Dear Greg and all,
Before investing a lot of volunteer labour in translations on Meta, I would
propose that people experiment with the free translation options available
online nowadays (DeepL and Google Translate are the best).
Before I continue, a word of caution: These translations are NOT good
enough to write Wikipedia articles in a foreign language. Any such
translation will require editing (sometimes a lot of editing ...) by a
competent speaker of the target language to make a decent text out of it.
But these machine translations ARE good enough today to make sense of
foreign-language texts – texts of the kind you might find in the Signpost,
or one of its non-English equivalents.
To illustrate the point, here are two translations of a random text taken
from the German Kurier <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Kurier>.
The first translation one is by DeepL, the second one by Google Translate:
---
Digital themed roundtable: Wikimedia Enterprise and Google Knowledge Graph
Wikimedia Enterprise logo.svg
The next Digital Topics Roundtable (DTS) on September 27 (7 p.m.) will
focus on Wikimedia Enterprise and Google Knowledge Graph. The contents of
Wikipedia and Wikidata are in principle freely available to everyone and
can also be used commercially, as long as the source is indicated with the
correct license. Companies that retrieve a lot of data from the two
projects have to pay for it, but then get special access via Wikimedia
Enterprise. The focus of Wikimedia Enterprise is on companies that reuse
our content - typically on a large scale (e.g. integrated in "Knowledge
Graphs", search results, voice assistants, maps, news reports, ...).
Knowledge Graphs are displayed as a box on the right side of Google Search,
for example, and consist of images, maps, important facts ... and give the
reader a brief overview of the searched topic in a prepared form. A short
talk will be given on examples of how Google uses content and on Wikimedia
Enterprise. Afterwards there will be time for discussion and exchange of
experiences.
More information and registration on WP:DTS. We would be pleased about a
numerous participation.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
---
Here is the same text translated by Google Translate
<https://translate.google.com>:
---
Digital Topic Round Table: Wikimedia Enterprise and Google Knowledge Graph
Wikimedia Enterprise logo.svg
The next Digital Topic Round Table (DTS) on September 27 (7 p.m.) will be
about Wikimedia Enterprise and Google Knowledge Graph. In principle, the
contents of Wikipedia and Wikidata are freely available to everyone and can
also be used commercially as long as the source is cited with the correct
license. Companies that retrieve a large amount of data from the two
projects have to pay for it, but then receive special access via Wikimedia
Enterprise. Wikimedia Enterprise's focus is on companies that reuse our
content, typically on a large scale (e.g. integrated into knowledge graphs,
search results, language assistants, maps, news reports, ...). Knowledge
graphs are used e.g. B. in the Google search as a box on the right and
consist of images, maps, important facts ... and give the reader a brief
overview of the searched topic in a prepared form. A short presentation
will cover examples of how content is used by Google and Wikimedia
Enterprise. Afterwards there is time for discussion and exchange of
experiences.
More information and registration on WP:DTS. We would be happy about a
large participation.
---
So there are shortcomings in the translations ("in a prepared form" sounds
odd, for example; the meaning is more like "in a handy format"), but it is
easy enough to get the gist. DeepL has the added advantage that you can
click on any word, whereupon it will offer you a dropdown with alternative
translations of that word. Google presently has the advantage that it
covers more languages than DeepL.
We are a global movement, and we should make more use of the technology
available to us to talk to each other across language barriers. I for one
would love to see newsletters of all languages posted to this list, and/or
linked upon publication on a central page on Meta.
Best,
Andreas
On Mon, Oct 3, 2022 at 9:30 PM Gregory Varnum <gregory.varnum@gmail.com>
wrote:
> The Meta-Wiki based tech newsletter is available in a fair number of
> languages. Perhaps a Meta based truly cross-project newsletter could
> utilize Meta-Wiki?s translation setup to avoid an English-only usage?
>
> -greg
>
> _______________
> Sent from my iPhone - a more detailed response may be sent later.
