Talk:Communications committee/Subcommittees/Translation

Archives /Archive 1

Transcom Priority Level 4

.I agree with the w:Anglosphere and the w:Francophonie covering the most geopolitically and that separating their levels would cause too much trouble. I also agree that next should be w:Hispanosphere. I further agree that the w:Sinosphere and the w:Russosphere (w:CIS ~+ w:Russian diaspora) should round out the next step as the rest of the UN languages and that Japanese is notable enough to just slip in although lower transcom level language comprehension (especially English) is higher in the w:Nipposphere (Japan + w:Japanese diaspora) than, say, in the Russosphere; and Arabic is noticeably absent despite its position in the six official UN languages, the size of the w:Arab world and the w:Arab diaspora, and the importance of the w:Arab League and its influence on the w:OIC and w:OPEC.

.I do not however see w:German-speaking Europe as analogous with the w:Lusofonia at all. Yes, the German population online now is huge, but Portuguese is one of four official languages of the w:African Union, along with Arabic, English, and French. It is also co-dominant with Spanish in South American discourse besides being an official w:EU language like German. German-speakers in particular have some of the highest English comprehension levels in the world. It feels like we are raising it artificially high to cope with German's enormous Net presence, but that is a measure weighted heavily by the German w:Sprachraum's affluence.

.Ultimately, because of the considerable effort German-speakers have exerted and continue to exert at Wikipedia, their priority should surpass that simply based on global population figures, but clear caveats should indicate that this position is subject to change as other realms expand on the Net. Furthermore, if we inflate German's importance beyond its forecast geopolitical potential to match its current web presence, it seems only right to increase Arabic's priority beyond its present Internet population to match its future one, as well as its geopolitical reach, because our goal is to bring the sum of all human knowledge to all of humanity. Our actions at Wikimedia are so profound that they, like the search engine giants, can increase web-literacy among sprachraums with huge growth potential simply by being more inclusive of them. Would it be so bad if we simply moved Arabic from 5 to 4? :)--Thecurran 02:54, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with much of what you posted above. I would like to see Ar and Hi moved to 4, and Zh moved to 2. Despite your comments, De should similaly be moved to 3. While people are often proficient in more than one language, there is an extremely strong preference to edit, pontificate, discuss policy and plan for the future in one's native tongue -- and you see a far greater number of contributions here by native english speakers than native german speakers, proportional to their editing communities. Considering the total amount of interesting Wikimedia work done in German by de:wikimedians, this is a loss. -- sj | translate | + 23:59, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Weekly review of translation priorities?

Similar to the original translation of the week, it would be nice to have something like a weekly review of translation status - where we are, what are the current priority translations, what else is out there to translate. It's hard to tell from the Babylon main page what's available other than the prioritized translations -- some of which are clearly not such a priority anymore (board election notice).

The page discussing this regular review might prominently highlight the priority levels of languages; something that might also change over time and should be more visible in the sphere of translators. I would like to move towards an environment where we are all conscious of having multiple top-level language priorities, and multiple source languages for announcements and new media [something which already happens at the chapters level but doesn't always make it to Meta, for instance].

Board resolution translations

At the moment, I would like to see new Board resolutions translated into the pri 1 and 2 languages. Currently there is only one such resolution (the appointment of Matt Halprin) - it should be a simple enough place to start. It was suggested at the last open meeting that this was not an important resolution: I beg to differ. It is quite important, when evaluating how a foundation works (say, to decide whether or not to trust it) to see its official statements, even when they convey only a few facts. -- sj · translate · + 17:18, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Managing translations

I've found this old uncategorized orphan page: is it still useful or should I tag it as outdated? --Nemo 14:17, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it would make a useful point of discussion in the next transcom meeting; it still reflects my thoughts on how we might think about long-term coordination. (And now we have more resources to devote to developing that sort of framework.) Casey and Kizu-san were recently discussing last week what could be done to help translators do their jobs better... and it is also related to a recent thread on internal about multilingual communication among chapters (one of those threads that should be on meta instead!). –SJ · talk | translate 06:43, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

how to get involved in urgent tasks?

. . .

apologies for bursting in and being a bit blond but ... clicking around and can't find a clear application form for getting into urgent translation tasks. too many links confuse simple brains like mine. best newby links?

ta, much

. . .

I looked for a list of translation requests and only found something related to meta-pages. I presume there is a way to view requests, or priorities of wikipedia (or other project) articles for translation, by language. Bcharles (talk) 18:39, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

creating a Translation Committee

I've been thinking about an independent translation committee, addressing general issues related to translatin - separate from the communication work for which this subcommittee was created. To review projects such as:

• community: recommending ways to support our translator network, for everything from communication to outreach to article writing; organizing and offering language training, software, support
• process: auditing how we submit / track translations, on meta and elsewhere
• planning: reviewing new translation proposals (say, when google wants to run a translate-a-thon in a new language) to ensure they benefit and strengthen the community
• oversight: coordinating different sources for translations, from community groups and ambassadors to the occasional bulk donation or rush contract.
• technical: advising on priorities for translation tools, multilingual usability, and related bugs/requests

I'd like to know what the subcommittee members think of this, how much of the above you would say is already done. –SJ talk | translate   15:39, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the current situation is a lot like the Language (sub)committee. The committee was actually a "subcommittee", but then started to manage things separate from the bigger committee, a lot like the current situation here. For all intents and purposes, the current committee is already a "translation committee", so we would just need to rename it to the "Translation committee" as opposed to the "Translation subcommittee".

