Topic on Talk:Talk pages consultation 2019/Communication/Announce/Phase 2

I received the following information in a boxed banner across the top of an en-wiki page I was looking at: The Wikimedia Foundation wants to make it easier for you to talk to other editors. We invite you to review our proposed direction.

So I clicked it in order to find out more information. Looking at your project page, and this Talk page, I have no idea what your project is about, why those languages are listed, what your proposed direction is, or what the project even is. There is nothing here to review, as far as I can see, nor is there a link to go to find out more information.

Please either stop placing that banner on wikipedia pages, or link it to a destination page where one can actually find out more about what you are doing. As it is now, it's just a waste of time. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 19:47, 28 May 2019 (UTC)

@Trizek (WMF):, why?

I think he's trying to minimize the need for translation.

Wargo's comment, though telegraphic, is on the mark. If they are asking Trizek if version 3241793 was better, and why did he delete it, yes it was better, and why, indeed?

The current page does a great job at minimizing the need for translation. And an even better job at driving away feedback. Also, if the idea is, that I'm supposed to click one of those big, blue buttons to find out more information, no way. In the age of Nigerian princes with bags of money for you, phishing attacks, hacked government secrets, leaked corporate databases, and ransomware, everybody knows not to click a big fat button like that; it's like saying: "Here, just empty out my bank account, please."

I work in the biz, and I know how to read both the wikicode and the page source and how to interpret them. But I'm not going to do that every time I land on some page. In fact, I'm never going to do that unless the page looks like my bank statement. If you want me to respond to a survey like this, make it transparent, which means at a minum, some introductory text, and with links that look like hyperlinks, and that have the standard conventions of a hyperlink in this venue. See w:User experience. Mathglot (talk) 00:15, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Also, as someone who is very plugged into translation and L10N issues, you are looking at the wrong end of the pipe, imho. Looking at the languages arranged around the globe icon at the home page of wwww.wikipedia.org, my guess is that outside of ja zh ru, the large majority of respondents in the other seven can read a clear introduction in simple English. Far more important to them, would be whether they may respond in their language. If I were going to organize translations for any intro statements, I would start with those three, and I'd make sure to write the into in clear, simple English. You could try using Google translate on your intro twice: once into lang-xx, then back again into English, to get an idea how you're doing.

As you have seen, that page is linked from a banner. That banner make that page really visible and we have already observed some non-sense feedback on consultation pages (meaning that other people have less doubts than you have). This is why the landing page has no translations options: it is impossible to follow up on all translations that would be provided -- and we already have experienced abuses.

Using machine-translated messages is not an option either, since we cannot provide quality translations for some languages even by that double-checking system.

Mathglot, have you seen http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ ? I like it when I'm writing with the expectation that some people will use machine translation.

WaiD, Yes, I like hemingway; I should use it more often. It's better for some things, like pure statistical analysis of sentences, but I was hoping to use it on some philosophical article about I forget what, that was incredibly dense and opaque for an encyclopedia, and it wasn't too helpful for that, but I don't think it was designed for that, either. I think the app is great for certain things, and I hadn't considered it for this translation issue, but it's a good idea and I'll have to try it out. Thanks for the tip! Mathglot (talk) 17:31, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Trizek wrote,

This is why the landing page has no translations options: it is impossible to follow up on all translations that would be provided.

I guess I wasn't clear. I was not requesting translation options, and I don't think you should provide any translation options; nor need you follow up on any translations if they are offered. So we agree completely on those points. On the other hand, you haven't responded to my initial comment.

Your goals about making it easier to talk to other editors is a worthy one, and I'm glad someone is looking into that. I think you would get a lot more feedback than you are getting, if you had a plain English landing page, no buttons, and no translations. Or, would it be easier simply to just show you what I mean? This is a wiki, after all.

We are looking for a solution that would both give context to anyone whatever their language and would not be opened to possible vandalism on translations. If you have a solution, I'm all ears! :)

What do you mean by, "give context to anyone whatever their language"? Do you mean, "to write something so everyone can understand it, irrespective whether they understand English? Can you include a couple of diff links from different pages, showing what you mean about "vandalism on translations"? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:10, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Trizek, on the landing page there is no text (at least in english without translations) what it is and what to do. It is possible users don't know what to do with these buttons.

If you want to see what the page looked like with different UI languages, then try these links:

https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?oldid=3250798&uselang=ru

https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?oldid=3250798&uselang=zh

https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?oldid=3250798&uselang=el

Of course, most people won't have set a UI language in their prefs at this wiki, so nearly everyone would see the English version, which is https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?oldid=3250798&uselang=en