Wikipedia talk:Content translation tool/Archive 1

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Log

For an automated report of the recent edits disallowed, please see this log. — xaosflux Talk 02:46, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

WP:TRANSLATION

FYI, WP:TRANSLATION is still sending editors directly to the tool without seeing this page (I know because I was trying to translate something, made it all the way to the end of the process and only then received a warning/had the post blocked.) I've just added a note at WP:Translation about the 5000 edit limit and advised consulting this page, but wanted to add a note here as well: especially if the policy is in flux, WP:Translation will need to be updated again if/when there's a new consensus. Thanks to those who are on top of this issue. Innisfree987 (talk) 16:52, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

@Innisfree987: Thanks for posting here. The policy and many proposals regarding it are still being discussed at WP:AN/CXT, so feel free to join the discussions there if you would like. If you are using the tool and can be sure that your translated article meets English Wikipedia's policies, has good cited content, and is formatted correctly, you can still use the tool by saving to the Draft: space and then moving it to the Article space after double checking. Tony Tan · talk 17:57, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks Tony Tan, I'll head over there and catch up on the discussion. Meanwhile if I might ask one technical question--are you saying that within the tool there's an opportunity to save to draft? I'm not seeing that--I just ended up creating a new page separately and copying the whole article in section by section, which lost all formatting, and was additionally slow because the tool doesn't let the editor highlight the whole new entry at once, but rather only one paragraph at a time. So if there's a way to save to draft, I'd love to know! Thanks. Innisfree987 (talk) 18:09, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
@Innisfree987: Yes, just add "Draft:" before the actual title as the name of the article, and it should go through. Tony Tan · talk 18:13, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
Innisfree987 Please do not heavily "advertise" using Draft: or User: in the CXT yet - that is part of the discussion at WP:AN/CXT. We did not originally block it as an oversight - and the discussion is about either directing people to it, or restricting it further. — xaosflux Talk 13:53, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
Roger that Xaosflux, and for what it's worth, I've just left you a note over there with my opinion that it'd be best to limit draft creation as well, even though it would presently exclude me! Innisfree987 (talk) 15:53, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Follow up from WP:AN/CXT

The following items may require additional follow up or discussion:

Moved from WP:AN/CXT

Should access to edit using WP:CXT be restricted (to who) ?

The WP:AN/CXT Discussion left this at "extendedconfirmed", enforced by Special:AbuseFilter/782 (for (main)/article space). — xaosflux Talk 23:19, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Create a whitelist

Rather than reduce the edit count required, what if we simply assigned the confirmed (not autoconfirmed) userright to users we trust to use the tool correctly, but do not have the required edit count. We could then set the edit filter to trigger only if the user is not confirmed or doesn't have 5000 edits. I believe this is technically possible, but this is not my area of expertise, so correct me if I am wrong.Tazerdadog (talk) 21:03, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

Other rights that could be used to circumvent technical problems include (ep-enroll), or autopatrolled.Tazerdadog (talk) 21:09, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

That's a massive misuse of the user groups system. If the whitelist were of modest size it would be possible to directly build it in to the filter. BethNaught (talk) 21:17, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
If we want a usergroup for this, getting a group created is fairly easy, the only "permission" the group would need is "read" (this was done for the OTRS users a ways back before global groups). Then the filter would be able to look for "sysop or newgroup". I'm pretty much opposed to maintaining an edit filter of usernames. Also Tazerdadog you can't assing a "permission" to someone, only a group. — xaosflux Talk 21:32, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
OK, we should do that. Of note, both confirmed and autopatrolled are groups, unless I am mistaken, so either of those would technically work. However, a new userright is the cleanest solution.Tazerdadog (talk) 21:35, 28 July 2016 (UTC)
Actually, autopatrolled might work. They are users trusted with ability of creating articles of at least minimum acceptable quality, and this is exactly what we require here.--Ymblanter (talk) 06:04, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
Confirmed won't work here. That would result in the users who were granted confirmed for the purposes of machine translation being mixed up with those who were granted it for getting the permissions in autoconfirmed before meeting the requirements for autoconfirmed. That means that we'd have users who don't even meet the requirements for autoconfirmed yet being able to use the translation tool because of a different reason. Omni Flames (talk) 04:50, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Use of CXT in non-main namespaces

Currently CXT is only blocked for new editors in the main/article namespace. Some outstanding items are below. — xaosflux Talk 23:20, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

  • Should the ability to write to other name spaces by new editors be advertised?
  • Should the ability to write to other name spaced be blocked?
Yes should be advertised and no it should not be blocked. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:47, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

References

Moved from WP:AN/CXT

We need reference templates that work / are compatible across all languages. The lack of these is an ongoing problem for those who work on translations. Until we get these turning off the sea of red would be nice.[1] This request come in number three on the 2015 Community Wishlist Survey but unfortunately there was blockers[2] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:22, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

In between now and then, you could solve most of this by importing enwiki's most popular CS1 citation templates – as is, no translation, under the English name – to other Wikipedias. Four (probably) rounds of Special:Import per target wiki, and CX would have no red error messages. Alternatively, someone could manually crawl through every major template and set up English (and probably Spanish, French, and German aliases for every parameter). This is probably worth it, eventually, for the biggest wikis, but at most smaller ones, simply importing a plain copy is probably the way to go. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:53, 29 July 2016 (UTC)
pasting a plain copy of the rendered text is what I do with other language's templates of this sort now. It works, and causes no additional problems. DGG ( talk ) 01:20, 30 July 2016 (UTC)
Weird bug: if you copy from the saved page, and paste into the visual editor, then you may pick up some unexpected HTML (e.g., <abbr>...</abbr>) from some templates. Also, links to Wikipedia articles may be processed as external links to that page (a big problem if you're copying from your sandbox.) The solution in the visual editor is to always open the page ("Edit" mode, not "Read" mode) before copying from a Wikipedia page. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 09:28, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Spreading crap all over en.WP

Hi, in complaining about what I've noticed is a significant dip in the standards of translated articles on en.WP, I was told of this page and reminded of the recent launch of this tool.

I'd like to know whether any advice, instructions, warnings are flagged to users translating into English. Written advice would save editors here a lot of time currently needed to stem the waterfall of poor formatting, extraordinary overlinking, inappropriate capitalisation, and let's not forget, bad prose. Advice could also be selected automatically on the basis of picking up certain traits in text—some things would be pretty easy to detect.

Dreadful tool (at the moment). Tony (talk) 04:15, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

User:Tony1 you think it is related to this tool? I have seen the issues you mention long perform this tool was created. Not sure the solution except to repeatedly explain and explain again. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:09, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
James, it seems to be getting worse, although that's not based on a scientific survey. The tool could provide us all with a better if it at least presented (once) some basic do's and don't's to would-be translators. Tony (talk) 06:56, 25 September 2016 (UTC)
Do we have a common list of issues? We have created one for students Template:Student Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:02, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
James, very interesting to see that template. I have a few suggestions for the 12 points ("Every sentence can be referenced", for example, could be more nuanced to avoid ref 11 ref 11, ref 11, ref 11 in adjacent sentences—an issue that you and I have discussed before in relation to medical articles). More to the point, I do a lot of gnoming on en.WP that puts me in a position of having to fix articles that have been imported via translation from other WPs. Several recurring issues could be covered in clarification notes—either in the form of that student template or as pop-ups based on automated analysis of the text before or upon pressing the "publish" button. Tony (talk) 04:22, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
James, I've copyedited the Student template. I've also raised the issue of the increasing problems posed by article translation onto en.WP at MOS talk. Tony (talk) 04:40, 30 September 2016 (UTC)

Use of translation tool restricted?