>
> On Oct 3, 2022, at 9:09 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> ?
> Hoi,
> Be realistic. A newsletter across the Wikimedia Movement would promote
> existing newsletter that mostly in a language people do not understand.
>
> It does not change my point that I do not want to read promotions for a
> product that is not representative while it assumes that it does reflect a
> relevant opinion. An opinion that is mostly negative in its aspirations.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> On Mon, 3 Oct 2022 at 20:28, Rexogamer <beartechtalks@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It might be worth creating a unified "Newsletters across the Wikimedia
>> movement" email, consisting of the Signpost and any other
>> newsletters/publications produced/released by community members that month
>> - are there any other "newspapers"/publications created by Wikimedia
>> communities and released on a regular basis?
>>
>> - Sophie (User:Remagoxer)
>>
>> On Mon, 3 Oct 2022 at 19:23, Risker <risker.wp@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Gerard (and everyone else) -
>>>
>>> I join with others in saying that links to other newsletters published
>>> on our various projects, and in various languages, would be a really
>>> valuable addition to this list. Many of us would really like to learn
>>> about what different projects consider to be important. I'd really like to
>>> encourage that other newsletter links be posted on this list.
>>>
>>> Risker/Anne
>>>
>>> On Mon, 3 Oct 2022 at 07:31, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hoi,
>>>> The problem with the arguments made in the Signpost is that they
>>>> represent English Wikipedia and adhere to what some consider what the pov
>>>> of Wikipedia should be. As a pov it is fine but I do consider it not a
>>>> publication that is representative. As such I do not need the
>>>> advertisements for its publication.
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, 3 Oct 2022 at 06:50, WereSpielChequers <
>>>> werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> While the Signpost is hosted on the English Wikipedia and started as
>>>>> very much an EN Wiki venture, it aspires to be of more general interest.
>>>>> Looking at that specific issue, yes there is much that is mainly English
>>>>> Wikipedia focused, including a small contribution of mine. But some of the
>>>>> content, such as about the WMF elections is of general community interest,
>>>>> and at least one story is about Wikimedia Commons rather than Wikipedia.
>>>>>
>>>>> WSC
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Message: 2
>>>>>> Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2022 16:35:35 +0200
>>>>>> From: Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>
>>>>>> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: The new Signpost is out!
>>>>>> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
>>>>>> Message-ID:
>>>>>> <CAO53wxXgZMW4zGjqoo=xVxu9n0mrnpwJE_7rXUDDnGY4gU=
>>>>>> fWw@mail.gmail.com>
>>>>>> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>>>>>> boundary="000000000000c55e2e05e9fa0636"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hoi,
>>>>>> De Signpost is een publicatie van de Engelse Wikipedia. Waarom wordt
>>>>>> de
>>>>>> Wikimedia mailing list daarmee lastig gevallen?
>>>>>> Vriendelijke groet,
>>>>>> GerardM
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, 1 Oct 2022 at 14:26, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466@gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Name: not available
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> End of Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 613, Issue 1
>>>>>> *******************************************
>>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org,
>>>>> guidelines at:
>>>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>>>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>>>>> Public archives at
>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/EW26JDC3PO2J4TO4K7VODOJ7R4CI75JR/
>>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org,
>>>> guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
>>>> and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>>>> Public archives at
>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/WGGKF3VFLEDRBQHLNHXZOA4L6ZLNJ6JK/
>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
>>> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>>> Public archives at
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/OEAR5Y24T2FMU6Y4BUUHVSDPHGIFMTVP/
>>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
>> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>> Public archives at
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/RL7LLMM7VOMX4CMSXSJIJE63D6COPVY3/
>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/ACFSWOD5KID6N7W4WRX2A7PBTVZAXM7B/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/5A4B2CO47PXVGHZLPYX4YK4XNC5RJLCS/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
Before investing a lot of volunteer labour in translations on Meta, I would
propose that people experiment with the free translation options available
online nowadays (DeepL and Google Translate are the best).
