Topic on Extension talk:Live Translate

I assume that the purpose of this tool is to provide a draft translation in the language of the reader, to help the reader to understand the contents of the original, written in a different language.

The tool as it appears on the screenshots does not include any advice concerning the quality of the draft translation produced. There is nothing to explain that the translations produced are not reliable enough to be published, without being edited by someone who understands the languages of the translation and the source, and who preferably also has some knowledge of the subject matter of the source.

I am concerned that as it stands, this translate tool will encourage unsuspecting members of the public to publish translations on a wiki in languages which they do not understand themselves. This has already happened on some language versions of Wikipedia.

I propose that, as a minimum, there should be a warning attached to the tool to say that it should not be used to publish translations which have not been edited by a person who understands both languages.

By the way, the screenshots of the extension in use which have been produced are very useful in understanding the extension and in translating its interface on translatewiki.net. I notice that you do have a short description of the tool in the screenshot. However this has not been included in the messages to be translated at translatewiki.net. Is it intended to include this description as an integral part of the tool, and is the description to be localised on translatewiki.net?

I agree, it might not be clear to some people that the result should be taken with a grain of salt, and that it would be helpful to have this documented. So by all means feel free to add this. Some optional notice in the extension itself would also be nice, but is not needed by my client (which is paying for the dev of this extension).

All messages used in the extension are internationalized AFAIK. The descriptions for the screenshots on the documentation page are not (just like the rest of the docs).

I am a translator at translatewiki.net, not a developer. When you mention adding to the documentation, I assume that means adding to the 'Extension:Live Translate' page here at MediaWiki. I'm happy to do that, when I get some time.

At translatewiki.net there are 9 messages to translate for this extension but the description starting 'Live translate is a simple extension that allows...' is not amongst them. Was that just an accidental omission? Isn't it part of the extension? Was being slow to understand here.

You mention the possibility of adding an optional message regarding the quality of the results. How do you suggest this could be displayed? - appearing permanently beneath the tool, only appearing when the tool is used, say above the translated text, inserted as an expandable note after the 'Translate' button? Are any of these possible from a technical point of view?

When you mention adding to the documentation, I assume that means adding to the 'Extension:Live Translate' page

Yes, indeed.

How do you suggest this could be displayed? - appearing permanently beneath the tool, only appearing when the tool is used, say above the translated text, inserted as an expandable note after the 'Translate' button?

I think displaying a notice above the text after it's been translated should suffice.

Are any of these possible from a technical point of view? 

Sure, quite easy to implement actually. I'll just do that for the next version :)

Thank you for the prompt reply. With regard to the language of the notice to users, the most useful language for the notice is probably the language of the source. This covers the situation where someone, who speaks the language of the original only, ventures to use the live translate tool to publish in an unfamiliar language. However, for people who are using the tool to understand an original written in an unfamiliar language, this produces an untranslated notice at the top of the translated text, which again they don't understand. You might try producing the notice in both the language of the original and the translation.

This reminds me of the classic occasion where a Welsh translation was requested by e-mail to the translation department of a government organisation and the e-mail reply duly published. This transpired to be one of those automated response things which you can use when you are out of the office!

Do you want some input on composing the text of the notice?

You might try producing the notice in both the language of the original and the translation. 

Sure, why not.

This reminds me of the classic occasion where a Welsh translation was requested by e-mail to the translation department of a government organisation and the e-mail reply duly published.

Heh :)

Do you want some input on composing the text of the notice? 

Sure.

I do get the impression you are a bit off on the usage of this extension though; it's not meant to publish translations. It's intended to be used on technical articles by people that can not read the language they are in, so they can understand what's written. Not to create a new page (or do any other form of publishing) with the translated text.

OK - nice to know what its intended use is. If you could guarantee that no-one else would try to use this extension in other wikis then there would not be any issue. But given that Mediawiki is open-source software I am concerned how this software could potentially be applied either in existing wikis or any new wikis yet to be dreamt of....

I will have a think about potential wording - unfortunately am very busy at work just now.

OK - here is a draft of a message to appear before the translation, in both the language of the source and of the translation:

Here follows a machine translation, possibly incomplete and containing errors of grammar. This machine translation is not intended to be published or distributed without first being edited by a person who understands the languages of both the source and the translation.

I have added a section on 'optional disclaimer' to the documentation page of the extension. Perhaps you could amend as you see fit, when the software has been updated?

That's a good idea to have as an option, but how about simpler wording, like: "This is a machine translation, that most likely contains a variety of errors. It is not intended to be directly published or distributed."

I don't mind the message being shorter; I suppose more people are likely to read a disclaimer the shorter it is. The disadvantage is that 'variety' and 'directly' don't convey a specific meaning to those who don't understand the background to this. However, I can't come up with any alternatives that are better, so agree with the latest wording, except that I don't know whether 'most likely' is acceptable in written American English, instead of 'probably'.

Well, it'll always be possible to change it again it any point. "most likely" is correct in American English (that's what I speak); although "probably" would work fine too.

OK.

Did the above get actioned?