Wikipedia talk:Pages needing translation into English

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[edit] What to do with articles

What are we saying for this page? Prior to deletion of (say) a Polish page, make sure that it's been placed in the Polish Wikipedia, if we have one? Then delete? Martin 11:37, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Where in the Polish (etc) Wikipedia would you put it? It might be nonsense. We could put it on their village pump maybe and they can decide what to do with it. I wouldn't be happy at putting it in as a real article without knowing whether I was just putting some junk in under a silly title. Personally, I'd be happy to delete these under the "no useful content" ruling but an alternative would be to lengthen the VfD time on these to 2 or 3 weeks and expect the Polish (or whatever language it is) ambassador to come and look at it. If no-one comes for it within 3 weeks, it can be deleted. Angela 18:22, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
I like the idea of just having a longer VfD time (2 weeks?), perhaps coupled with a boilerplate notice, and then delete it. I'll advertise this on wikipedia:votes for deletion, wikipedia:embassy, wikipedia:village pump. Martin 19:47, 8 Sep 2003 (UTC)
New instructions and boilerplate added. I think it's a good idea to try and contact the ambassador of the Wikipedia concerned rather than just hope they come looking for it! I have put this in the instructions. Angela 23:00, Sep 21, 2003 (UTC)

I can make a language recognition chart with which one could tell in which language a text is by looking up letters specific to that language. How should I name the article? Nikola 12:47, 24 Oct 2003 (UTC)

That would be really helpful. I'm not sure about a title. I can't think of anything other than Wikipedia:Language recognition chart at the moment. Would that do? Angela 02:00, Oct 25, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Name of this page

I propose renaming this page. Things listed here often aren't things which need deleting; they just need translating. Would Wikipedia:Pages needing translation be a better title to reflect this? Perhaps if things aren't translated within two weeks (maybe longer?), they get moved to the main VfD. Any objections? Angela. 04:39, 23 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I like this proposal. :) Martin 17:50, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)
It took you nearly two months to decide that? :) Page now moved. Angela. 02:31, Feb 16, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] When something placed in this page is just a copy from another Wikipedia...

When something placed in this page is just a copy from another Wikipedia, maybe we should just delete the article and place a request for translation in Wikipedia:Translation into English instead. Otherwise, we seem to be encouraging people to get priority for their translations by the annoying act of cutting and pasting from another Wikipedia into the English-language Wikipedia. -- Jmabel 21:39, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

That makes sense... Martin 22:25, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I agree. I've added it to point 8 of Wikipedia:Candidates for speedy deletion. Angela. 22:55, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Given the apparent consensus, I'll add a note to the page itself. -- Jmabel 05:59, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hello: Also given the apparent consensus, should those articles that User:Darwinek has brought in in the last couple days from the French wk (on African politicians) and the German wk be moved to Wikipedia:Translation into English? Mona-Lynn 01:22, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I dropped a note on his talk page, basically letting him know that the way he did this is unwelcome; if an anon had done, this, I'd just speedy-delete, but I'm giving him 24 hours to do whatever he wants: start the translations of some himself, whatever. I suggested he might want to take these to Wikipedia:Translation into English instead; if you want to follow up further, feel free. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:06, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Ok, this page got duplicated somehow, not sure what to do about it though... should I add Éric to both?! Pakaran. 02:08, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be somehow integrated with Wikipedia:Translation into English? --Smack 01:23, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think not. They point to each other. They have somewhat different purposes, and this one is a lot more volatile. I'm guessing that a lot of people who have either one on their watchlist have both, but still, there are probably more than a few who want to monitor only one of the two. We used to have about 4 pages related to this sort of thing; we refactored about half a year ago, and both of these seemed to deserve to exist. -- Jmabel 06:32, Jul 31, 2004 (UTC)
The two pages seem very different to me. Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English is more related to VfD, so is likely to be watched by people wanting to do maintenance, not just those wanting to do translations. I think they ought to remain separate. Angela. 01:26, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Where do they go?

If I post a negative comment on an item here, implying that it's not worth translating, and then the next day the item's gone but hasn't shown up on VfD, does that mean it's been speedied? Just wondering. I only found this page yesterday. (Obviously, I'm delighted to have seen the last of Pegöj, if that was what happened to it.) Bishonen 12:59, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

If something is a candidate for speedy deletion, it can be speedily deleted, even if listed here first. Similarly, if something listed here is a copyvio, it will be moved to Wikipedia:Copyright problems. If you look at the page history, you will see Pegöj was deleted:
05:42, Aug 20, 2004 Jmabel (August 18th - speedy-deleted Peg%F8j)
Angela. 13:45, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)
Also, if you look at the page history for Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English you'll see I made an explicit change comment here as well about removing it for that reason. -- Jmabel 19:50, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)
    • Thank you both. I don't know why I didn't think to look at the page history. But also, I wanted to understand the general principle, and now I do - thanks, Angela. I'll look in again, keeping an eye out for bad Scandinavian jokes. Bishonen 23:54, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[edit] {{cleanup-translation}} vs. {{notenglish}}

What's the difference between {{cleanup-translation}} and {{notenglish}}? The newer template isn't mentioned on this page at all. 68.81.231.127 06:57, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I"m just guessing -- and whoever created {{cleanup-translation}} should chime in -- but I imagine the latter is for pages that have been basically translated, and are certainly no longer in danger of being VfD'd for not being in English, but where cleanup work remains, presumably corresponding to Translated pages that could still use some cleanup. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:07, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)
That was my original thought, but it's not what it says: "This article is in a language other than English. An accurate translation should be made. Please remove this notice after this has been done." does refer to this page but suggests the article as a whole needs translation. I'll leave a note over at Wikipedia talk:Cleanup and ask them to come over. 68.81.231.127 10:05, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Mine too. In basic agreement with Jmabel, I'd think we ought reserve notenglish for artciles with no significant English content, or where it's not clear that it's an appropriate English WP entry, and cleanup-translation for one that's in some sense on its way to being one. Alai 19:59, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User pages entirely not-in-English?

Are non-English User: pages covered here? (Or covered at all, indeed?) They seem a little pointless, but perhaps "mostly harmless" due to not being part of the Wikipedia proper. Alai 02:47, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Totally legitimate to write your user page in any language you want. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:45, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A template suggestion

Unlike Template:Copyvio, Template:Notenglish doesn't hint that the article should be listed on this page ("This page is now listed on Wikipedia:Copyright problems"). It might be a good idea to add similar wording to notenglish (and Template:Cleanup-translation as well, until that is resolved). 68.81.231.127 12:44, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I now did this for Template:Notenglish. I don't know what to say about Template:Cleanup-translation at the moment: no one seems to be replying to my suggestions at Wikipedia talk:Cleanup about clarifying what the heck it is for. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:19, Jan 31, 2005 (UTC)
I was bold, and updated Template:Cleanup-translation. I'll list the steps on this page, as well. I'm not going to bother tracking references to it down in the rest of the namespace, since the new cleanup procedures are controversial and may change. 68.81.231.127 23:41, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Done. If the ultimate decision is to do away with the new template, that's fine, too. But at least this is more in keeping with established practices. 68.81.231.127 23:50, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I came across an article (Koryčany) that was tagged with the "Needs translation" template and translated it, but didn't know what to do next. I gather I'm supposed to delete the template from that article and if the page is listed here (which it wasn't), delete it from the list here? The template is clear in spelling out the doom that will befall an article if it is not translated, but surprisingly reticent about the procedure to be followed if someone wants to help. DSatz 14:17, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
It sounds like you worked it out. Feel free to add further instructions to the template if you think it needs them. - Jmabel | Talk 06:56, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A way-this-page-works suggestion

Just a thought here, but when one adds the {{notenglish}} tag to an article, can it get put on here automatically? Or is there a different place for that? Jeshii 01:31, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

  • Oh, nevermind... There is... Sorry. Jeshii 01:39, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Firgas

I have just translated the article on Firgas, a town of Las Palmas, one of the Canary Islands. However, I have also edited it, since the original included several "advertising placements" such as restaurants and the like. Should I replace the article? I'll save it on my HD until I get an answer. Thanks!