How can this be when this tool is presented everywhere - from Esino Lario the the French convention? I've translated a whole article and I was not told until I pressed the publish button there would be a restriction. This is really a shame. --Nattes à chat (talk) 10:54, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes agree. The EN community wanted more checks and balances. I would be happy to see it opened up again. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:04, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
Nattes à chat, it's unacceptable that the system not clarify restrictions and protocols until after the work has been done. I think an automatic system of presenting (minimised) information about translating onto en.WP should be developed and implemented as a matter of urgency. Tony (talk) 04:16, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
While I agree that this should be done, and should be easy to do, I am skeptical that WMF would even implement that, and I see no way to do it without them. I hope I am being overly cynical about this, but I don't think I am. Tazerdadog (talk) 08:45, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
Can you provide a short list of steps you are following - including which wiki you are starting from? — xaosflux Talk 11:26, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
  • In my view, a content translation tool should not function without a system of guides/instructions being visible to users. Tony (talk) 04:21, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
  • OK, I am sorry to butt in but I really am drop-jawed at the hysteria over this tool. For reference, we are very short of translators at the Articles Needing Translation and Articles Needing Cleanup After Translation. Send them on over. We don't necessarily require a perfect knowledge of English, because we have English speakers who can polish slightly strange English, I among them. Some translations really do require a profound knowledge of both languages, yes, but not as many as people seem to think. Sometimes the machine picks the literal, generally obvious and in this case wrong translation for an unusual or colloquial wording, and then there are "kitchens" fighting in Mediterranean sea battles and a translator needs to know the synonym and both of its meanings. Or the machine translator failed to take sentence structure into account, sure. For French->English and French->English the one that annoys me is adjective/nouns, ie word for word gets you sweater blue, child charming etc, which is annoying to fix over and over again after a while. It's probably the verb placement in translations from German.
  • BUT. CTX does often know the correct translation for very specific words like "caravelle" or "money laundering" or "record label" which would be a whole heck of a lot harder to remind myself of some other way such as a French-English dictionary; but are easy to verify once I recognize them. Anyway. I have used this tool quite a few times and I think the resulting articles are mm perhaps not perfect, but readable and articulate and interesting, at least in English. Into French, heh, they strive for accuracy. The tool unfortunately does not do accents, which gets me yelled at by new page patrollers on the French side. I wish they would fix that, because I do see their point over there, because a missing accent is a spelling mistake. And if an entire article is missing all of its accents then it has many spelling mistakes until after I fix that, but I either look up all the individual keystrokes or it lives with missing accents for five minutes before people complain about stuff, geez. So.
  • I understand CTX used to overwrite existing articles, which in most instances was a Bad Thing. Ever since the first time I used it, however it has warned me if the proposed title of my translation already exists on wikipedia. I am not certain whether it is just string-matching the titles, or also takes things like length and keyword density into account. I believe they have taken care of that problem. I have never seen overwriting happen, anyway. The tool also warns me if I select from its suggestions a translation that someone else has already begun. It suggests translations once you pick a language pair, such as articles that exist on the english wikipedia but not the French one.
  • If we are requiring a certain edit count to translate into en.wikipedia then yes, you should tell the prospective translator so before he/she spends an hour or two trying to help you. I would find that very annoying if it were me. I would also appreciate it if articles for cleanup were *screened* ahead of time for notability, fact, etc. I don't particularly care whether soccer player x has an article, for example. But if he doesn't get one no matter what there's little point in me translating that article, it's not that my feelings are hurt but if there are 43 articles on the list why did I just spend a bunch of time on one we didn't keep? There just not enough translators anyway, before any wasted work.
  • And oh by the way, some of the articles on that translated-article list are mine, and are just fine. I have also seen quite a good article on cryptology that someone did from german and it both was very well-written and on a topic that that en.wikipedia should want to have an article about. There were several -- ok quite a few -- stubs about all sorts of topics. Perhaps the list had been curated already when I got there, but most of it is just... machine translation. It seems to me that the recent stuff is better than most machine translation I've seen; 80% of what I looked at on the list there had at least some claim to notability and rather a modest cleanup required, comparatively speaking. A few translations were horrendous. A couple of those were on important topics so I started more or less doing a rewrite using the bad translations for writing prompts and search terms. The bad translation bad as it may be is nonetheless a place to start, shrug.

--->Is it possible to have a user group that has say a seven-day authentication window? In other words, allow some people who say they can do it but don't have the edits actually do a couple of translation, which then get some sort of review, etc? Elinruby (talk) 03:02, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

    • User:Elinruby—the "hysteria" might be caused by the volume of unnecessary gnoming that is at stake. Tony (talk) 05:47, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
      • I do understand, believe me. I am doing some of it and sometime after I do it somebody deletes the article because notability or copyvio. Just pointing out from my corner over here that it would be nice if there was a screening for all that stuff BEFORE somebody spends bunches of time on an article. If the article contains — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elinruby (talk • contribs) 06:58, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
  • I have added a somewhat ugly banner (MediaWiki:Cx) message to the top of the tool to warn people before they spend time. That field does not appear to support HTML or Wikilinks. — xaosflux Talk 04:12, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
      • I saw that earlier and it gave me pause; it might be good to indicate the threshold where the restriction kicks in. Number of edits? Elinruby (talk) 06:57, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
    • A number of technical improvements could make all the difference. First, a button for pinging an editor who's translating a large number of articles over a period of time would be valuable, when we see unfortunate patterns in a number of their translated products. Second, a brief guide to specific en.WP formatting and style could point out low-level errors that end up being resource-expensive to fix over a large number of articles. I mean things like the Use Of Title Case In Section Headings, and the linking of words like manager and building, not to mention years and dates. Tony (talk) 05:46, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
      • Also maybe mention that many templates do not correspond. And that yes we would like them to include the references in the translation also. Elinruby (talk) 06:57, 20 October 2016 (UTC)
    • Why even show the tool if the edits don't work? I've just spent over an hour translating an article and now have to work through bureaucracy to get it published? You've just lost me as a contributor. – Jberkel (talk) 00:22, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Translation by special token for select edit-a-thons

I'd like to request that we be able to use auto-translation by special token for select edit-a-thons, as we did at Wikipedia:Meetup/WikiArte/MoMA 2015 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City last October. Of course, the idea behind this is we can offer greater support from experienced Wikipedians in-person at the museum for this event, so newbie bilingual editors can start a translation, put it in draft, then others present can review and correct it to English Wikipedia standards. Our next event, Wikipedia:Meetup/WikiArte/MoMA 2016, being held in collaboration with Spanish Wikipedia events globally, is coming up this weekend.--Pharos (talk) 14:01, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

@Pharos: Note - only direct article creation is technically restricted, anyone can create with the content tool in to the Draft: namespace (or to User:x/Sandboxes). Does this solve your needs? — xaosflux Talk 04:04, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

information about restrictions is too late!