Before I continue, a word of caution: These translations are NOT good
enough to write Wikipedia articles in a foreign language. Any such
translation will require editing (sometimes a lot of editing ...) by a
competent speaker of the target language to make a decent text out of it.
But these machine translations ARE good enough today to make sense of
foreign-language texts – texts of the kind you might find in the Signpost,
or one of its non-English equivalents.
To illustrate the point, here are two translations of a random text taken
from the German Kurier <https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Kurier>.
The first translation one is by DeepL, the second one by Google Translate:
---
Digital themed roundtable: Wikimedia Enterprise and Google Knowledge Graph
Wikimedia Enterprise logo.svg
The next Digital Topics Roundtable (DTS) on September 27 (7 p.m.) will
focus on Wikimedia Enterprise and Google Knowledge Graph. The contents of
Wikipedia and Wikidata are in principle freely available to everyone and
can also be used commercially, as long as the source is indicated with the
correct license. Companies that retrieve a lot of data from the two
projects have to pay for it, but then get special access via Wikimedia
Enterprise. The focus of Wikimedia Enterprise is on companies that reuse
our content - typically on a large scale (e.g. integrated in "Knowledge
Graphs", search results, voice assistants, maps, news reports, ...).
Knowledge Graphs are displayed as a box on the right side of Google Search,
for example, and consist of images, maps, important facts ... and give the
reader a brief overview of the searched topic in a prepared form. A short
talk will be given on examples of how Google uses content and on Wikimedia
Enterprise. Afterwards there will be time for discussion and exchange of
experiences.
More information and registration on WP:DTS. We would be pleased about a
numerous participation.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
---
Here is the same text translated by Google Translate
<https://translate.google.com>:
---
Digital Topic Round Table: Wikimedia Enterprise and Google Knowledge Graph
Wikimedia Enterprise logo.svg
The next Digital Topic Round Table (DTS) on September 27 (7 p.m.) will be
about Wikimedia Enterprise and Google Knowledge Graph. In principle, the
contents of Wikipedia and Wikidata are freely available to everyone and can
also be used commercially as long as the source is cited with the correct
license. Companies that retrieve a large amount of data from the two
projects have to pay for it, but then receive special access via Wikimedia
Enterprise. Wikimedia Enterprise's focus is on companies that reuse our
content, typically on a large scale (e.g. integrated into knowledge graphs,
search results, language assistants, maps, news reports, ...). Knowledge
graphs are used e.g. B. in the Google search as a box on the right and
consist of images, maps, important facts ... and give the reader a brief
overview of the searched topic in a prepared form. A short presentation
will cover examples of how content is used by Google and Wikimedia
Enterprise. Afterwards there is time for discussion and exchange of
experiences.
More information and registration on WP:DTS. We would be happy about a
large participation.
---
So there are shortcomings in the translations ("in a prepared form" sounds
odd, for example; the meaning is more like "in a handy format"), but it is
easy enough to get the gist. DeepL has the added advantage that you can
click on any word, whereupon it will offer you a dropdown with alternative
translations of that word. Google presently has the advantage that it
covers more languages than DeepL.
We are a global movement, and we should make more use of the technology
available to us to talk to each other across language barriers. I for one
would love to see newsletters of all languages posted to this list, and/or
linked upon publication on a central page on Meta.
Best,
Andreas
On Mon, Oct 3, 2022 at 9:30 PM Gregory Varnum <gregory.varnum@gmail.com>
wrote:
> The Meta-Wiki based tech newsletter is available in a fair number of
> languages. Perhaps a Meta based truly cross-project newsletter could
> utilize Meta-Wiki?s translation setup to avoid an English-only usage?
>
> -greg
>
> _______________
> Sent from my iPhone - a more detailed response may be sent later.
>
> On Oct 3, 2022, at 9:09 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> ?