Diego440 17:25, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, absloutely, we always remove that kind of crap while translating puff pieces. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:57, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pages for Consideration section

Wondering whether the "Pages for Consideration" section could have the most recently-added material on top and oldest on the bottom, or is there a reason it's not like that at the moment? Mona-Lynn 11:33, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • I don't think that there is a specific reason, but even the other part is oldest on top, newer near the bottom. Convenience, perhaps? :-)) Lectonar 13:50, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • This is ordered in the same direction as WP:VFD and WP:CP. Certainly, within any given day, people are going to add at the bottom of that day's material. What would be the gain in going the other direction? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:01, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)
      • Just easier to find what's most recent and less scrolling. You can't just go right to the bottom of the page (CTRL-End) immediately since unfinished work is listed there. Mona-Lynn 01:14, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • I'd really rather keep this as it is: it's of just as much concern what is oldest as what is newest, and I think this is easier to maintain. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:11, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Help needed

For over a year I've been the main person tending this page: looking for completed translations and copy editing them; getting copyvios, vfds, and completed translations out of here; occasionally soliciting help from specific translators; moving comments, when appropriate, to article talk pages or to VfD subpages, etc. I'm currently pretty busy, and from approximately May 20, 2005 to June 12, I expect to be so busy that I will have almost no time for Wikipedia. Would someone like to take over this role for a while? -- Jmabel | Talk 06:45, Apr 30, 2005 (UTC)

This page is on my watchlist and I've made a note in my calendar to monitor it in that period. Sietse 08:57, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thanks/Grácias/Merci/Takk/Mulţumesc/ευχαριστω/Danke/Grazie/Arigato/Спасибо! Oh, and I just thought of one other task: looking once a week or so at Category:Pages needing translation for things people forgot to list. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:45, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
You're welcome/graag gedaan/de rien/bitte schön/de nada; and I'll keep an eye on that one too. Sietse 10:09, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
Category has been renamed as Category:Wikipedia articles needing translation. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:34, August 30, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Machine-translated pages?

What should be done with machine-translated pages? (Case in point: Goethe Tower, babelfished from de:Goetheturm.) {{notenglish}} surely doesn't fit, {{cleanup-translation}} is inappropriate, and plain {{cleanup}} seems too general. --Cryptic (talk) 05:48, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • I think {{cleanup-translation}} is appropriate in this case: it needs someone who speaks German to take a look at it before it goes any further in Wikipedia. Physchim62 06:25, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal to change CSD

There is a draft proposal to change the criteria for speedy deletion so that articles become speedy-deletable after fourteen days here (instead of going to VfD as at present). Voting is not yet open, but editors who work on this page may wish to add their comments to mine, and keep an eye open for the opening of the vote. Physchim62 4 July 2005 08:31 (UTC)

  • The proposal mentioned above is now open for voting. Radiant_>|< July 5, 2005 13:50 (UTC)

The proposal mentioned above failed with only ~42% support (70% needed to pass). A related proposal to make machine translations speedy-deletable also failed. Physchim62 17:54, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

A shame I missed the vote. You would have had mine. Honestly, I would support changing CSD to include any article written in the wrong language. I'm all for translations from different wikipedias, but it seems to me that if someone has the know-how to write a good article, they will have the know-how to figure out how wikipedia works. Mistercow 22:41, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

  • I never saw the proposal to make machine translations spedy deletable. Where was that? It certainly wasn't announced here. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:52, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Related project

I wanted to draw attention to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles/fr, which is a project to identify interwiki links, and sometimes requires translation into English if wikipedias in other languages have entries on topics which do not yet have an English-language entry.

I can also volunteer my services as a French-to-English translator, if new entries are discovered in the English-language wikipedia which have been written in French. I will add the main page for this project to my watch list, and if someone adds an entry that needs French translation, I'll try to check it out.Mamawrites 05:03, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] anisete46 translation proposal

I've been trying to add my name to the available translators page but find the instructions too confusing. Please help anisete46 21:14, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure what page you are referring to, or what language. If if you can't work out how to just parallel how someone else has listed themself on the relevant page, say here what page and what language(s) you are talking about & I'll do it for you. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:00, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] How do you find these things?

I review this page almost every day, and try to help with identifying a language or something, if I can, and am very happy if I can actually translate something. My question is, how do you people find non-English pages here? Special:Newpages is huge, and good for finding pages to mark as CSD, but I haven't really succeded in finding non-English articles through it. So, how do you check for/find pages that get listed here? Solver 17:10, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

When editors find an article in a foreign language, they should tag it with {{notenglish}} and list it here. Even if they forget to list it on this page, the tag places the article in Category:Wikipedia articles needing translation, and #StrongHint any helpful soul can check the category and list "missing" articles on this page! Physchim62 (talk) 10:58, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, that's not what I meant though. I meant, how does anyone find an article in a foreign language in the first place? I sometimes watch Special:Newpages, or use CryptoDerk's tool to spot shady edits, but I have never found a non-English article myself, without referring here. Solver 13:44, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I for one find them when I'm on RC-Patrol (on the left side on the tool-bar, Recent changes); I take a closer look at suspicious new articles, and: voilà! Lectonar 13:47, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Guess I'll have to dedicate more time to RC patrolling :). Solver 14:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Physchim, very nice, err, strong hint, just resulted in me adding 17 articles to the list! Solver 14:14, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Because these almost all come from anons, that gives some clue what to watch for on new page patrol. Also, because they sometimes come in groups, once you find that someone did one of these, you can look for other contributions from the same source. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:26, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion after 2 weeks?

What is the mechanism for getting atricles deleted which have been listed where for a while, yet never translated? notenglish says that articles which have been tagged for two weeks are subject to deletion... yet we have articles back to Oct 30 (six weeks ago) which are still around.