As others said above. I spent long time to correct the poor translation and only after that I was informed, that that was in vain. Pls have a better translation progam and inform at the beginn ing of my work--Hans Eo (talk) 12:06, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I've updated the warning message to give a link to the restriction level. — xaosflux Talk 12:38, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
Had the same unpleasant experience (see above). The link in the message does not get rendered as link, so you have to manually copy and paste it. I doubt anyone has actually read it. – Jberkel (talk) 00:35, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
Jberkel Technically, you can just put Draft: in front of your title and it will create - I've started a section below to see if advertising this will gain community support. — xaosflux Talk 00:37, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
Thanks, that worked, and should probably be the default (since it seems to be very tricky to get a "perfect" first version using this tool). – Jberkel (talk) 00:43, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

While we are not technically restricting page creation to Draft: space, we are not advertising this. Now that the initial issues have mostly settled down, what does everyone think of advertising this? We could update the header and the abusefilter notice to provide this direction. — xaosflux Talk 00:27, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Alternately, to User:%username%/Sandbox ? — xaosflux Talk 00:40, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Advertise, because users may find the content translation tool to be useful when translating articles to English. Now that CXT is no longer providing machine translations, I don't see a reason to oppose this. Tony Tan · talk 03:05, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Minor advertising to established users or at in person meetups seems fine to me. However, major and widespread advertising seems to defeat the purpose of the edit filter, and should be avoided in my opinion. Tazerdadog (talk) 08:27, 9 November 2016 (UTC)
  • Support Advertise, had the same experience as many others before. Translated a long article to realize I could not publish it. 500 edits is definitely too strict as a criterion. Who needs 500 edits to understand the WP principles? Also, edits in other name spaces should be taken into account. --MerkasLugele (talk) 18:18, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
    If you are referring to the different namespaces on the English Wikipedia - they all count. If you are referring to edits on other WMF projects, they are not technically available to the local filter rules. — xaosflux Talk 19:03, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

The Warning box is here: MediaWiki:Abusefilter-warning-cx - perhaps adding to it would help? — xaosflux Talk 19:04, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Machine translation

User:Tazerdadog reverted my edit concerning machine translation, saying The community was pretty strongly against this. I'd like to know where exactly they collectively took such a stance towards this. And if that is actually the case I'd like to make an reassessment of this issue.

So for instance in the link to Wikipedia:Translation of 2006 it was noted that (emphasis mine):

machine translation can produce low quality results, and requires much editing. Automated translation programs can be useful though because they enable a person who may not be fluent in a foreign language to produce a translation which can then be edited by themselves and others in their native language. However, the general consensus of Wikipedia contributors is that an unedited machine translation, left as a Wikipedia article, is worse than nothing.

And that was in 2006, translation tools such as Google Translate have become much better by now so those are even more useful than they already were back then.

If you want people to translate Wikipedia for free you need to make things as easy and convenient as possible. Machine translation for the Content translation tool is not an extra-feature and nice-to-have but really a core feature if you intend to effectively improve Wikipedia translation. After Google Translate translated the article one basically only has to adjust the text here and there. This makes article translation >10 times more time-efficient. I ask you to imagine how many more people will start translating articles once it's possible to do so in a manageable time-frame, and how many more articles will be translated by this. (Btw a nice thing to have would be also showing instant translations of a single word by a click on it or some button. By this badly translated words can be easily replaced by a more fitting translation.) But until all of this is built into the tool there's just the GoogleTrans gadget.

It would be outright stupid and backward to not allow this technology be used efficiently for the expansion of Wikipedia. If this was actually decided on by the community they hindered progress. So if anybody has a link to where that was collectively decided I'd also be interested in the best place to request a reassessment of the community of this.

--Fixuture (talk) 19:53, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

The massive discussion was at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/CXT. If you feel like I have misinterpreted the community's position on the content translation tool, then we absolutely need to have a discussion here. If you agree with my assessment of consensus in that discussion, but want to revisit the issue, the proper place is probably the administrator's nociceboard. If I can be helpful in any way, let me know. Tazerdadog (talk) 01:07, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
Machine translation is disabled in the tool but the interface still assummed it's present and gave confusing messages. I have changed the default MediaWiki:Cx-mt-abuse-warning-title/qqx to MediaWiki:Cx-mt-abuse-warning-title, and the default MediaWiki:Cx-mt-abuse-warning-text/qqx to MediaWiki:Cx-mt-abuse-warning-text. The tool still displays some messages assuming machine translation is available like a selection box with MediaWiki:Cx-tools-mt-title as heading but options with no effect. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:52, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Can I send my translated article for approval to confirmed editors?

Hi, I just translated an article, but when I pressed the PUBLISH button, I was told that this could be done only by confirmed editors.I guess this is what is being discussed above as well. So, since I've already translated the article, is there an option to post it on a community page of 'confirmed editors', which may then review and publish it? I am just suggesting this, please let me know if any such option exists. Thanks :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MaroonPixel (talk • contribs) 09:09, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

MaroonPixel, As I understand it, you can click the cogwheel icon beside the publish button, and it will allow you to publish it to an alternate destination. From discussion above, it would seem that non-EC editors are not prevented from publishing their translations in DRAFT: namespace. You might like to submit your article to AfC for review by an experienced editor, though this may take a long time as they have a very long backlog, or request review by another editor through a different process. (Note: Draftspace should be the option titled "Comunity draft", which is preferred if you wish to use AfC. The other option "User draft" would probably be better if you wanted to work on it a bit more)— Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:50, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Sandbox translation

So why we cannot use the translation even to sendbox? Juandev (talk) 18:51, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

@Juandev: while you can't save to an article, if you have the "new name" to something like "User:Juandev/sandbox/articlename" it should work for you. — xaosflux Talk 20:00, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

Problem with translation from French to English

We are at least 2 editors (with more than 500 contribs...), who can not use the translation tool to go from French to English. When we try, the message says that translation to English is not possible. According to this page, we actually should. Any idea what could be wrong ? Anthere (talk) 14:47, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

@Anthere: do you have an example username? Can you confirm if the user with the issue has 'extendedconfirmed' access? As an immediate workaround, try to save with "Draft:" in the new article name. — xaosflux Talk 15:48, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
Indeed. I am one of those editors. user:anthere. If I read well the parameters to be extendedconfirmed, I should be extendedconfirmed. And when I look at my rights, I am not.
The other name I can suggest is user:Pierrette13. She also should be extended confirmed and she is not.
The issue is not doing anything in draft space. The issue is that we can not use the content translation tool French > English unless we are extendedconfirmed. We both regularly use the Content Translation Tool in the English -> French. But on the English wikipedia, using the tool requires to be extendedconfirmed... Anthere (talk)
Are there any reasons that none of us two are extendedconfirmed ? Apparently, this status is not automatically set up ? Is there a place and a process to ask to get this status ? (please note that I have admin status. But not extendedconfirmed status). Anthere (talk)
Hello, I'm not an admin, but I frequently use the translation tool (E into F) and I guess I should be autoconfirmed over here (over 700 contributions) and be allowed to use the tool for translations into English, thank you for your interest, and thanks to @Anthere:, --Pierrette13 (talk) 06:04, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • @Anthere and Pierrette13:: admins are considered extendedconfirmed for this purpose, and Pierrette13 is extendedconfirmed. I'm not seeing any blocks on you related to this permission (they would show up as 'disallows' in your filter logs here and here (which are blank). Can you walk though the process you are using and I'll see if I can replicate the issue? — xaosflux Talk 13:37, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • Example process writeup:
  1. Start at frwiki
  2. Go to ContentTranslation
  3. step....
  4. step....
  5. Where does it fail, exactly what error are you seeing on the screen?