> Hoi,
> Be realistic. A newsletter across the Wikimedia Movement would promote
> existing newsletter that mostly in a language people do not understand.
>
> It does not change my point that I do not want to read promotions for a
> product that is not representative while it assumes that it does reflect a
> relevant opinion. An opinion that is mostly negative in its aspirations.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> On Mon, 3 Oct 2022 at 20:28, Rexogamer <beartechtalks@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> It might be worth creating a unified "Newsletters across the Wikimedia
>> movement" email, consisting of the Signpost and any other
>> newsletters/publications produced/released by community members that month
>> - are there any other "newspapers"/publications created by Wikimedia
>> communities and released on a regular basis?
>>
>> - Sophie (User:Remagoxer)
>>
>> On Mon, 3 Oct 2022 at 19:23, Risker <risker.wp@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Gerard (and everyone else) -
>>>
>>> I join with others in saying that links to other newsletters published
>>> on our various projects, and in various languages, would be a really
>>> valuable addition to this list. Many of us would really like to learn
>>> about what different projects consider to be important. I'd really like to
>>> encourage that other newsletter links be posted on this list.
>>>
>>> Risker/Anne
>>>
>>> On Mon, 3 Oct 2022 at 07:31, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hoi,
>>>> The problem with the arguments made in the Signpost is that they
>>>> represent English Wikipedia and adhere to what some consider what the pov
>>>> of Wikipedia should be. As a pov it is fine but I do consider it not a
>>>> publication that is representative. As such I do not need the
>>>> advertisements for its publication.
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, 3 Oct 2022 at 06:50, WereSpielChequers <
>>>> werespielchequers@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> While the Signpost is hosted on the English Wikipedia and started as
>>>>> very much an EN Wiki venture, it aspires to be of more general interest.
>>>>> Looking at that specific issue, yes there is much that is mainly English
>>>>> Wikipedia focused, including a small contribution of mine. But some of the
>>>>> content, such as about the WMF elections is of general community interest,
>>>>> and at least one story is about Wikimedia Commons rather than Wikipedia.
>>>>>
>>>>> WSC
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Message: 2
>>>>>> Date: Sat, 1 Oct 2022 16:35:35 +0200
>>>>>> From: Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com>
>>>>>> Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Re: The new Signpost is out!
>>>>>> To: Wikimedia Mailing List <wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
>>>>>> Message-ID:
>>>>>> <CAO53wxXgZMW4zGjqoo=xVxu9n0mrnpwJE_7rXUDDnGY4gU=
>>>>>> fWw@mail.gmail.com>
>>>>>> Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>>>>>> boundary="000000000000c55e2e05e9fa0636"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hoi,
>>>>>> De Signpost is een publicatie van de Engelse Wikipedia. Waarom wordt
>>>>>> de
>>>>>> Wikimedia mailing list daarmee lastig gevallen?
>>>>>> Vriendelijke groet,
>>>>>> GerardM
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, 1 Oct 2022 at 14:26, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466@gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> Name: not available
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> End of Wikimedia-l Digest, Vol 613, Issue 1
>>>>>> *******************************************
>>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org,
>>>>> guidelines at:
>>>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>>>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>>>>> Public archives at
>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/EW26JDC3PO2J4TO4K7VODOJ7R4CI75JR/
>>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org,
>>>> guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
>>>> and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>>>> Public archives at
>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/WGGKF3VFLEDRBQHLNHXZOA4L6ZLNJ6JK/
>>>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
>>> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>>> Public archives at
>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/OEAR5Y24T2FMU6Y4BUUHVSDPHGIFMTVP/
>>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
>> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
>> Public archives at
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/RL7LLMM7VOMX4CMSXSJIJE63D6COPVY3/
>> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/ACFSWOD5KID6N7W4WRX2A7PBTVZAXM7B/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org, guidelines
> at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> Public archives at
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org/message/5A4B2CO47PXVGHZLPYX4YK4XNC5RJLCS/
> To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave@lists.wikimedia.org