The current committee is pretty dormant though, and I'm all for getting some fresh blood and reviving it. You should probably mention this on transcom. I've gotta run now actually, so can't say more. Cbrown1023 talk 16:27, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Very quickly because I don't know the committee so well: I think that 1 and 2 are something the [sub]committees members are already doing, but requires a lot of effort from very few people; 3 could perhaps be more appropriate for the LangCom, or some intersection of the two committees; 4 and especially 5 is very much needed, and we should also involve translatewiki community. Nemo 19:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

+1. I think the Foundation was also looking into hiring a staff "Translation Coordinator" or something like that. I could see a nice little setup where that staff member was a regular member of the "translation committee", which had people active on Meta/foundationwiki/etc. and translatewiki, who helped put the committee's work into action. The whole committee would do the types of things that Sam mentioned, and would oversee the translation processes. It might even expand to helping improve Wikipedia translations too. Cbrown1023 talk 00:54, 5 July 2011 (UTC)

Adding to what I've written: I think most of the tasks and stuff on this page are still current, because nobody managed to fix them yet. The new committee should for instance take care of this: [Translators-l] On "core languages", again. Nemo 17:01, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

I've seen that Jon has created Communications subcommittees/Trans/Revamp, so I merged the above proposal by Sj to the page, while some parts of this page still need to be merged into the new one (basically everything except the big table because stats are outdated, and the other stuff made obsolete by the translate extension and new communication venues). By the way, on grounds of the new page I've sent my membership request. --Nemo 04:54, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Nemo, I'm really glad you did! And thanks for the edits on the revamp page. Please edit at will if there is anything else that you think is missing. (I didn't include many of the pages linked from the old page, since they are mostly outdated. I may have missed a few that are still relevant though.) Jon Harald Søby (WMF) (talk) 14:40, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

I've merged the page into the main one; other requests to join the committee are being discussed and more are welcome. --Nemo 07:56, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Translating medical content

I am working on a collaboration with w:en:Translators Without Borders to translate key medical content into other languages. Further details can be found here [1]. What we have accomplished so far is here [2]. People interested in helping would be welcome. Specifically looking for people willing to help integrate already translated content (tags already in place).Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:59, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Status

Is this dead? PiRSquared17 (talk) 18:49, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

No, but it needs some members to become more pro-active. :| --Nemo 20:43, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

What personal details do you need to give to become a member? Just country? PiRSquared17 (talk) 21:36, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Anything further since September? --Base (talk) 07:42, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

--Base (talk) 09:58, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Pretty one. Maybe we should get Aphaia to process the applications and unilaterally make new people join, now that she came back. As the last guy, I don't dare. Nemo 09:26, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Core set of languages, priorities

Reviewing the language priority criteria, i think that criteria 3 should be moved up to number 1. This is both to keep the current cross section of readers and editors from becoming a perpetual status, and to push growth in areas with high potential.

With this in mind it seems that chinese (mandarin) should be moved up to priority 1, as it is not only the most spoken language, but also among the most influential. It is also the most likely common language for translations into a dozen other chinese-family languagues (yue, min, can, wu, etc.), as well as neighboring asian languages (mongolian, koorean, vietnamese, thai, burmese, nepali, etc.)

Despite their current low rank, hindi and bengali should be moved up to priority 3. Both are among the 7 most common native languages, and both can be routes for translations to a dozen other indian-subcontinent languages, as well as to other regional languages. Moving these up in the list of priorities can help to accelerate the growth of content and editors for these language projects. Bcharles (talk) 19:28, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Request, in case anyone is willing and able to help

Wikimedia LGBT is organizing a global campaign called Wiki Loves Pride, which will be held in June and will culminate with a multinational edit-a-thon on June 21. I speak only English, which limits my ability to leverage participation in other languages. Here is a link to the main project page at English Wikipedia. Ideally, there will be similar project pages at Wikipedias of other languages. This would allow collaboration, discussion and the ability to organize events in languages other than English. If any committee members are interested in translating this page into other languages, or forwarding this request to someone who might be willing to help, any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your consideration. --Another Believer (talk) 04:19, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

I should point out that a page at de.Wikipedia was created today. Much appreciated to the individual who responded to my individual request. Hoping this might lead to other translations as well. --Another Believer (talk) 04:21, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

هيثم صادق دبوان سيف

هيثم صادق دبوان سيف اليمن - تعز -شرعب الرونة خريج ثانوية عامة قسم علمي التحق بجامعة إب عام 2012م درس تكنولوجيا معلومات في جامعة إب -كليةالتربية Haithemdbwan (talk) 22:05, 3 February 2017 (UTC)