I now realize in my above explanation of the problem that an ESSENTIAL element is missing. So reading myself again carefully, and reading the CXT page, I do realize the missing piece makes a big difference :)
So... what is NOT working is not the content translation tool itself (this one works). What is not working is the automatic translation. We were having an edit-a-thon last Friday and found out about this limitation and thought it was due to not having extendedconfirmed. We came to read the explanations here and I now see where we got confused. The basic tool is limited to extendedconfirmed, but the automated translation is not available for anyone. We have an habit of using that tool in French with automated translation... so much that for us... the tool can not be dissociated from the automated translation capability. So we interpreted the CXT page as the entire tool is available only to extendedconfirmed when it is only the basic tool is available only to extendedconfirmed.

So... in fact, there is no problem... I understand why this decision was made, but I am a bit disappointed :(

user:Pierrette13... ça ne marche pas et ça ne marchera jamais. Tsss. Anthere (talk)

@Anthere and Xaosflux: It's a shame, and I feel really disappointed {{sigh}}, --Pierrette13 (talk) 17:04, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
  • @Anthere and Pierrette13: OK that makes sense, I think you are referring to 'machine translation'? This is currently disabled to English, you can read a lot more on the request for this including past RfC links here: phab:T138711. — xaosflux Talk 17:19, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
    And for what it's worth we only block "Article" creation for non-extendedconfirmed users. The tool itself still does everything, they just can't save the page. If you are working with new users that want to use CXT (in the non-machine mode that is off for everyone currently) to create article, you can have them create Drafts by changing the new page name to Draft:ArticleName. These pages should be reviewed by an experience user who can then move them to an article if they meet our general inclusion standards. — xaosflux Talk 17:22, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Improving the communication for the limitations defined on English Wikipedia

Errors shown to non autoconfirmed users when translating into English.

Recent updates in Content translation help to communicate restrictions about publishing, such as the one defined by editors in English Wikipedia. In this way, affected users are informed in advance before making an effort to translate, and they are provided additional context with a link to the information page about this limitation to learn more.

Before these updates, the page title was adjusted to include a brief description of the limitation. While the title rename served as a temporary solution, it had limitations to provide detailed information or working links. As it is illustrated in the screenshot, the original message (grey text on top) is now redundant and represents a less effective way of communication. We plan to rename the page title back to "Translate page" for the title and the error areas to show their corresponding information each, and wanted to hear any considerations about this change. So feel free to share any feedback.

The proposed change is not affecting who is allowed to publish, or how the tool limits work to prevent translations with few modifications from publishing.

-- Pginer-WMF (talk) 13:21, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

@Pginer-WMF: having not not rely on the abuse filter, but instead having this check some permission would be an improvement (harder). Additionally, updating the page to render wikitext so that the links are clickable would help (easier). — xaosflux Talk 15:42, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
I'd have a problem with the issue card explicitly stating that the page can be saved as a draft and moved later. My reading of the local consensus is that we shouldn't close the loophole for people who have the clue to use it properly, but that we do not want to widely advertise it exists so that we don't get flooded with poor quality translations again. If the poor-quality translations start making it to mainspace via this workaround, we may have to close it and set up a manual review or permissions based process. In any case, please get an explicit consensus from this community about that issue card before you implement it. Tazerdadog (talk) 17:23, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
@Pginer-WMF: Where is that "issues" page even coming from? Any text in there should be able to be managed as a message by the community. — xaosflux Talk 17:44, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: MediaWiki:cx-tools-linter-cannot-publish-message? * Pppery * survives 03:15, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
@Pppery: thanks, that looks like most of it - except the screen shot has an additional control to "publish draft" on it as well - @Pginer-WMF: as was mentioned above, we do not have community support for "advertising" this capability. — xaosflux Talk 04:08, 21 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback xaosflux. Allowing to publish under the user namespace provides the opportunity to share the contents more easily (e.g., to get help or feedback from other editors and learn what's wrong without disrupting the main namespace). Currently translators often ask about the issue getting such advice from other editors (example) which also generates work for the community and may provide less detailed guidance. For all kinds of issues and errors we try to provide a link to further details (a wiki page where the community can edit/discuss the contents), and a quick action representing a logical next step which is a design good practice. I don't expect this to be problematic since moving pages across namespaces is not a simple process for the less experienced editors, and copying the contents to a new article is always available anyways. In any case, we'll keep observing the number of published/deleted articles.
For the underlying problem of low quality translations, we can adjust the limits to enforce that users edit the initial contents enough, preventing publishing of translations that contain a given percentage of the unmodified initial contents. That helped Indonesian community to reduce the creation of lightly edited translations, and can be useful for other communities too as a way to allow machine/manual translation only to those making a good use of it. The way the limits work and how to adjust them is documented in this page. The proposed change is focused on reverting the unusual use of the page title for communication, but I think it makes sense to have a broader discussion on the best approach to ensure that good translations are produced (and minimize the problematic ones). --Pginer-WMF (talk) 14:48, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
@Pginer-WMF:I'm not sure you're fully understanding the objection here: The workaround that allows publishing as a draft was initially a pure oversight in the design of the edit filter. Shortly after the oversight was discovered, we realized that, as long as the workaround was not widely advertised, it was a useful tool to allow those with the clue to read through the relevant discussion and understand the problems that we had been having with the translations the ability to publish anyway, on the theory that they would not be making mistakes similar to the ones that they had just read about. On English Wikipedia, an unmodified or inexpertly modified translation is considered worse than nothing. The typical soft-requirement is dual fluency in order to properly translate or evaluate the efforts of other translators. Starting from a machine translation for anyone without that level of competence is a trap. There is no review process capable of handling a translation that has been placed in draft space. AfC is the closest thing we have, but we'd have to find a reviewer with dual fluency and the ability to take time away from a long backlog. By advertising this workaround, you are forcing us to close it - we'll have to implement either a userright for "translator", or set up a review process. Given how well X2 and AfC are going, I'd recommend a userright, but in any case, you cannot advertise the workaround of publishing as a draft without forcing us to remove it. Let me know if you have any questions on this. Tazerdadog (talk) 20:11, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for the additional context, Tazerdadog. I think that it is a valid concern to consider that an increase in visibility for the user draft option could potentially lead to an increase in the abuse of the feature. However, the data so far does not seem to confirm that. This change became visible to users on May 8, and the number of published content in the user namespace with Content translation has not increased (it remains at about 1-5 published pages/day). In fact, the number of published drafts during the ten days before the change (32) is higher than those published the ten days after it (23). English Wikipedia editors decided to limit who can publish with the tool, and we were trying to support it in a way that serves the best all users involved. In that context I don't understand why you consider that this "forces you to remove it". We are very open to identify the problems, analyze the evidence and undo or adjust the changes in collaboration to make the tool work in the best possible way. --Pginer-WMF (talk) 10:36, 23 May 2019 (UTC)
Yup, the root concern is preventing large numbers of poor translations from finding their way into mainspace. As long as that doesn't happen, this discussion is academic. We're not forced to remove it unless it becomes a problem. We've hypothesized that it might, but you've provided data that shows it hasn't. That said, we need to keep an eye on the raw numbers, and if those start climbing then we need to find a way to quantify the quality of the translations. Tazerdadog (talk) 06:20, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
Do note T223500, a phabricator task to publish translations in user namespace by default for non-extendedconfirmed users -- although that was created by PPetkovic (WMF), not Pginer-WMF. * Pppery * survives 20:18, 22 May 2019 (UTC)

