Talk:Content translation

Please provide feedback about the Content translation tool on this page.

We suggest checking the Frequently Asked Questions page first.

When reporting a bug, it will help us a lot if you will indicate the following things:

• Which article were you translating and to which language
• Which browser did you use (Firefox, Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, etc.)
• If you're getting any errors, please provide log from browser console if possible. To open browser console: press Ctrl+Shift+J (or Cmd+Shift+J on a Mac).
• Which version of Content Translation are you using. If you see "Try the new version" on the dashboard, it's version 1. If you see "Using the new version" on the dashboard, it's version 2.

In case you are familiar with Phabricator, please consider reporting a bug there.

See also:

• Frequently Asked Questions
• User manual
• Content translation/V2 - updates about the new version
• Highlights of Content Translation software updates (until 2017)

I really like the tool as it made the translation process much much easier compared to manual translation, but I've just noticed some very major problems while using en => tr content translator;

First of all, virtually %80 of the citations do not work after translation. It seems to work when I click on the small number but when I click ''edit'' or upload the article, it states ''boş kaynak'' which means empty source.

This happens when the source contains specific templates like {{web source}} or {{book source}}, and its simply translated to ''web kaynağı'' or ''kitap kaynağı'' templates, but the information within the template gets deleted during this process. In the article, after uploading, I can only see {{web kaynağı}} template and there is no source in it. In addition, those templates are translated even though they are supported in tr.wiki.

Also almost always I encounter spaces after punctuation marks after translation. It's really time consuming to delete every space after citations, virgules, dots...

Lastly I'm not sure if that's intended but when I choose to give a red link to an article that can be found in en.wiki but not in tr.wiki the red link contains the English phrase, not the translated one.

For example, during translation of [[collar]], CX translates it as [[tasma]] which is written in grey as its not found in tr.wiki. When I choose it to make it a red link for others to create, new link becomes something like [[Collar|tasma]] and not [[tasma]]. This is so frustrating and time consuming to correct.

I've been using the last version on Google Chrome and Safari btw.

thanks for your help!

Hi, I'm reviewing translations from Spanish to Galician and I have found some problems:

• spanish text "una" is not translated, and it should be translated to "unha"
• spanish text "para" is translated as "paira", but it's incorrect, it should be translated as "para"
• the spanish model "cita publicación" is adapted to gl.wiki as "cita publicación periódica", it adapts some parameters but others no, for example "nombre" and "año", they should be adapted to "nome" and "ano" respectively

Who knows how fix this problems? I'm working with that problems at https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usuario:Elisardojm/Carl_SaganBye.

I have found another issue at model "cita noticia", it's adapted to galician model "cita novas", but it doesn't have "data" e "dataacceso" parameters.

Another issue, at es.wiki model "cita web", parameter "fechaacceso" and "fecha" are not adapted to "dataacceso" and "date" in gl.wiki model "cita web".

Another issue, at es.wiki model "cite news" is adapted to gl.wiki model "cita novas" but only adapts parameters "url" and "título". At gl.wiki "cite news" model is supported, perhaps it should not be adapted.

Model "cite web" it's supported too at gl.wiki, it should not be adapted. Really, all en.wiki cite models are supported at gl.wiki with english parameters and should not be adapted. They are at https://gl.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B3dulo:Citas

Another issue, es.wiki "Cita enciclopedia" should be adapted to gl.wiki model "Cita enciclopedia".

Another issue, es.wiki "cita entrevista" should be adapted to gl.wiki model "cita entrevista".

If would be so much easier if we could also edit source code directly, sure I can publish a page and do it then but sometimes there are so many things it's just easier to start it on my own. You could hide it under some advanced tab if you think most users don't want it. Still something deleting one word or changing one little thing in code would get it to look so much better. Otherwise I like this tool a lot! Great work!

Hi,

Can you give an example of things that are easier for you to do in source code?

Sure, here are couple

1. often Templates are wrong and with little bit of editing it can be fixed, then most that are even right are just copied as they are in English and you can't translate those fields unless you have access to source code of that article.
2. If something is quoted again it is just copied "as is" in English and you can't translate until you publish the page and edit the source
3. Similar thing happens with math formulas and pronunciation text as well but it can be easily fixed once you publish the page
4. Text under images is sometimes impossible to edit or really hard (can't navigate through it so you have to delete entire translation if you need to change one word)
5. Editing Phylogeny tree is not possible

Those are just couple I could think of right now, there are probably more.

Most of these issues are with templates. It is possible to edit most templates in Visual Editor, and the current version of Content Translation uses the same tools for template editing as Visual Editor does. Have you tried it? The Phylogeny template is perhaps too complicated, but most others are usable through Visual Editor.

Sure it is possible to enter templates in some cases but often it is not possible. I have tried to edit it in VIsual editor but even when it is possible to edit templates often it's not possible to edit all fields, some fields you can only edit in code. Still I do think it would be a lot easier if it was possible to edit it in code. Sure editing in code is not for everyone but it should at least be an option for those who want to use it. Then I don't expect everything to be directly transferable and being able to edit it in code sure would help a lot with it.

P.S. I wasn't just thinking about Phylogeny template, but also regular Phylogeny tree even though both of those I assume are complicated they would be easily editable in code.

Then I understand why feature won't be added, you are thinking if you want to edit in code just edit it normally like most people and just use Google translate. Still I do think this tool has a lot to offer and makes so many things easier when translating.

Thanks for hearing me out!

No, not necessarily. It's actually possible that source editing will be added some day. Other people have requested it, too. It's not planned for the immediate future, but it may happen further down the road. I'm just trying to suggest solutions for now.

Oh okey. Hope it does become availble sooner rather then later.

Thanks for your help!