Should we be automatically adding these to WP:AFD? Or can they even be speedied (since they've already been here for two weeks with no translation)? Jamie 09:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Do not speedy unless they really seem like they should have been speedied in the first place (nonsense, blatant vanity, etc.). We have about a 20% rescue rate for these on AfD. So it's AfD, or transwiki if that seems more appropriate. Or stubbify, and make a remark in "talk" so the old, untranslated material can be easily discovered.
When you start the AfD, say that it sat here over 14 days; cut the item from this page and paste the discussion we've had here to the AfD page.
I used to do nearly all the maintenance on this page myself, but the last 9 months or so I've been too busy. Thanks for helping (ditto to everyone else who has been helping). -- Jmabel | Talk 22:27, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
OK. I've done AfD's for some of the oldest items, and I'll do some more. Jamie
Sometimes it's not that easy to do the work in the said 2 weeks, especially for large articles, or for when they are on a very specialized (or obscure) subject, or when translators aren't as easily available. The latter would probably be true for most languages other than Spanish/French/German or a very few others... I think it might be quite reasonable if we do allow more time for such translations once they're past the initial quick check and don't appear sheer nonsense or a copyvio. Not sure just how much more time :), but say, another couple of weeks maybe? I personally, am inclined to rely on fair judgment of the fellow PNT-ers in this regard, and not insist on strict timelines... what do others think? - Introvert talk 05:30, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
This is the English wikipedia; we don't really want articles on other languages lying around that someone may browse or random-article to -- it looks bad. It seems to me that if after two weeks nobody has at least indicated interest in an article, then it should get AfD'ed. Of course the article doesn't necessarily get deleted once it's on AfD. I have seen aritcles get rescued (translated and voted as keep), just because of WP:AFD has a more readers than WP:PNT. So while I don't think timelines need to be 100% strict, we should definitely enforce the two week rule if nobody has "adopted" the article. Jamie 08:07, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
We aren't required to take an article to AfD after 14 days, but if no one has "adopted" it, and there has been no work on it, I think we generally should. BTW, feel free to recruit people to adopt a translation. There are a lot of people on Wikipedia:Translators available. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:24, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Jamie, it doesn't look good to allow foreign-language articles for too long. But that's in theory and in my wishful thinking -- and in reality, we might risk losing many of non-mainstream language articles (if I may call them that :). If we can do them quickly, would be great; if we simply cannot because of lack of resources... won't it be a shame to have potentially valuable information lost. But let's try and see, and hope it will work well, may be it's just my less than modest experience speaking here :) - Introvert talk 08:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I can only agree with the rest of the comments. I have been helping to look after this page for the last six months or so, but I have had less time this month. Remember that there are no special speedy criteria for foreign language articles, unless it is a copy-and-paste from another Wikipedia; equally, there are no special rules for an AfD, and the rescue rate is non-negligeable. If you post an AfD, say that it comes from this page: that way you show that you are helping in WikiCleanup rather than just being biaised against foreign language pages (there are editors which show such a biais). Equally, if you mark for speedy you can mention that the article has been discussed here: this reassures some admins about speedying articles they don't understand themselves. If you're unsure what to do, leave a comment such as "I would speedy this" or "I think this is going to have to go to AfD", then wait 24 hours to see if anyone objects! Physchim62 (talk) 09:19, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] When pages don't match

Alfajor and es:Alfajor are similar, but don't match; the Spanish version has quite a bit more content. What's the best procedure for importing the new content - translate the Spanish one and delete what's here? Try to merge the two? I'm happy to do the work, but could use a little guidance. Thanks. | Klaw ¡digame! 23:11, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Am I understanding your question correctly: you would like to enhance the article here in the English wiki by way of adding the content from the Spanish version? If the current content in English is wrong, you'd want to make a correction; if the content is missing, youd' want to merge. Correct? -- I can't see any problem with you doing that, both if you want to do the translation yourself or if you for any reason cannot. If you'd rather request a translation, you could list it on the WP:TIE page and specify the article to translate from (:es:Alfajor) , the destination article (:en:Alfajor), and mention that the article in English already exists but needs to be expanded! There are examples of such requests, see for instance the Dutch-to-English section, or Esperanto, or French... Hope I got it right for you :) please post further if I didn't - Introvert talk 23:46, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
you would like to enhance the article here in the English wiki by way of adding the content from the Spanish version? That's the crux of my question: Is it better to merge, or to wipe out the English and start over by translating the Spanish (/Dutch/Swahili/whatever)? Sounds to me from your response like it's better to merge than to start over. | Klaw ¡digame! 05:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Do whichever you think will more rapidly produce a decent article. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:16, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
For me, there's no question that's starting over. If I do that - I've been banging out fresh articles today where there was no en: article - I'll note it on the talk page. Thanks. | Klaw ¡digame! 04:19, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Speedy pages available anywhere else?

Currently non-English pages are speediable if they are available on another wikipedia. Would anyone object if non-English pages available anywhere else became speedy candidates too? They are almost certainly copyvio, and no information would be lost by the deletion. Kappa 21:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

You are proposing a new criterion for speedy deletion. This would have to be proposed on Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion. If there was positive consensus about it, then it would have to through the proper channels to become WIkipedia policy. (See the discussion on the extension of CSD A7 for how that might work.) This might be feasible, but it would be a lot of work. Wikipedians seem to be resistant to expansion of the criteria for speedy deletion.
On the other hand, if the page is a clear copyvio, and is <48h old, it can be speedied as blatant copyvio, CSD A8. That may catch enough of these that your proposal may not be necessary. Segv11 (talk/contribs) 23:26, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
  • To be speedied as copyvio, you have to establish it's from a commercial content provider. This isn't so easy with foreign language websites. Kappa 23:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
    • True (unfornutately). Well, you're welcome to propose this, either as entension to A2, an extension to A8 (unlikely, people are reluctant to change one iota of A8), or as a new CSD. I'd support such a proposal. But as you seem to know your way around WP:CSD, I'm sure you also know the uphill battle involved in changing them. Segv11 (talk/contribs) 05:19, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] translators

Is it worth using translators such as google translator to translate articles, or should we wait for someone who can speak both languages to do it? -- Astrokey44|talk 08:31, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Machine translations are usually no good for our purposes. They always need to be redone completely. There is a list of available translators if you want anything translated right away.--Fenice 08:37, 14 January 2006 (UTC)
  • As it says on WP:TIE: "machine-translated material dumped into the English-language Wikipedia is worse than nothing." - Jmabel | Talk 06:04, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Machine-translated entries

A lot of the pages at Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:RoughTranslation appear to be machine-translated. Wouldn't it be better to delete them and list them at Wikipedia:Translation into English instead of keeping these mostly horrible pages? I don't see why babelfished pages should be treated any better than foreign-language pages, which are automatically AfD'd after two weeks. Is there some policy about this? Kusma (討論) 22:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

As indicated on WP:TIE, machine-translated pages are worse than nothing. If that's what they are, they probably should be deleted. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:26, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
So I assume that for articles such as University of Rostock the correct procedure would be to revert to the pre-machine-translated stub [1] and place a request at Wikipedia:German-English translation requests to translate the .de article on which the current jibberish is based [2]? --BadSeed 02:11, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
That is precisely what I suggest to do. (I can't say anything about "correct", I am trying to formulate a process for this but there does not seem to be a policy). For pages in Category:Rough translations about a notable topic, for example, Lübeck Cathedral, I have started to improve them into stubs and put them at Wikipedia:German-English translation requests or WP:TIE. Simply trying to delete these pages through AfD would just mean that some well-meaning editor will produce a bad version of the article from the Babelfish nonsense (unfortunately the quality of an article is almost irrelevant at AfD if the topic is clearly notable), so I hope that writing a decent stub or even a substub and listing for translation produces the best final result. Kusma (討論) 00:46, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I have reverted the University of Rostock article without filing a translation request. The article isn't great now, but improved (and Wikipedia:German-English translation requests is badly backlogged) If there is a halfway decent English version, I think it should always be reverted to without thinking twice. Kusma (討論) 04:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Using the new proposed deletion process

Should we start using {{prod}} for deletion, at least as a test? After all, we are using AfD as a "last resort" cleanup, and usually pages are either translated by being on AfD or deleted uncontestedly. This is precisely what the new "proposed deletion" process is for. If we use something like