From deWP

I´m sorry to say it like that but limiting the publication of new articles/translated articles to only experiences authors is the most stupid thing I´ve seen for a long time. There is already a lack of authors and a decreasing number of such in the Wikipedia and now something like that?! I´m already a volunteer for more than 5 years and I have thousands of edits in the German Wikipedia. But due to my small number of edits I should not be able to publish in the English Wikipedia? Are you crazy? Unbelievable. That´s it for me here. TheTokl (talk) 18:45, 13 August 2019 (UTC)

@TheTokl: if you set the new english title to be Draft:YourTitleName it will let you create the page, then you can use the move function to move it to the article name. — xaosflux Talk 19:32, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

internetquelle

Can anyone point me in the direction of what needs to be done to convert de:Template:Internetquelle (a dewp citation template) for use with WP:CXT? It looks like CXT should be able to convert the template directly into {{cite web}} but I don't know what needs to be linked for that to happen. Right now, enwp's {{internetquelle}} is meant to be subst'd to manually convert the German parameters to English, but isn't this something that TemplateData could do? Let me know if this question would be better handled elsewhere. czar 19:09, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

x-posted to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) § {{internetquelle}} compatibility with WP:CXT (centralize discussion there) czar 15:36, 2 November 2019 (UTC)
Archived discussion can be found here. (Or equivalent wikilink: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 177#Template:internetquelle compatibility with WP:CXT) •ː• 3ICE •ː• 10:04, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Look, you can't stop me from using machine translation, so why make it unnecessarily harder to do?

Hi, Ever since July 2016 when machine translation was globally disabled in this tool... (for good reason, see quality complaints) ...I have been forced to copy/paste paragraphs one by one into Google Translate and then copy/paste the translation back (to use as a first draft ONLY). Four entirely unnecessary steps per each line of text, slowing down my already difficult workflow. I'm an excellent copyeditor but weak typist due to dyslexia so please; just let me start with a rough machine translation of the entire article as base. I promise not to submit machine translated garbage, but only rely on it for identically spelled words. Google provides correct spelling, but I arrange the words by hand, in accordance with good grammar rules and organized into a naturally flowing prose. •ː• 3ICE •ː• 12:15, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

@3ICE: You can paste the URL of the article into Google Translate and it will translate the whole page for you, so you don't need to do it line by line (or paragraph by paragraph). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:00, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
Unless they're translating the wikitext. Nemo 23:02, 25 November 2019 (UTC)
Indeed as Nemo wrote; I'm interested in the wikitext itself. Thanks though, for your suggestion Ahecht; keeping a full-page translation in a separate window will shorten my workload by two steps for all basic, text-only paragraphs. I only have to copy/paste them in one direction now, instead of both ways.
Is there a hack for re-enabling the automatic translator feature? I assume it's already written somewhere and is feature complete (handles wikilinks, {{template}}s, preserves formatting, etc.) It was just disabled by having the relevant code commented out. If that is the case I could maybe find it in inspector / DOM explorer / local source files and simply uncomment it for myself and refresh the page (taking care to check the "keep my modifications between page reloads" box.) I just don't know where to look. Wikipedia is a very big project. •ː• 3ICE •ː• 10:16, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Why is it not possible to share drafts with other users?

I have been trying to find out how to share a translation draft which I started with another user, so that they can assist with the translation. It seems there is no easy way to do that, and when the other user tries to translate the same article, it says 'this article has already been started by another user, please consult with them', and then offers to let you begin a new translation. Why is it not possible for me to share the draft and let another user work on it, or when another user tries to translate the same article, there is an option to continue from the other user's saved progress? This seems like a very obvious function that is missing. Does anybody have any idea if this could be implemented, and why it has not been? --Jwslubbock (talk) 16:33, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

@Jwslubbock: the translations are currently "private" - and making them "shared private" bring with it lots of issues (like content moderation, user behavioral issues, etc). Equally important is revision history of each change for attribution/copyright reasons. You could request an enhancement on the workboard - but I don't think it would get done with out a lot of work. — xaosflux Talk 18:28, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Please make the error page for new users more useful for them

Hi all

I'm working with new editors to translate from English to Turkish at an outreach event. When they try to access the content translation tool on English Wikipedia they get the error saying they are not able to use it but no clear way to proceed. Given that there are 470 million additional language English speakers in the world it would be really helpful to improve people's user experience if they're interested in translation from/to English. The message reads:

Translate page - Note: This utility is currently restricted to extended confirmed editors on the English Wikipedia, see [[WP:CXT]] for more information.

There are several issues with this message:

  • This message gives the impression they cannot use the tool at all, despite the fact they can still translate from English Wikipedia.
  • It does not explain any of the terms e.g what an autoconfirmed user is
  • It does not actually link to the page explaining the rules and expects the end user to know they need to get rid of the brackets and paste the shortcut into the search bar, this is a lot of assumed knowledge.
  • It does not link to the translation tool, making it even harder to find.

It would be really helpful if the message was more clear, something that included the following information:

  • You cannot use the content translation tool to translate from other languages into English Wikipedia until you are an extended confirmed user (with a blue link explaining what that means)
  • You can still use the tool to translate from English to other languages (unless that language restricts new article creation in some way)
  • Follow this link to load the article translation tool

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 14:46, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

@John Cummings: that message does not support links (also has issues with lengthy statements), prior discussions resulted in not encouraging users to do this some other way (such as drafts, sandboxes, etc). If you would like to improve the former please file a phab ticket for software changes, for the later establish a consensus and we can adjust it.
@Xaosflux: thanks for the information, a few questions:
  • Which prior discussions are you referring to?
  • What additional functionality are should I specifically ask for to allow more complex messages?
Thanks again
John Cummings (talk) 15:05, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
@John Cummings: I think we should advertise a way to send these to Draft: myself, but prior disucssions (see above such as Advertise DRAFT: use) have died out (this was originally discussed a few years ago at WP:AN). It has been long enough to have a new discussion - so feel free to start a section and link to it from WP:VPR. It would require no technical changes to let people know about using Draft:, we can squeeze it in to the interface messages in a few places probably. I think that would be the best first start, the technical details of the interface can be best revisited when it is clear what the community support will be. If you want to proceed the tech work on that specific banner would be to ask to allow wikimarkup in MediaWiki:Cx be preserved and rendered in the content translation extension. — xaosflux Talk 15:27, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

translating cite web

Hi! Could I get some help on translating {{cite web}} to and from other languages in CXT. When translating into Scots, for example, the cite web references come up as grayed out. The "issues" gives:

"Missing reference: A reference could not be transferred to the translation since it uses a template with a different structure.
Please, edit the reference in the translation to fill the missing information." It then gives a link to Content translations/Templates. However, the template is identical for both languages.