When using Google Translate to translate content, it adds additional spaces after some punctuation marks - specifically periods, and references. I edit them out during translaton, but many users don't realise, and it looks really bad. Here's an example, before editing:

https://cy.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alice_Williams&oldid=7700621

I like how some of the things work, but citation transformation is the least helpful part. It would actually be more helpful if templates would be removed and transformed into an URL. That way I would be able to use the Visual Editor to transform URL into a more meaningful, elegant and easier to edit reference.

I want to translate Rotavirus article form English Wikipedia to Indonesian using Content Translation. It seems a new user has started the translation so I can't use this tool. This new user has 0 contribution in global wiki and I can't contact him/her. What should I do? Thank you

Thanks for the feedback, @Yogwi21.

Due to technical reasons, this is a current limitation of the tool. There are plans for not blocking the translation to a single user. This ticket captures the details, and you can subscribe to track its progress and add further comments.

There is also a proposal to automatically discard very old translations. This can also help to alleviate the problem of articles being blocked.

I have a translation that I started several months back, "Linked list" from en.wp to ro. Now, if I try to resume it, it never saves. Also, if I try to publish what is already translated, I get: nothing, the "Publishing..." button turned grey and no response. The JS debugger console contains this:

Error: Attempting to set unmodified MT without an MT provider 2 load.php:2419:181

   mw.cx.dm.SectionState.prototype.setUnmodifiedMT https://ro.wikipedia.org/w/load.php:2419:181

   mw.cx.TranslationTracker.prototype.processSectionChange https://ro.wikipedia.org/w/load.php:2410:16

   mw.cx.TranslationTracker.prototype.processChangeQueue https://ro.wikipedia.org/w/load.php:2408:736

   mw.cx.TranslationTracker.prototype.getTranslationProgress https://ro.wikipedia.org/w/load.php:2414:100

   mw.cx.TranslationTracker.prototype.init https://ro.wikipedia.org/w/load.php:2407:907

   mw.cx.TranslationController.prototype.onSurfaceReady https://ro.wikipedia.org/w/load.php:2404:27

   oo.EventEmitter.prototype.emit https://ro.wikipedia.org/w/load.php:195:479

   ve.init.mw.Target.prototype.surfaceReady https://ro.wikipedia.org/w/load.php:1696:124

   ve.init.mw.CXTarget.prototype.surfaceReady https://ro.wikipedia.org/w/load.php:2554:902

   <anonymous> self-hosted:973:17

this tool use description from wikidata in english, can it be in my lang? and I want the tool to suggest the label as a translation title.

On the source language click "edit links" under the offered languages. You will be redirected to Wikidata. When competed the translation, add the description there.

it's already there

Is it offered to translate (grey) or does it already exist (blue). Well what article we are talking about?

I'm trying to translate this page into Spanish: International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

I have an issue with the table. I cannot fill the Infobox film festival. It doesn't allow me to edit it. Is that why when I click on publishing, it freezes and stays there frozen?

It also gives an advice that it seems that it is an automatic translation but I guess that's because there are many proper names that are exactly the same.

About 20 translations (or more, I don't even know anymore) of science-related topics were simply deleted by WiIkipedia! The content was removed and is not available to portuguese speaking people anymore. The content was not updated by me in the past year (the notification had this claim as an excuse for removing the page), but I cannot imagine how an slightly outdated translation is worse than no translation at all. Specially because many "original articles" in pt Wikipedia in the field of the biological sciences are either poorly written or incomplete drafts and have not ever been removed.

I am very frustrated, as these pages contain some important topics in biology , such as the translations of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platelet-activating_factor to portuguese .

Is it possible to put them back on Wikipedia?

These deletions are very upsetting and a neglect of the lusophonous community.

I only see 3 deleted articles from Your account in the Portuguese Wikipedia. One has been recreated. If those articled have been published, usually notes about deletions will remain. See https://xtools.wmflabs.org/pages/pt.wikipedia.org/TiagoLubiana?uselang=pt

Thanks for the feedback, @TiagoLubiana.

The tool deletes the old translation drafts that were started but not the final content that was published. If you started a translation but do not publish it in more than one year, that in-progress transalation gets deleted. If you publish the translation, the published content becomes a regular Wikipedia page that does not get automatically deleted by the tool (the community will review it and may decide to delete it as part of the review process, but that is a different story).

There are several reasons to avoid in-progress translations to be stuck for a very long time, including outdated content, blocking others from translating the same topic, and use of database space.

This is insane.

a) There is no warning before deletion, and it is unexpected, at least for the first deletion a user is subjected to, as nowhere when they started the translation did it say that it might get deleted. Because the deletion is unexpected, it is frustrating, and makes the user whose translation was deleted feel out of control

b) What if somebody put hours and hours into translating parts of an article, and now you delete these translated parts? You are deleting their work

c) You could at least, when you delete something, email the author the content

Re the reasons mentioned for deletion:

"outdated content"

When I get back to a translation draft after some time, I make sure to look if the article to be translated has changed. So the reason "outdated content" doesn't apply to me. Furthermore, by deleting you are treating the user like you are the nanny, and as if like the user can't properly take care of such things as outdated content. I can do that myself, thank you.

"blocking others from translating the same topic"

There is an alternative available to deleting drafts, that accomplishes the same thing: We could after a year make the topic available for translation by others, without deleting the translation draft.

"use of database space."

You gotta be kidding me. When I donate like a dollar, that could pay for how many translation drafts to store for 10 years? Thousands, tens of thousands? Storage is incredibly cheap these days. But if it is a problem, I am willing to donate, just say so. Also, if you really have to delete it, which I doubt, why not email the user the contents first?

Simply do not delete, publish as a draft in user space with a notice on user talk page.