{{prod|Untranslated Spanish article about reggae band, see [[WP:PNT#Mekatelyu]]}}

people watching the proposed deletions here could still save the article from deletion for the same five days as on AfD, but with less bureaucratic overhead. We could just add a section "Proposed for deletion" at the top and move the oldest entries there, and wait until the link turns red to remove them. In fact, if nobody objects, I would like to start using this process for the next articles that should be AfD'd. Kusma (討論) 02:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Do I understand that this means having to watchlist a page that is not in en:, which would only be relevant if you (1) take an account on this other wiki and (2) log into it often enough to make it relevant that you are watchlisting there? That would be useless to me; I don't know about others. - Jmabel | Talk 18:05, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
You are incorrect. The list of articles proposed for deletion is also available on this wiki here or as Category:Proposed deletion. The above link to wikimedia.de does not go to a different wiki, but to the toolserver (which happens to be on a .de domain for historical reasons), on which pages can't be watchlisted anyway. An explanation of the process is at WP:PROD. Maybe we should wait another month until the process becomes more mainstream, though. Kusma (討論) 18:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup section

I have reorganized this section and ordered the entries by the month in which the translation was finished/cleanup request was made. The heading depth is now such that translated entries can be copied from the "Pages for consideration" section to the "Translated pages that could still use some cleanup" section by cut and paste without further editing. Probably many pages can be removed from here, though. Unfortunately translating is so much more fun than translation cleanup. Kusma (討論) 03:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Hard work, but thanks for doing it! Isopropyl 04:39, 29 March 2006 (UTC)


There is asking. The further completion of the article in Nissan K10 type the March isrequested.

・Nissan Micra(→K10 (1982-1992))

・Nissan　MA

・March turbo (TYPE 1)(TYPE 2)(MA10ET)　

・MA09ERT

・March　R/March Superturbo R(EK10FR)

・March Superturbo(EK10GFR)

・Nissan Be-1(E-BK10)

・Nissan Pao(E-PK10)

・Nissan Figaro(E-PK10)


My contribution article Because a former article is Japanese An accurate English translation or retouch request is done. --ek-10st Toyama 14:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)ダブルチャージクラブ、ek-10stとやま

↑母国語表記。 完全な英語での翻訳依頼。 私がそちらの方に投稿し始めている、 日産・マーチk10型の車種に対する全文記事は、 原文が日本語である為、 私の英文力では及ばない物もあるので、 完全なる英語加筆を希望します。 --ek-10st Toyama 14:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)ダブルチャージクラブ、ek-10stとやま

[edit] What is this good for?

Sorry for this provoking question, but what is the value if this page?

Someone writes or copies a random non-English text to the English Wikipedia. Then people here try to first guess the language and then wait for two weeks whether someone will translate the article.

As an example, Archbishopric Strasbourg contains the untranslated text from the German Wikipedia plus an English stub text. If someone wants to expand the English stub text and speaks German, it's an easy guess that the link to the German Wikipedia might show additional information worth being translated.

I see that there's often a value in getting texts translated (and there are already projects translating articles covering specific topics from other language Wikipedias). But why does pasting the text to the English Wikipedia make the translation more worthy or urgent?

Or for making my point more clear: Would it be considered OK if I'd paste five random articles a day from foreign language Wikipedias into the English Wikipedia without ever bothering to translate them? If you say yes, I might be crazy enough to actually do this (since it's nearly zero work for me)... Deleteme42 01:17, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

You would be blocked for disruption per WP:POINT if you did that. As for Archbishopric Strasbourg: This is not what this page is for. We keep some of these requests here because somebody sometimed does translate them, but generally untranslated texts by newbies get more attention here. I'll go and do some editing on that page now to turn it at least into a bad English stub. Kusma (討論) 01:33, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I do discuss it here and not trying to prove it experimentally, but I hope you are understanding in which direction I am thinking. I'm not against helping newbies with translations. What about the following constructive suggestion: Change the rules to let the newbie create an English language stub and move the foreign language text to the talk page of the new article? This way you can still focus on helping people with the additional benefit that you'll see pretty quick whether it's a newbie actually wanting to translate the article himself or someone only dumping a random untranslated text. Deleteme42 01:52, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, that (reduce to stub, move content to talk page or comment about its removal in edit summary) is basically what I do after two weeks if nothing happens to an article with an English stub. Many of the people who submit foreign text here (about half of which is copyvio) disappear and never come back, though. We could delete their articles right away, but perhaps keeping them around for a while and possibly translating them results in the better encyclopedia. I don't believe we need more rules for this page. Kusma (討論) 02:06, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Someone translates a text then someone else notes it might be a copyvio. Or the result of the translation is too bad. Wouldn't it be more effective if you'd instead concentrate your work on the people who are willing to translate their foreign language texts? Deleteme42 02:15, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Also, you are perfectly entitled to your opinion that this page is useless. As it does produce good articles sometimes, I disagree. Some people like translating, and the random usually short pages that show up here are often more fun than some of the requests at WP:TIE. Kusma (討論) 01:35, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
There might be a few good articles, but unfortunately they seem to be the exception. Deleteme42 02:05, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
With its cleanup section, this page actually has some level of quality control, unlike many other parts of Wikipedia. Kusma (討論) 02:06, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
That other areas are worse isn't an excuse. Deleteme42 02:09, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
You know, we are all volunteers and do what we like to do, and some of us like to work here. You can suggest how to make our work more efficient (for example, we should use the Babel categories to invite people to coment more often instead of just hoping they'll come over), but do you want to suggest we should stop doing this? Kusma (討論) 02:16, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
I have a completely different idea: My main problem with these articles is that the untranslated or poorly translated articles show up as regular articles. What about moving e.g. an untranslated article Foo to Pages needing translation into English/Foo, translating it there, and moving it back to the regular place only if it results in an article of reasonable quality? Deleteme42 02:27, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
That is a possible model. In fact, that is how I do my own translations: in my user space. I just feel it is a bit m:Instruction creep and not really needed since the two weeks of having an untranslated article (currently less than 50 of over 1 million articles) in the main space is such a bad thing. I am all for immediatism when it comes to speedy deleting attack pages, reverting vandalism, and blocking vandals, but as long as the pages here are under control, I don't see them doing much harm. Kusma (討論) 02:36, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
In fact, I would go so far as to say that articles not in English do not even constitute a notably high percentage of the really lousy articles in the English Wikipedia, but thanks to this project they are among the more likely to be fixed. - Jmabel | Talk 19:01, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Order

Why is the list in order from oldest to newest? This is contrary to how most pages like this are set up and is a bit confusing. --W.marsh 17:00, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What to do when cleanup finished

I've worked on the article Auguste Toubeau which had been translated but needed further work. Now it's not necessarily perfect but doesn't suffer from major translation problems any more. However, it's not clear from this page what I need to do next. I don't want to delete all reference to it but shouldn't it be marked out as different from the rest?Itsmejudith 11:45, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

You can delete it from this page now, as it doesn't need translation anymore. Lectonar 06:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
And you can tag it with {{Cleanup-translation}} if you think it needs further work. - Jmabel | Talk 06:57, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Warning Template for Article Creators