How do I go about making these translate properly through the translation tool? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 16:20, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: this isn't the best page for that, perhaps try: Help talk:Citation Style 1. — xaosflux Talk 23:55, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll give it a go. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:59, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

I can’t use the translation tool to English, but I’m an extended confirmed user

Hey, I’m an extended confirmed user, but when I try to use the translation tool to English, it doesn’t translate. Does anyone know how to fix that? (I’m only an extend confirmed user for an hour by the way, when I’m writing this) I actually mean that the automatic translation tool doesn't work, but that's weird, because I'm an extended confirmed user. Because I can access the translation tool, but I can't use automatic translation to English. Jasper098 (talk) 20:26, 9 April 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jasper098 (talk • contribs) 20:00, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

How are you trying to use this? Try highlighting the text on the English side and holding ctrl & alt. Only works in certain languages. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:02, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jasper098: automatic/machine translation is not enabled to English. As extended confirmed you will be able to create articles that you translate, but you have to provide the quality translation yourself. — xaosflux Talk 16:17, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
@Jasper098: you can use Google Translate for automatic translation but make sure to put it into draft space for a review as machine translation can have issues 🌸 1.Ayana 🌸 (talk) 10:38, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Can we make the link to the actual tool clearer at the top?

I keep forgetting where Special:ContentTranslation is and coming here, and have to hunt for it. Can we have it in bold or even a button for it somewhere at the top? Goonsquad LCpl Mulvaney (talk) 04:47, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Likewise. I've added a button. czar 04:32, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to enable machine translation within the Content translation tool

It is not possible to use machine translation in the English version of Content translation tool today (in April 2020).

However, this rule has not been changed in response to the January 2019 contract between GOOGLE and Wikimedia Foundation regarding GOOGLE translate.

Therefore, perhaps it assume Yandex translate which could be used before January 2019.

Comparing Yandex and GOOGLE translations, from my experience Yandex translation is awful (maybe it depends on the source and destination languages). However, according to my experience, the GOOGLE translation into English is considerably higher quality than the GOOGLE translation into Japanese, and I (a non-English speaker and an English beginner) can understand the translated text. Therefore, when translating from other language to Japanese, in parallel I make English translation using GOOGLE translation. (I posted some text of them to DRAFT, as you can see in my post history) I know, of course, that the translated text produced by GOOGLE Translator are not sufficient for English speakers. However, I consider that an English-speaking person can correct an English expression by reading the English sentence created by the translation, even if he or she has little knowledge about the source language. Therefore, I propose to enable machine translation for DRAFT and user page. I don't propose to enable machine translation for the standard space because I think some improvements by English speakers (as described above) should be done.

Thank you !!!

--HaussmannSaintLazare (talk) 05:42, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

add {{rfc|proj}}--HaussmannSaintLazare (talk) 14:35, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

add small change --HaussmannSaintLazare (talk) 14:38, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

@HaussmannSaintLazare: Please see WP:MACHINETRANSLATION. It has nothing to do with Google Translate vs. Yandex. Editors can use a machine translation as a guide for translating, but allowing the tool to directly import the translation would encourage editors to leave unedited translations as articles. Even enabling it for draft space would lead to an increase in unedited translations clogging up WP:AfC. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:42, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Was the tool already restricted to extended confirmed users when there were problems with bad machine translations? -kyykaarme (talk) 22:10, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Ok, I just now realized that everyone can use the tool, you just have to be extended confirmed to publish directly into main space, and others can publish into their user space or draft space. I wonder if it would be possible to restrict the machine translation to extended confirmed users. -kyykaarme (talk) 12:08, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello User:Ahecht !!!　(I don't like the indent going down, so I returned it)

Thank you for your interest in my proposal.

Examining your posting history, I have found that you have little interest in Wikipedia in other languages. I'm sure that you have little interest in translation. However, this proposal is a proposal for those who have never been interested in creating translated articles, such as you, to cooperate in creating translated articles.

I recently noticed that what is important as the ability to create translated articles is not the knowledge of the source language but the knowledge of the target language and the writing skill of the target language (as a result of the improved machine translation function).

In other words, until now, people who do not think about creating translated articles because they have little knowledge of the source language can create translated articles.

I don't know what foreign language you know.

However, machine language translation works best when you have no knowledge of the source language. So, how about to try content translation and machine translation for an article in Swahili Wikipedia?

(If you know Swahili, how about Tagalog Wikipedia)

You cannot use GOOGLE translation in content translation, but you can use it outof content translation and paste the translated text intocontent translation .

Thankfully, the result of content translation will not go out unless you push "PUBLISH" BUTTUN. So, even if you try content translation, it will not bother other users.

By the way, I (who is mainly active in the Japanese Wikipedia) made this proposal, because the English Wikipedia plays the role of a hub in Wikipedia.

The English Wikipedia is one of the clues for Japanese Wikipedia users to obtain information outside the English-speaking world.

Therefore, one of the (and perhaps the main) motivations for this proposal is to increase the number of English Wikipedia articles about non-English-speaking area.

Thank you !!!

--HaussmannSaintLazare (talk) 07:34, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Support A bit poorly worded, but the gist of it is: the content translation tool is currently useless unless you have dual proficiency. Clearly the tool should not be used for direct translation, as machine translation is not good enough. But! Humans are good at interpreting machine translations and turning them into usable articles. I already use Google translate to translate articles, but its tiresome to copy and paste text into GTranslate. That is why the content translation tool was created. I very much understand why the machine translation feature was removed, as it was being abused. But in the right hands the tool would be invaluable. Thus I believe that machine translation should be made available to either 1) extended confirmed users, 2) a new special category of users we create such as a "translators" rights group. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 03:31, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Translation error on the Turkish Wikipedia

Pages such as Raid, Behold, Mr. Clean, and Endust are called "Raider", "Beholder", "the mr.cle", and "INDUSTRIAL". Seems like the translator is broken. 148.74.247.125 (talk) 18:24, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi 148..., this page is only about the English Wikipedia, for general feedback on the CXT tool please see mw:Talk:Content_translation. — xaosflux Talk 18:47, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Translate page - On the English Wikipedia machine translation is disabled for all users and this tool is limited to extended confirmed editors (see WP:CXT)., help me

hello, on the translation page there is an error that says: Translate page - On the English Wikipedia machine translation is disabled for all users and this tool is limited to extended confirmed editors (see WP:CXT)., help me please, i am a auto confirmed user and can't use the machine translation, thanks--Rodney Araujo (talk) 23:21, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Where can I make some suggestions for this tool? The overused must be stopped.

Hello, I am from Vietnamese Wikipedia (viwiki). I am not sure where I can give my concerns to this tool. The tool can not prevented the overused or abused actions of editors in some cases.

