ویکی‌پدیا:پروژه ترجمه/ایمیل

bcc to a Board Member

So there seems to be a need for clarification since some think that we did not inform about the project, that people are not qualified etc.

In the meantime we received other two evaluations, one written, one was expressed to Gerard directly by phone, that say more or less the same thing the translations are acceptable, some of them eccelent - in particular the article about the Bible was mentioned to be excellent. The mail will be forwarded to the Board asking for keeping the sender secret. The reason for this is obvious: the people evaluating (for free) these articles are in no way connected to the project, they did not co-operate there. People on wikipedia use a nick and it is also easy to use any which name for an e-mail address. So we don't really know who Hessam and his people are and I am completely against giving disclosure of "real people" who have an official address.

Now to the project itself: there was a proposal by Gerard last year in February about creating contents for fa.wikipedia that should lead to the creation/improvement of background information to the news. Example: if there is an earthquake somewhere the articles of the region/cities, the earthquake article itself, articles about connected problems like water, illnesses etc. should have been written and/or been improved.

A wiki-editing course was thought of where one person should have gone to Iran and teach (probably university students how to edit a wiki and give them the basics on their way.

Then we heard that another organisation should care about this project and we did not consider it anymore. For some strange reason, around the middle of September we were contacted and informed that this project never started and that now something should be done starting on 1st of October and ending date 15th of December for the contents creation. The only feasable way was: translations - using people who at least have one skill - or translations or wiki editing. On 19th of September the fa.wikipedia - Hessam - was informed about the project. He was asked to propose articles himself - the answer we got: all the featured articles of en.wikipedia - well only very few of them meet the criteria of background information to the news, but what was possible was translated from them. Besides that we received a list of articles that our sponsor would have liked to see there. Some themes were excluded directly by me since I knew they were controversial. As for the rest Hessam was asked explicitly to tell us which articles should not be translated - he received the file with all proposed articles - we did not get a definite answer. In some talks with other people we found out some more pages that should not be touched. Some articles were asked to be excluded from the translation in a Chat with Hessam where he also explicitly asked to exclude the wikipedia policies (of en.wikipedia) to be excluded - a log of that chat is available and if necessary will be handed over to the Board.

At the beginning the mail exchange seemed to be positive, but well: I suppose it was just to find out about us and how to stop the project. Sorry, but now, after what happened, I only can have this feeling.

The whole project was always open and visible http://wordsandmore.org/index.php?title=Wordsandmore:Persian_wikipedia_contents_creation - Hessam knew this link and also the sublinks he received in several e-mails.

The translations were done by real people - we are frequently with them in chat - the fact that Hessam states that all articles are machine translations (see Angela's talk page) already shows that it is not about the translations, since there is only one application that could reach a near correctnes level when it comes to machine translation from English to Persian - and mind me: if we had touched the right buttons we probably could have got the translation of the complete English wikipedia into Persian for free.

Goal of these translations was to get people involved, was to get more people editing on fa.wikipedia (since the translators will look after their articles after some pause - well: I suppose that you can imagine that after having worked for quite a long time without interruption these people are really tired). This means that probably there will be some more editors around in future. Well I am asking me if fa.wikipedia really wants that considering the amount of active editors, being the fa.wikipedia basically in the hand of 5 people, the bureaucrats being inactive - some of them stopped editing in September other two did not edit from December. Well these could be on a wiki-pause, but according to a mail by Hessam the Bureaucrat that told me that the texts, except some single terms, were correct and needed layout and wikilink adaptation after his mail to me stopped working on fa.wikipedia. Strange, right? I am wondering ... really ... But back to the number of editors and people signing up: I am at a stage where I don't understand anymore what is really happening on that wikipedia - when you look at their recent changes there are loads of people signing up daily - nobody is welcomed, nobody edits ... who are these people? If these are spambots, why aren't they stopped from creating accounts? If there is so much interest why don't more people edit? I could go on and make questions.

Well fact is: the work was done in the best possible way, the translations are ok, the layout needs editing (this can also be done by non-native people since it is about links, brackets etc.) - it was known what we were doing. The project was visible and more than one person on fa.wikipedia was informed about it.

What was and still is needed is co-operation.

Quoting out of an e-mail by a fa.wikipedia reader:

Most of their commnets are not with regard to the quality! They would like some norms( I am not aware of theirs standars!) to be followed.

I am not in a position to comment on what these guys say but I think they are in full objection with the whole project. They have had designed a template for themselves regarding Grammar and punctuation and are trying to push it into Wikipedia! this is my beleif although! One of them is referring to The Academy of the Persian Language and Literature which coins Farsi words for foreign words while this institute is not welecome in Iran and most of the words they have coined are of no use even in conversation let alone written form. .... omissis .... What I can tell you is that they, in many cases, have announced that they are against translationg Wikipedia English into Farsi as they believe that the English version has a lot of problems. They believe thay can write their own pages on any subject! That is why they resisted it. Secondly, Some of them have designed a framework applicable to Grammar, Spelling and so on and they like everybody to use this framework.

I think you should not get worried!

What they say is not something related to translation quality. They believe Wiki is not translatable and every society should write its own Wiki.

I did only ask some people to have a look for now - and I would say that this is more than enough.

Ah and btw. also Hessam and the other active wikipedians could have offered his services, but he did not ... there is noting that says that Open Source and Open Content may not be paid for. OpenOffice.org is one of the best examples for this I would say.

Now working on this project and knowing that our people did good work (and we have the confirmation of that whatever Hessam and the handful of rulers of fa.wikipedia say) means that we will have more such projects, that we will get more time since potential donors already know how we deal with projects and they are happy with that. By the list of themes choosen that is publicly available one can see that articles are not political (that was one of the first accuses with which fa.wikipedia tried to stop the project). So where's the point? What's really going on there? I am wondering ... are the wikipedia principles not valid on fa.wikipedia? I mean: co-operation creates the best articles ... is that not valid anymore?

Back to the $$$$$ thingie: mind me that these people worked for "some symbolic money" - this means of 5 words one was paid and 4 were for free ... this meand they donated 80% of their work ... so what? Donations are not welcome?

Well: fa.wikipedia has been asked to contribute constructively - they did not - they (or better Hessam) states obviously the false (all machine translations ... that is misleading in first place) - so how can I trust these people or better him? If they said: this is the sentence, and that is what is wrong with it I can go and complain - but when they see it is wrong: what stops them from improving it?

Well, there would be so much more to write. But: you wanted some notes on how things went: these are some - I have some more, but I think that things are clearer now and I do not have to disclose all information I have here. I do not really like the fact that we are now talking negatively about a wikipedia because also these people, might they do the right or wrong thing, believe they do good and contribute with their free time, but probably have a small problem with what co-operation means.

In some way I am happy about these problems ... they show us people's reactions and so we know how to deal with them.

Thank you for your time reading this long mail.

Best, Sabine

Links: Project main page: http://wordsandmore.org/index.php?title=Wordsandmore:Persian_wikipedia_contents_creation Proposed articles + notes: http://wordsandmore.org/index.php?title=Wordsandmore:Persian_wikipedia_contents_creation/complete_list_of_proposed_pages