I have no ability to create templates, but I do think it would be nice if there was a uniform warning that could be placed on the talk pages of users who post non-English articles. What do people think of this, and is there a proposal process, especially since I would not be the one making the template? -Fsotrain09 17:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Sweet idea; the problem I see is: will the users be capable of understanding the warning? One gets the impression that at least some of them just 'drop' the article into namespace without caring if it's in another language. So let's just wait for reactions now, and someone could do the template without proposal process to incorporate it into Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace. Lectonar 07:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
There already exists {{UE}} for an English warning and we also have some foreign-language warnings. Kusma (討論) 10:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Live and learn. Thanks. Lectonar 10:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
I took the liberty and added the links to the project-page. Thanks again, Kusma. Lectonar 11:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
Ah, good. Thank you, Kusma. -Fsotrain09 13:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] CAT:PNT

The category is pretty full. All pages need to be checked and (possibly) listed here: many people forget to list here and only use the template. Kusma (討論) 12:16, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Some days ago I started weeding it out (just by comparing it to the listing on the project page) and it is very tedious work; I try to do a bit every day; help would indeed be very welcome, but I don't think it is urgent right now. Lectonar 12:25, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Great! I just wanted to make sure I'm not the only one who remembers that the category exists and needs to be checked every once in a while. I'll try to help out if I don't forget. Kusma (討論) 12:37, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I am glad you asked, I meant to ask myself... summertime. I wasn't sure about the articles in CAT:PNT (was half of the heap if not more) that were tagged with {{translate}} yet don't quite fit WP:PNT - they seem to be brought over from other lang wikis, some of them listed on WP:TIE. I am wondering if it would it be a good idea to simply de-tag those listed on WP:TIE? or what would be a better way? - Introvert • ~ 07:45, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Some of them clearly belong in this category here (ideally those which we discover somehow, and which do not have corresponding articles in other languages), and so PNT is the page where they should go; if they are simply brought in from other language wikis to be translated, they should be listed in Wikipedia:Translation into English, under the appropriate language of course. Lectonar 08:00, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Right. Thanks for confirming - for now, I lightened up the category just a little bit by taking the template out of those pages which were already listed on WP:GTIE, will do more cleanup as time permits. Regards - Introvert • ~ 02:39, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Translation request

En How if the Nissan March article on that English version Wikipedia also unites, takes, translates the content of the article from a Japanese version, and the content is updated slowly in synchronization though the content has been greatly updated to the Nissan Motor Co. article on Japanese version Wikipedia, Nissan, the March， and the article on K10 type MA engine car by my work's working because it is exhausted I feel the fine nuance because it is not so good at English composition though the translation work is done as much as possible at me either there is crossing. Please examine it above.

  • Nissan March ja.wikipedia

ja日産・マーチ[3] ja

[edit] 翻訳依頼

日本語版ウィキペディアの日産自動車記事と日産・マーチ、K10型MAエンジン車の記事に尽きましては、私の仕事の働きにより大幅に内容更新していますが、そちらの英語版ウィキペディアの日産マーチ記事も日本語版から記事内容を組みとり翻訳して、連動でそろそろ内容更新されてはいかがでしょうか。私の方でも翻訳作業は出来る限り、行っていますが英作文はあまり上手くありませんので細かいニュアンスは行き違いが有るかと感じています。以上、ご検討の程,よろしくお願いします。 --ek-10st Toyama 20:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)/ek-10stとやま

Babelfish translation follows:
Running out in the article of the Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. article and the NISSAN march and the K10 model MA engine car of Japanese edition <Wikipedia>, contents it has renewed substantially with the function of my work, but also the NISSAN march article of that English edition <Wikipedia> uniting article contents from Japanese edition and taking and translating, contents being renewed gradually with gearing how probably will be? Translation job, has gone as much as possible even with my one, but as for the Eisaku sentence being not to be good excessively, as for the small nuance that you feel whether there is crossing each other. Above, about examination, we ask may.
Please use talk pages for English content. thanks --Storkk 00:17, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I believe this section is just the Japanese version of the request in the previous section, "Translation request". Ek-10stToyama is trying to say that he has recently updated the ja.WP article on the Nissan March and thinks the en.WP article should be kept in-sync. He will try to translate as much as he can but is not very good writing English and is afraid he will miss a lot of the fine nuances. He'd like someone to look into it.
Of course, anyone capable of helping out didn't need me to translate for them. Template:Smiley
-- Meyer 06:35, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Slonovski Bal

Teh follosing material was deleted from the main page as misplaced:

Removed material that was a copvio, copied from http://www.worldmusiccentral.org/artists/artist_page.php?id=2032

Slonovski Bal was founded in 1998 in Paris By Theodore Vukmirovic and Dario Ivkovic two Serbian musician. Line-up : Dario Ivkovic - Accordeon / Tosha Vukmirovic - Saxophone & Clarinette / Gilles Sarrabezolles – Trumpet / Alon Peylet - Tuba & Trombone / Manel Girard - Tuba / Denys Danielides - Helicon / Nicolas Perruche – Tapan (Traditionnal Balkan percussion) Slonovski Bal shared the stage with Hasan Arymdünia, Ivo Papasov, Emir Kusturica, Bratsch, Kocani orkestar, Romano drom, Mitsou, Boban Markovic, Shantel and many many more ... Slonovski Bal worked with: Bojan Z & Karim Ziad for Banlieue Bleue Festival (Fr.) , Julien Loureau for special show in Paris, Vladimir Cosma for the movie “Albert est méchant”, Erevan Rabiz Band for the show “Orient Express”, Shantel from bucovina Club, Sulukule Ensemble Slonovski Bal are in collaboration with Bratsch, Mitsou, Papier d’Arménie, Denis Cuniot in the show “ Gens de passage”. Touring in Europe in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 & 2007. Based in Paris Slonovski Bal played last eight years more than 400 gigs all over europe and in North-America. Discography 2001 // Balkanska Rumba (Balbazar/Alsur) 2004 // Balkan Merak (Balbazar) 2006 // Dzumbus (Balbazar)

Anyone want to figure out whether this warrants an article? Williamborg (Bill) 01:56, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I removed some blatant copyvio material. The rest of this seems to come more or less from http://www.slonovskibal.com/web/GB/ref.htm. They'd be a perfectly legitimate topic for an article, but other than indirectly suggesting a couple of sources, I'd say that what is above would not be much better than starting from scratch. - Jmabel | Talk 23:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A more admin-friendly wording of the template may be needed

Recently I have seen a number of articles disappear from beneath our feet. Today the article Slang Ozzanese was deleted by an admin within hours of its being listed here. My impression, having glanced at it, was that the article was junk. But I do feel that it should have left alone for our consideration for a while, particularly because the reason given for deletion was ‘not English’. Sözler, despite being a clearly notable topic for an encyclopedia went the same way on the basis that it was ‘patent nonsense’. Was it? I don’t know, as I don’t speak Turkish. But the admin makes no userpage claim to knowledge of the language. I just wonder whether we ought to make the template a bit more clear to passing admins. Like ‘Relax don’t do it: this article is not in English and is probably nonsense/vanity/copy-vio. But don’t delete it yet: we are looking at it and it is may to turn out to be good. If it turns out to be bad, we will delete ruthlessly.’ —Ian Spackman 23:33, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Template language.... How about: Attention Administrators: this template indicates an article listed at Pages needing translation, and is intended to facilitate translation of non-English language articles in the article namespace of the English Wikipedia to ensure that the articles can be accurately judged against the criteria for inclusion. Please allow time for the articles to be assessed and possibly translated. -Fsotrain09 00:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
Sometimes I wish I had that kind of facility with the English language. Well—most times. ;) —Ian Spackman 00:40, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I've restored Sözler: it still needs translation. - Jmabel | Talk 04:27, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clean-up Articles

The list of articles requiring cleanup is really growing, and not so much progress is being made... I wonder if it might not be better to rearrange it by language? I think it might encourage participation, and would also make it easier for people from different Wikiprojects to find articles they might be interested in cleaning up.