When you translate a short article, this tool allows editors to publish the low-quality content regardless they have no efforts to translate, only use automatically translated content from Google Translation. That is such a nightmare for small-and-medium projects where there are not enough administrators to patrol new content. In viwiki, we have thousands of articles like this, and the community can not follow and correct the writing style. I demand a method to prevent this. Alphama (talk) 22:42, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Looks like you already found the MediaWiki page, where I'd recommend bringing this up. Someone has already mentioned how the English Wikipedia voted to restrict aspects of this tool for similar quality reasons so I imagine you could find consensus to do the same on viwiki. czar 17:56, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

The tool should be activated or disabled

It is one thing that machine translation is disabled, but even when one uses the tool to translate things manually, clicking the public button generates the following error: "Translate page - On the English Wikipedia machine translation is disabled for all users and this tool is limited to extended confirmed editors (see WP:CXT)." and the content can't even be easily copied into the Visual Editor (well, it can - but only on a paragraph by paragraph basis, which is annoying). Why can't the properly translated article be published? The code mostly works, I just published this short article ([3]) based on translating things in the tool, then copying it into Visual Editor paragraph by paragraph. But if the article was longer, I can imagine some new users getting fed up and abandoning the unsaved draft as they can't figure out how to rescue their work that is ready to be published, but the publish button doesn't work and they don't want to copy the text paragraph by paragraph to VE or don't know they can do it... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:13, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

@Piotrus: please note, CXT is a beta feature and is disabled by default, editors wanting to trial the beta feature must explicitly opt-in to it already. — xaosflux Talk 15:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Ah, that helps a bit, but it would still be nice to be able to publish the results somewhere, draft, sandbox, etc. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:00, 12 October 2020 (UTC)
@Piotrus: the technical controls only prevent saving to mainspace, so you can already do those other things. Prior discussions on advertising this ability were against it though. — xaosflux Talk 13:59, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Bug

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T268872


Hi, I get this error message. It says something like "An unknown and unrecoverable error occurred." What should I do? --El Mono Español (talk) 22:13, 11 December 2020 (UTC)
@El Mono Español: this appears to be an open bug, you can try again - if it persists please report at and follow up in: phab:T268872. — xaosflux Talk 00:10, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Manual translations

Are we allowed to make manual translations from another language we're familiar with to English as long as we cite our sources properly, write it in the right format, etc.? (I'm guessing that it's just machine translations that are restricted, but I want to check to make sure, especially since I'm not sure how I'd mark that) Henryx6 (talk) 11:02, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Yep, that's fine and encouraged. Tazerdadog (talk) 13:55, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
@Henryx6: if you want to just "translate" the article from the other language, give it some credit for example by putting the {{translated}} template on its talk page. If you just want to write about the topic in your own words then yup - just go ahead! — xaosflux Talk 16:56, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

The article does exist in the destination language

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T271542

It would be goog that the translation tool could suggest the article name of an article, when it exists in the destination language (i.e. in a list, it can use Apertum, but probability that the right name is the article linked to the concept / name in destination language is very high. For example, here in List of battery types to Spanish. The automatic translation "Zinc@–batería de carbono" is worse than the article name automatically linked in the translation "es:Pila de zinc-carbono, that exists (it is not a red link). --BoldLuis (talk) 09:13, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

@BoldLuis: This isn't something we can do for only the English Wikipedia, you can place a software feature request using the direction here: WP:BUG. — xaosflux Talk 11:41, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Done, created phabricator:T271542. Thank you a lot!!. --BoldLuis (talk) 14:11, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Easier to translate the Wikipedia:Content translation tool

I suggest include a tool to translate the Wikipedia:Content translation tool to other languages. BoldLuis (talk) 10:12, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Problem with content translation tool

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T277029

I was translating something with this tool. When I tried to translate I got a message on the side.

Translation services not available for the selected languages. Why?

The why? is a link. However, when I click on it, it disappears and I can't enter the link. This is because I exited the focus of the translation. This is really annoying and should be fixed! Adam080 (talk) 16:30, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Translation services not available for the selected languages

I have used the content translation tool for a couple of articles, and while I know I need to adjust the final language (I tend to do French > English), it helps me get started. I have used this with new articles and with additional parts of articles, though I find today when I tried it again, I am getting an error message, "Translation services not available for the selected languages." I know this has worked before, though even after logging on and off a couple times, it is only giving me the literal word-for-word original French, rather than doing the imperfect machine translation that I then need to adjust and fix.

Has anybody else experienced this or can help me with this? As I mentioned, this worked fine for me recently. Thank you. --- FULBERT (talk) 14:28, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

@FULBERT: machine translation to English is supposed to be disabled. — xaosflux Talk 10:36, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
Thank you xaosflux Talk. --- FULBERT (talk) 12:15, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia in Hindi

I urge community to have a team of Wiki Hindi language for Indian Wiki community

Lets us make a strong Wiki team for Hindi language translation of Wiki pages and addition of new pages in Hindi

Share your thoughts Ramkuteer (talk) 02:07, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

@Ramkuteer: there is a Hindi Wikipedia, if you want more articles there, you can write them there or ask for an article drive there. The Hindi Wikipedia can be access here: w:hi:मुखपृष्ठ. — xaosflux Talk 10:35, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Correction translation tool

Is it possible to debug the translation of this tool, without mastering programming?.Mohmad Abdul sahib 11:51, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

For technical details of the tool itself, and discussion related to it - please see mw:Extension:ContentTranslation. — xaosflux Talk 02:58, 19 September 2021 (UTC)

Making Machine translation available on English Wikipedia

I believe making machine translation unavailable on English Wikipedia causes a net harm rather than gain to English language Wikipedia. My reasoning for this is that while it gives gains for text quality, it sacrifices meaning contained within links. On Wikipedia the meaning contained in links is often more consequential than the meaning contained in the text itself SiliconProphet (talk) 19:03, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

To clarify: I believe in my personal translation work the unavailability of machine translation actually makes my wording sloppier because I’m forced to focus more on preserving links and other formatting over making the text flow well in English SiliconProphet (talk) 19:54, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

I can only second this. I am a polyglot, an IT scientist and a Wikipedian since 2004, so I can confidently say that I realize all the dangers of not using a machine-translation based tool properly. However, the current state of the affair, which seems to be "no one can use the tool into English for whatsoever purpose", makes me cry. I routinely use tools like this one for the "conversion of links and retention of formatting", as mentioned by SiliconProphet above. I had in fact even crafted my fully own Google Translate-based tool for this purpose, specifically for conversion between Czech and Slovak languages, back in 2013 before the global ContentTranslation was even in planning! Well controlled by the community, it attracted more than a hundred users who used it to produce tens of thousands of new articles.
I can understand the English Wikipedia community does not feel capable of controlling the influx of poorly curated machine translations, but restricting even power users from using the tool responsibly by placing a technical limitation on English as target language seems way too strict to me. I was just about to translate a new article from Czech Wikipedia into English, and I swear that I would have manually edited every single word of it, but being artificially prevented from using technology and forced to start from a scratch instead greatly increases the effort and time I would need to put into this. As a result, if I am to publish the article at all (I don't like creating stubs, which have their own problems), it is definitely going to be less extensive (and my work less enjoyable), because my time is limited. --Blahma (talk) 09:36, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Questions about publishing translations

I'm new to the Wikipedian world and I have a couple brief questions. I am trying to translate a page into English, but, since I'm new, I won't be able to directly publish it. Should I set publish settings to "Community draft"? I'm not entirely sure what I should do. Would this translation not be available to the public at all until I become an experienced user, even if others have reviewed it? A gentle and clear explanation (or a link to one) would be appreciated. Thank you. Techsongs (talk) 19:28, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

@Techsongs: you should be able to publish as a draft. Very very new editors, like yourself, may not create articles regardless of the translation tool. You can place this code on the top of your page to let you queue it for an article reviewer though: {{subst:AfC submission/draftnew}}. — xaosflux Talk 19:45, 29 November 2021 (UTC)

What is the official name of this tool?

