedias will be less dependent of the english wikipedia. Less crisis will occur because each wikipedia will not to have to start from scratch. It will help to have better rules and help pages for the small wikipedias. All those things will be done mostly by easy translation and by a better navigation on non-first language wikipedia.

Sustainability

It's a long run project, I don't think the project will have problem of sustainability when it will be establish. The problem is much more how to establish it.

Measures of success

It can't be done by one person. It can't be done in six month. It can't be done on controversial subjects, because standardization is enough controversial alone. It can't be done without diplomacy, patience, and long discussions.

Why a IEG ?

I think translanguage noticeboard will be a natural evolution of the wikimedia system, but now with the creation of wikidata it can be concretely established. I create this IEG to have more opinion by more different sources, because the project is not just about wikidata, or one or two wikipedias. Moreover, the schedule of this IEG matches with the deployment of wikidata.

Participant(s)

User:Nouill: active on wikipedia in French for 4 years. I am plenty active on the French merge noticeboard. I have tried to improve, with other people, help, rule and presentations like: [2], [3], [4], [5] and several others pages. The last months, I was rather active with others people (mainly the others) to push and convince people to use standardized model (infobox, nevbox,etc) on wp:fr. Other details can be found on [6].

Discussion

Community Notification:

Please paste a link to where the relevant communities have been notified of this proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions, here.

• Wikidata:Project chat#Interwiki of the non-encyclopedic pages (Help, "Wikipedia", etc)

Endorsements:

Do you think this project should be selected for an Individual Engagement Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. Other feedback, questions or concerns from community members are also highly valued, but please post them on the talk page of this proposal.

• Community member: add your name and rationale here.

Comment

Having been involved in translation of medical content into other languages I have run into a number of issues with attempting consistency. The big issue is that some languages do not want this. Polish specifically states that they use different templates to raise the bar for translating from English. The Swedish Wikipedia was cautious as they wanted content developed in their own language from the group up. Even though the translators in question where Swedish. Each language Wiki is independent. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:30, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

If some language communities disagrees with this project, it's ok. We will just try to not interfere or disrupt them. Also, it can be interested to know : Why they don't want coordination with others languages communities in a particular subject? And if there are just one community or plenty ones who take the chose to be coordinate or have a more independent choose for that particular subject. --Nouill (talk) 02:52, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

There's a clear lack of definition of scope. Discussing about if an article should be included or not, is only a pure local-wiki decision, and it has nothing to do in Wikidata (out of its scope).

Discussing about relations between different wikis is also definitely not the scope of Wikidata. Interproject discussions are clearly the main reason why Meta exists. Wikidata is certainly not the best place for that.

And even if the structure of different wikipedias may be different (articles merged in an edition, split in another) it is unaviodable: eahc language already has its own set of homonyms, and what is considered the same thing in one language and handled in the same article will be designated in another one using different terms with cultural differences (sometimes political or religious differences) so that separate articles will be wanted. We cannot always match one article in ine Wikipedia to one article to every other one. In addition a very large wikipedia will tend to have very long details that require slitting an article into several ones for details; when other wikipedia will not split ther existing article. The list of references will also be different (there's little interest to copy long lists of references given in English Wikipedia to a non-English Wikipedia that will prefer its own set of references in its local language. And very accurate references in, say, Russian, or Chinese, will be almost always eliminated from the English Wikipedia where they cannot be understood by most readers.

Wikidata will stll be able to merge topics on thngs that are accurately delimited (such as geographical entities, or person names), but even in that case, separate articles may exist about their detailed charateristics and not all wikipedias will have a separate article for the history or the economy of a small city, or about a specific album or concert played by a music artist (when thus album or concert was sold or occured only in one country) and other wikipediaw will just include a single discography for that artist and may not even feature a single inclusion of a matching title in the summary.

Finally the criteria for inclusio nwill be differnet between wikis (notability is the most problematic but there are other factors, such as the "fair use" allowed in Englishc Wikipedia and forbidden everywhere else...) verdy_p (talk) 00:14, 16 June 2014 (UTC)