I know it seems counter-intuitive, as most a lot of the clean-ups could theoretically be done by anyone, but I wonder if it might not be a good way to get more people involved in the clean-up effort? --Sepa 23:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I for one think that is a very good idea, Sepa. It would make finding articles in the translator's language of fluency easier, and just provide more meaning organization in general. -Fsotrain09 23:54, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Of course one problem is that some of these pages don't really need cleanup anymore, but nobody deletes them from this page. To keep this page in good condition, it is necessary to check every entry every once in a while, and to compare the content of the categories with the content of this page. Pages that are not awful but just need a copy-edit by a second translator could also possibly be moved to the "proofreading" parts of WP:TIE and its subpages like WP:GTIE. The main problem, though, is that cleaning up bad translations (Especially of not important topics) is a lot less fun than writing your own, and that is why I think that machine "translations" should be deleted or reduced to a stub instead of keeping them around waiting for a cleanup that never happens and is no fun at all. Category:Rough translations is where the worst offenders are kept. If you feel like cleaning those up or reducing them to a stub and listing them at WP:TIE for a real translation by a human, just go ahead and do it. Kusma (討論) 10:54, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
I feel that rearranging the order of the clean-up translation pages would help with that problem too, as we could point people from the language / country project pages in this direction much more effectively, and they could then make the decision as to whether the translation is good enough to be removed from this list. I feel there's just not enough eyes looking at this part of the page.--Sepa 14:04, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
That is unfortunately true (too few people check the cleanup part). If you go ahead and implement your idea, don't forget to change the {{cleanup-translation}} template so it fits with the reorganization. Actually, there is somebody who tries to reorganize WP:TIE; perhaps it is possible to integrate the proofreading parts of that with our cleanup section? Kusma (討論) 15:04, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Also, don't hesitate to pass the issue along to any relevant regional notice board. - Jmabel | Talk 07:26, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why this page is so empty lately

There is an editor creating throwaway accounts that change {{notenglish}} to {{db-notenglish}}. An example can be seen here. Since admins usually don't bother to check whether the article exists on a foreign project, the articles get deleted without a fair chance to be translated. Any ideas how to best eductae adins about A2? Perhaps we should require a link to the foreign article in {{db-notenglish}}? Kusma (討論) 10:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

  • I agree that is a big problem... can something be done about the editor who is doing this? That might be easier than trying to educate all the admins. Alternatively, perhaps we can change the template? Is it a bot that is doing this, or is the editor doing it manually? --Sepa 09:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I think the first step is to find some examples of editors/bots doing this repeatedly. The example from Kusma above is an account with only one edit. Antonrojo 11:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
He is doing this repeatedly, but always signs up for a new account every time, which is almost true anonymity, unlike using an IP. See also User talk:Ugln-kzuj, User talk:Miui-kaoa, User talk:Iwtb. Possibly related are User talk:Ppgj-nzng and User talk:Qhkj-mdhm. I'll try to request a checkuser about this. Kusma (討論) 11:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Done, and (I hope) fixed :-) Kusma (討論) 14:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
It continues, most recent socks are Mydevil111 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log) and Impetuous666 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · block user · block log). Please check all deletions of pages listed here and reverse them if the speedy tagging was made by a new account (and block it), otherwise this page is going to become unusable. Please also list the accounts at WP:RCU so the IPs can be investigated (CheckUser Mackensen dealt with the situation). Kusma (討論) 09:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Socks or not, some of those should be listed on sight at WP:AIV for immediate permablocks anyway as they contravene the user name policy which bans Names that consist of random or apparently random sequences of letters and/or numbers. Tonywalton  | Talk 11:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Ugln-kzuj and Itwb so tagged and blocked (thanks, Viridae). The others except Miui-kaoa were blocked as socks anyway. I suppose "Miui-kaoa" might concievably be something Polynesian rather than something random. Tonywalton  | Talk 11:52, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think that requiring a link to the foreign article in {{db-notenglish}} (cite verifiable sources) is an excellent suggestion. To work, though, it would mean including a note asking admins to check that the link is genuine (verify sources) before deleting the article. —Ian Spackman 14:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I tried to catch up with the requests for translation and recover pages from CAT:PNT, those that were tagged {{notenglish}} but not posted here, at "pages needing translation." There's a number of pages tagged for translation that seem to be in good progress and I left them alone. If someone decides that those would still benefit from posting to WP:PNT, please go ahead and add the entries, any help much appreciated. Thanks, and cheers to everyone - Introvert • ~ 22:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I have an additional concern here: some pages have been legitimate English pages before and were totally and partly overwritten with foreign-langugage content. Were some of the deleted pages like this? A malicious user could fill a page he doesn't like with nonsense, tag it db, and have it deleted. It is essential to look at the history of the page before tagging.  Andreas  (T) 23:54, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New warning template

I made a new warning template {{uselanguage}} to tag user talk pages. It has one parameter that is the language code. It will ideally give a warning in the language of the user, but will work with all language codes pointing to the correct WP. It is similar to the family of the contrib-xx1 templates, but can easily be expanded.  Andreas  (T) 00:00, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dual fluency template

Hi, I'm new to this project, but it strikes me that life would be easier for translators if the {{cleanup-translation}} template, which results in a message like "this page needs attention from someone approaching dual fluency..." always had a language parameter and if the articles were sorted into languages according to that parameter? Not being technically adept with such things, I don't know if this would be a load of extra, unnecessary work, but I would love to be able to go to a page of "articles needed cleanup after translation from German". Just an idea! Cricketgirl 11:47, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

There is already a Category:Proofreaders Needed with language-specific subcategories. These are used for articles that are translated from another wiki. I think it would be most logical not to translate pages that end up here but preferably to transwiki them first to the language wiki where they belong and then make an entry into Wikipedia:Translation. This page here should be like a triage effort to decide whether a foreign-language page is legitimate.  Andreas  (T) 13:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Worthwhile?

I'm wondering (after having helped to translate a couple of these articles) if this effort is worthwhile. Having "Pages needing translating" would seem to encourage copying of foreign-language articles verbatim, which is a very annoying and lazy way to get a translated article into Wikipedia...