There are different names on this page, the tool itself, and documentation for the tool. Does anyone have strong feelings about the name? Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:37, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: is the the ContentTranslation extension. — xaosflux Talk 16:42, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
In general, I like the current title better - especially for new editors who may have no idea why we are using CamelCase or what an "extension" is. — xaosflux Talk 16:44, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: Thanks for the reply. I think I asked the wrong question. Instead, what should the name of this tool be? Here are some possible names:
  • Extension:ContentTranslation
  • ContentTranslation extension
  • Wikipedia:Content translation tool
  • Wikipedia:Content Translation Tool
  • Wikipedia Content Translation Tool <-- my preference
Quick thoughts are helpful now. After everyone has had their say and after weeks or months when it is timely, I support renaming and moving pages to have uniform name use. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:52, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry: in your #4 above, are you saying you want to move this page to the article namespace? — xaosflux Talk 16:54, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
@Xaosflux: No, I just want a name that I should be using if I write documentation of this tool in off-wiki contexts. The name should have punctuation and capitalization defined. There are many Wikipedia content translation tools, right now there is no such thing as the Wikipedia Content Translation Tool, this tool's official name seems to be ContentTranslation but that is an odd name and would be hard to understand if seen off-wiki, and this Wikipedia documentation page does not currently give a name for the tool. I propose to name this tool "Wikipedia Content Translation Tool" but so far as I know, no one has ever called this tool by that name.
Thoughts? Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:13, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
@Bluerasberry: in general, that extension is not limited to "wikipedia's" - it could be used on any type of mediawiki project, so I suppose the "MediaWiki Content Translation Tool" would be more accurate in general; if taken from the perspective of just the English Wikipedia - then the word "Wikipedia" could be used. — xaosflux Talk 18:05, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
the tool calls itself "Wikipedia Translate page"

@Xaosflux: How many tools are we discussing here? Do you differentiate the MediaWiki extension from the implementation in Wikipedia? The tool's name might be "MediaWiki Content Translation Tool", and then when discussing the Wikipedia version we could call it "MediaWiki Content Translation Tool - English Wikipedia implementation" or some such thing. In the image I have here the name "Wikipedia" is on the tool's page. Another difference with Wikipedia as compared to MediaWiki is that I think in the Wikipedia implementation, we have a unique relationship with Google to use their translation service to get public domain text output when I think that is not something that Google provides generally, and would not be part of the MediaWiki version of the tool. In the documentation I am writing, I talk about how 1) the tool pulls text from Wikipedia and 2) gets suggested translations from Google. Neither of those are core features of the "MediaWiki Content Translation Tool", so I want the name of whatever it is that we in Wikipedia use.

I do not mean to make this difficult, but I will call this tool something in documentation. I would like to minimize misunderstanding and the propagation of multiple alternative names. I expect that most people would agree that having a name for this tool would be useful. Blue Rasberry (talk) 18:29, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

These can be the names. WCTT and version for Wikipedia MCTT-W. BoldLuis (talk) 08:51, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Not in mobile version

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T105190

This tool does not appear in the mobile version (for example, when using in tablets) of Wikipedia. --BoldLuis (talk) 08:46, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I'm facing the same issue. عدي (talk) 23:41, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

user:Xaosflux

user:28bytes

Can you take look on this, It would help a lot. عدي (talk) 23:50, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

  • See phab:T105190 and its linked subtasks for development on this feature. — xaosflux Talk 00:22, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Tool stopped working

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T308802

I have been using the translation tool for translating articles from English and Dutch wikipedias to Persian wikipedia for some month already. Today this function is not working anymore. After clicking the "New translation" buttom, it just jumps back to the translate page with the message "On the English Wikipedia machine translation is disabled for all users". ماني a.k.a. [[User:Mani1]] (talk) 10:30, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Almost the same thing happened to me, I'd like to keep translating an article which I have in a sandbox and I got that message too.--Jörmungandr (talk) 12:53, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
  • @ماني and Jörmungandr: can you describe the exact step by step process you are doing before you see the error? Here is what I tried:
    1. Go to w:fa:Main page
    2. Go to w:fa:Special:ContentTranslation
    3. Click on "New translation"
  • I am not getting an error at that point. — xaosflux Talk 14:02, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
    You should only be seeing that message if you are trying to translate to the English Wikipedia with machine translation. — xaosflux Talk 14:03, 20 May 2022 (UTC)
Hi. Thanks a lot for the answer. I tried to translate a page via w:fa:Special:ContentTranslation, it worked! I was always translating via w:en:Special:ContentTranslation and that one is still not working like before for me and for many other users.ماني a.k.a. [[User:Mani1]] (talk) 07:29, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for the note, phab:T308802 may have more on this. — xaosflux Talk 10:51, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Hi, I try to translate from English to Hebrew. I've translated hundreds of articles via pressing the missing Gray language (Hebrew) in the row of the languages, in the article, but now, when I try to translate "cheating (biology)" and I get the same response - "On the English Wikipedia machine translation is disabled for all users and this tool is limited to extended confirmed editors (see WP:CXT)." What shall I do? I tryed to follow the insructions given here, but to no avail. Can you help me? Thank you, Ehud Amir (talk) 14:43, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

An update: I followed the instuctions given in Farsi, used them in Hebrew, and it seems to work now. I hope it remains so. Thank you all. Ehud Amir (talk) 14:52, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
It seems like the current problem is that if try to use ContentTranslation on enwiki to another wiki it is getting an error. If you just to it on another wiki from enwiki it works - so that is the workaround for now. — xaosflux Talk 15:04, 21 May 2022 (UTC)
Shalom Ehud. Last couple of days I have the same problem with machine translation. I also tried going in thru the hebrew translate interface and look for english article to translate but that didnt help as well. Please help me how to get over this. Toda. Sj1mor (talk) 18:30, 22 May 2022 (UTC)

References block

The translation in the references block yielded errors that can not be fixed (that section of the article can not be modified). After removing the translated block of text to try and generate the translation again, the + sign in this area disappeared (making it impossible for the translation to be generated) and I haven't found a way of bringing it back. There are a few students also using the tool who are experiencing a similar issue. We have tried the following approaches, unsuccessfully: logging in/out, starting a new translation for the same subject without removing the one with the issue, and copying and pasting the references from the source. Has anyone experienced a similar issue? Any ideas or recommendations? – Mlemusrojas (talk) 16:00, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

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