  • effort is sometimes required to identify the source language
  • a lot of the potential articles turn out to be spam or non-notable
  • there is no explanation given for why a translated article would be useful, and thus it's hard to evaluate urgency

There are a lot of better ways to get articles translated, e.g Wikipedia:Translation, and it seems that when there is an actual demand for a translation and interest in doing it, users will always go that route. Just my 2 cents. MOXFYRE (contrib) 22:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

How about renaming the whole project into Wikipedia:Non-English articles, and deciding that articles will NOT be translated but either deleted or transwikied?  Andreas  (T) 23:17, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
I like that. The name change will make it clear that there's no expectation of the articles getting translated. MOXFYRE (contrib) 23:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
As I see it this page does exactly want you want it to do.
Spamming and copyvio are already criteria for speedy deletion.
Pages that already exist on another language wikipedia also meet a speedy deletion criterion. And there is nothing stoping anyone from transwikiing any foreign language article.
Deciding if the articles are worth translating is already done, by omission. That is, if no one translates it after 2 weeks, it is most likely not worth it and it may be nominated for deletion.
And, IMO, a project page named non-english articles might create the idea that there are non-english articles here, while this one clearly states that those *need* to be translated or otherwise will, most likely, be deleted. - Nabla 00:41, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Frankly, I would go farther. I think that being in a foreign language would be excellent grounds for deletion per se, and maybe even speedy deletion. This is, after all en.wikipedia, and an article that is not in English is not a suitable submission. Instead, I would prefer to see a project page entitled something like potential transwiki candidates, which could carry links to articles in Wiki in other languages that are absent from, or far less complete in, en.wikipedia. I am a fairly occasional visitor to this part of the project, but I wonder whether many (any?) articles that are really important, poopular, or that have been honed to GA or FA status has originated as translations. Kevin McE 00:49, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Speedy delete might be OK, but the contributers are primarily newcomers who do not know that there are WPs in other languages. I propose to change the tag saying that the page will be deleted anyway after some time (with a date added), and that it is the original submitter's responsability to create a page in the appropriate language WP. However, we still would need a mechanism for pages having a minor section in a foreign language, say Wikipedia:Articles needing partial translation into English. Generally, a page to be transwikied to here must already be in English. Pages to be translated are in WIkipedia:Translation  Andreas  (T) 13:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
You don't want to waste your time translating foreign laguage articles. Fine. Why should others be forced not to do it, if they wish to? Note that, I repeat, untraslated articles end up beeing deleted just as you wish, that there is no flooding of them also - only 12 listed at the project page - and the current tag warns user of just that. Maybe not a single FA was born out of a translation, but non FAs are worth having, are they not? - Nabla 19:27, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, I for one am quite happy to translate articles, even enthusiastic about it! It's just that I think the mechanism of this page is a bad way to get it done, as I describe above. WP:translation is the right way to do it. Obviously, *something* has to be done with foreign-language articles dumped into the English WP, but I think that should be strongly discouraged. MOXFYRE (contrib) 19:44, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] too-speedy deletions?

In the last couple of days, several pages have been deleted based on the listing here - but the deletion was done before anyone evaluated the pages. As I understand it, the reason for listing pages here is to allow people to skim through the article to judge whether it should be translated formally or just deleted. It's not right to simply delete something because it is written in, say, Arabic. Some of us (myself included) can actually read it. Give us a chance - more than just a few hours - unless you know for sure that the article is bad to the bone.

  • Is there any way to restore the deleted pages so they can be properly evaluated?
  • Can the admin(s) responsible for this be contacted?

Thanks. Cbdorsett 07:47, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

For any specific page you can check the deletion log. You simply lcik on the redlink and then proceed to the log page, whick looks e.g. like this [4]. You can the either contcat thee admin or look further at WP:Deletion#Deletion_review. --Tikiwont 07:57, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
And keep in mind that even some of the deleting admins are able to evaluate the page before deleting it, and give appropriate reasons for doing so in the deletion log (at least I do so, I hope). Lectonar 14:44, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Tiki, but that is no good. The redlinked articles have no history page. I have written to the editor who did the delete and am currently awaiting a reply. I looked in that editor's deletion log, and there was no note as to the reason. Cbdorsett 15:30, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Just contact a sensible admin about that, and he will be happy to oblige and restore at least the history for you. Lectonar 20:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I realize that this thread is from a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to comment anyway, just for the record. I'm an admin and am regularly watching this project, so if you have needs, or would like me to review articles that were speedied, I'd be happy to help. For those not familiar with the process, there are three really clear times when foreign language articles are appropriate for speedy: when there's an article on the same subject on another language wikipedia, when they are clearly a copyvio, and when they are clearly spam. Other than these three, it is indeed proper to list them here for review. I have suggested a change to CSD (see and comment at Wikipedia talk:Criteria for speedy deletion) A2, the section that deals with this issue, which will hopefully make people aware of PNT and the need to list here rather than speedy. Finally, if there are specific articles that are speedied, and you want a review, let me know (here or on my talk page), and I will see what I can find in the deletion logs. I'm not promising to restore the material outright, but an option is, if you want to do the translation yourself, I can put the material into a sandbox on your user page where you can work to your heart's content. Hope this helps, and I hope that having an admin lurking around doesn't bother anyone. AKRadecki 01:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restructuring this page?

I think there's something wrong with this page - different people have different ideas about what it is used for. We have a "policy" that articles are to be deleted if they are listed here more than 14 days, yet right now there are plenty of articles that are months old. Most people list articles here, waiting for someone to identify the language and comment on the value of the article, but some delete out of hand.

I'll come up with a proposal soon and put it here, under this heading. I'm inclined towards simple instructions. I'm thinking along the lines of:

This page is a triage page, designed to save on the work of translation. Articles that are wholly or partly in a foreign language are placed here for preliminary evaluation. Once evaluated, they should be moved to the designated pages, as follows:
Speedy delete: Patent nonsense, gibberish, encrypted, personal attacks, copyright violations, etc.
Notability evaluation: Short biographies (particularly of living persons), articles about businesses, towns, geographical features, universities, sports clubs, etc.
Partially translated: Article or addition looks valid. Move page to Articles Being Translated (in progress)
Needs translation: Article or addition looks valid. Identify the language, then move to Translation Requested.

There should also be a suite of suitable tags to place on the affected pages, as well as the talk pages of users who need some kind of warning.

Any thoughts? Cbdorsett 15:42, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Good idea in principle but... the ones you bring up under speedy deletion are already speedy deletion worthy under G10, A1, A3, A7, G12 etc.; the real problem lies more to get the taggers and the deleting admins to be bothered with leaving tagging and deleting of non/english/articles to people who actually are at least able to make sense of the subject of the article. Especially Kusma and, to a lesser degree, myself, have been trying for more than 1 1/2 years to get some order into this, but to no avail. Also there is the speedy deletion criterion A2, which is used like an eraser to get rid of non/english articles in a hurry. I agree with your other ideas, but would like to point out that at least the moving of partially translated articles "down" is already done in a more or less haphazardly way...and just a tiny correction: the articles are not to be deleted after two weeks, but to be moved to Afd, which is a slight difference, and this hasn't been done like that for months..I prefer to prod after a certain amount of time, with a sensible explanation. Lectonar 20:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Overall, I would tend to agree, at least in principle, with the triage idea. One reason that I see that articles languish here is simply that noone regularly checks in and does the mopwork. To fill the vacuum, I've started doing so, and will be happy to continue. AKRadecki 04:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A new template to use

To the end of making this whole process more user-friendly, one thing I noticed is that when an article gets listed here, no-one seems to let the article's creator know. After all, there's a good chance that they're the most qualified to translate, and the "threat" of deletion might motivate them to do so. So, I created a user template specific to this page, {{uw-notenglish}}. Usage is {{subst:uw-notenglish|articlename|datein2weeksfromlisting}}~~~~. This results in:

Welcome, and thank you for contributing the page gibberish to Wikipedia. While you've added the page to the English version of Wikipedia, the article isn't in English. We invite you to translate it into English. It currently has been listed at Pages Needing Translation, but if it is not translated within two weeks (by May 23, 2007), the article will be listed for deletion. Thank you.

Any suggestions in improving this template are, of course, welcome, but I really feel like this is a more friendly and welcoming message than that sent by {{uw-english}}. AKRadecki 04:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I like it. Good work. Cbdorsett 15:08, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I was looking for something like that! NickelShoe (Talk) 16:10, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Love the template, thanks! -Yupik 00:01, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Is the datein2weeksfromlisting parameter automatic or do I need to consult a calendar when using this template?--Fisherjs 11:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Translation, transwiki and GFDL

During the AfD for Regno d'Italia (888-1024), some interesting points were made, and deserve a bit wider exposure and discussion, so I'm copying them to here:

    • Comment The article on the Italian Wikipedia, it:Regno d'Italia (888-1024), is a cut-and-paste move, and therefore would be speedily deleted as a GFDL violation because it did not preserve the GFDL required changelog and therefore is a copyvio. Its earliest date is May 4, 2007, while the one here has an oldest date of May 2, 2007.Jesse Viviano 15:25, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment So, I'm assuming that this one came first? Is there then a way to transwiki the history from here, so that GFDL is honored? Akradecki 00:54, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Speedy or not, this should go. The whole GFDL issue is murky when it comes to intra-WP transfers. We have these "requests for translation", when someone actually does that, how is the GFDL complied with based on the (non-English language) original contents? This is a longer discussion that is warranted by the present article, which will likely be deleted regardless of whether speedy criteria apply. For example, just perusing through Wikipedia:Translation/*/Completed_Translations/April_2007, I took the first article listed: Jean Fourastié, which has an en:WP history that goes back to April 18, 2007. However, it was translated from the fr:Jean Fourastié, which has a history going back to July 13, 2005; this history has not been imported to the English-language article, yet presumably the GFDL would require some credit be given to the French-language authors whose work was translated to create the English-language article. If not, then how do cut and paste jobs differ from wholesale copying and translation jobs? Carlossuarez46 18:13, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
          • I think that when a translation is done, the translation should include the time and date of the version of the article being translated and a link to the source article somewhere in the text to credit it will satisfy the GFDL. However, I am not a lawyer and think that I could technically be wrong on this matter. Jesse Viviano 21:21, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I think the concern being expressed is that the article was originally created here (in italian) on the english wikipedia, and then copied without proper attribution to the italian wikipedia. —Random832 20:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] French anyone?

I am willing to help translate French into English, or to assess French articles in English. cheers Ivygohnair 17:46, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for offering your time. I would suggest that you sign up as a translater. Please consult Wikipedia:Translation#How to sign up as a translator/proofreader for instructions.  Andreas  (T) 14:28, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
You might also consider joining Wikipedia:French Collaboration Project — Shinhan < talk > 15:16, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. will do that when I return to France in august. I am on vacation now.Ivygohnair 00:07, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] User pages and talk pages

Obviously the focus is on articles in the mainspace, but there is also a tendency for non-English in talk pages. Given that talk pages are supposed to be part of the project ("the community" if you like) as well, I think it is a little discurteous to do such a thing. Is there any explicit Wikipedia Policy on this?  — MapsMan [ talk | cont ] — 15:21, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Translate by BabelFish, then clean up resulting text?

Would it be a good idea to translate an article by BabelFish, and then edit it so that it uses proper English grammar and makes sense before putting the translated version back on Wikipedia? 125.236.168.115 (talk) 22:20, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Babelfish doesn't make it make sense. Nearly all robotic translations are direct translations or vague ones. You need Humans to do the Job. Dengero (talk) 01:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Babelfish and other machine translators vary widely in their quality. It depends partly on the pair of languages - French to Spanish might be passable, but Turkish to Portuguese is just asking for problems. I haven't seen a good Arabic-to-English one yet, but that doesn't stop people from using them. Sometimes you can figure out what the intent of the original article was. The idea is basically sound:
  1. Get a human to run Babelfish on the article
  2. Get a human to edit it, based upon knowledge of both languages
  3. Put the finished translation into the appropriate page of the English Wikipedia.

Cbdorsett (talk) 10:22, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The human still has to have both language versions of the article to make the edits and -as Cbdorsett says - know both languages. Many times machine translations are mostly incomprehensible, and if you only understand English you won't be able to figure out what the original author ment.Sjö (talk) 11:52, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion Review Discussion

There's a deletion review discussion going on here some people who watch this page may be interested in regarding three articles which an admin arbitrarily speedily deleted which were not in English. Basically, the gist of it is an admin deleted three articles which were tagged and listed here and then userfied them at the request of another editor. I'm contending, without much support, that the pages should be restored in the main space and listed here for two weeks to give translators a chance to collaborate on a translation. Cheers! Redfarmer (talk) 18:49, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dolapdere

Can someone who speaks Turkish figure out what's going on here? There are IPs that keep replacing the article with some text written in Turkish. —Random832 17:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Copyvio from http://sozluk.sourtimes.org/show.asp?t=dolapdere, probably linkspam. Difficult to warn somebody editing from changing IP addresses.  Andreas  (T) 21:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] date headers

Blanchardb asked me if Scsbot, the Reference- and Help Desk archiving bot, could be used to automatically insert the daily headers here. I think I've got this working (modulo maybe an extra blank line).

There are a couple things you should know:

  1. The bot is semiautomated (not fully automated), meaning that it runs only when I manually invoke it. Sometimes it's more like my midnight than UTC midnight, and some days (for example, if I'm on vacation) it doesn't run at all. But that's okay, because
  2. It's designed to do as much work as it has to; it doesn't assume it runs every night. If it notices that there's a date header from a day or two ago missing, it'll insert as many as it has to. But that's potentially a mild problem for you, because
  3. If you delete a header 'cos everything for that day is dealt with, the bot will painstakingly reinsert it.

For now, at least, I'm afraid you're going to have to live with #3, and I hope it's not too big an issue for you. (After three days, you can delete an empty date header with impunity, because that's as far back as the bot looks.)

With respect to #2, if you notice that a date header is missing because the bot hasn't run yet, and you feel like inserting it yourself, that's fine. The bot will notice that you have, and it won't insert a duplicate or anything.

I don't follow this page, so if there are ever any problems with the bot, please let me know at my talk page. —Steve Summit (talk) 14:40, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Google translations

I see a few articles are translated using google (or whatever). I understand that they are useful for someone that can't figure out anything from the text to assess it but, on the other hand, the resulting text is usually very very bad, not worth staying around, and anyone willing to translate it needs to use the original anyway. So it is kind of a loss of time.

I'm not sure if adding a link to Google translation in {{Notenglish}} would help (has it alows for quick assessment) or hurt (as an incentive to such translations). Any thoughts?

A sample of a version with the link may be found at User:Nabla/Test. No link showing there as it comes up only after a language is defined. There is a working example at User:Nabla/Test1. - Nabla (talk) 00:51, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

In a number of cases, the translated text is intelligible enough to be copyedited into a sensible English article. However, this depends strongly on the original text; sometimes, it works well (particularly for French and Spanish, though not always), and sometimes, it fails utterly. Anyway, the template is nice, and I think with a little work on the wording, it would be a welcome addition to the existing template. nneonneo talk 04:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] req. quick translation

What does this talk-page comment mean? 69.140.152.55 (talk) 21:28, 28 May 2008 (UTC)