Hamish

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18:17, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello, I noticed you blocked indef this account with summary like "bad translations, after 2 previous blocks". I can totally understand, that english is sometimes better than bad translation, but from my perspective (s)he was actually doing pretty good. I control and correct some of his/her stuff and yes, it is not the best translation I've ever seen, but it is definitely not as harmful to make him eligible for indef block. It definitely is not a machine translation as far as I can tell. (S)he is quite average English talking Czech person from what I can see from his/her contributions and (s)he made a huge amount of work for Czech speaking readers. (S)he also learned from his/her mistakes, I discussed with him/her many issues over the time and (s)he always fixed the issues I've mentioned.

I also noticed his/her talk page is not full of notices about upcoming blocks. In fact, this indef block went without any notice at all, which seems quite suspicious to me. I also haven't found any indication of block request by other persion, which seems even more suspicious to me. Please a) show me some bad translations that made you block him/her indef b) show me the request to block him/her sent to you as an admin by other person. I don't think this is a community induced block as Czech translators I asked seemed pretty happy with his/her work.

Hello, thank you for your notice. When I was about to make this block, I indeed had a discussion with another highly trusted user who is native in Czech then I did the block scrupulously. Regarding the block, I concede my discretion told me to give a shorter period at first, but I chose indef eventually. Please allow up to 6 hours to let me back to my computer and I will post the bad translation with the explanation here as I'm doing my job.

1. Translations:Help:Extension:Media_Viewer/35/cs: Translates "covers" as in roofer's covering the roof with tiles; Credits is translated in the accounting meaning, rather than "Credits: John Doe"
2. Translations:Help:Extension:Media_Viewer/34/cs works reasonably well, but has huge space for improvement.

As above.

1. "covers" was translated correctly, it is just a matter of opinion. "Credits" was translated incorrectly, but this is a classic mistake all Czech people did once when learned English, not really a proof of machine translation.
2. I can't see any issue in this translation at all.

I can see no problem in 1 and 2 (they are the same string and no "covers" or "credits" is inside of its original version). I'm asking you again to a) show me some bad translations that made you block him/her indef b) show me the request to block him/her sent to you as an admin by other person.

After your reply it seems even more suspicious.

I've edited last reply, please see the latest version and below:

1. Translations:Help:Extension:Media_Viewer/86/cs: Not really wrong, but it is awkward to translate the original text into this.
2. Translations:Help:Extension:Media_Viewer/85/cs: Missed existed Czech name for Media Viewer.
3. Translations:Help:Extension:Media_Viewer/128/cs: Another awkward way to phrase it, and the user I mentioned above says no Czech would ever say that, it literally translated "make it easier" into three words instead of "zjednodušit".

These all indicate that he was using machine translations with little corrections, our action is needed though he made a huge contribution. And, I have no request to show you, the user is spotted by myself. I asked another user whether he derserve an autopatrol now, but the story unfortunately went to another side.

1. I can't see any issue in this translation at all. BenyElbis also left English button text and added its Czech translation into the parenthesis, no machine translation tool is capable of this.
2. This is an overall issue with mw.org translations. It should be reflected somewhere (perhaps in the message description, which doesn't exist yet), how "Media Viewer" is supposed to be translated. BenyElbis excellently avoided confusion by adding "aplikace Media Viewer" ("Media Viewer app"). Again, no machine translation tool is capable of this.
3. English is built upon phrases, but people usually translate English word by word using literal meaning. Also a classic mistake we all once did, not a proof of machine translation.

These all indicate that he was using machine translations with little corrections, our action is needed though he made a huge contribution. And, I have no request to show you, the user is spotted by myself. I asked another user whether he derserve an autopatrol now, but the story unfortunately went to another side.

I can see no evidence of machine translation in your examples. I don't say BenyElbis didn't use machine translation, but from the examples you showed me it is not visible or provable. Vice versa I can see some professional wordings machine translation could never make in some of your examples. So even if (s)he uses machine translation, (s)he corrects its mistakes and controls its output. Please post another examples, where machine translation is much more visible or provable.

Another point against indef block is that BenyElbis found and reported many errors and mistakes in original pages throughout his/her translations. As a proof you can see my talk page and many other talk pages he created on mw.org. There were English grammar mistakes he found and reported, but also a translation markup mistakes or wikicode markup mistakes. (S)he also actively reported untranslatable sentences or broken translations in pages which I and @Shirayuki helped to fix thanks to his/her reports.

I do not guarantee the user's translation quality.

hello. i think there is two ways. the first one - it really bad contribution and better block such contribution (for indefinite time). the second one - this is bad contribution but after few word fixes it will looks nice/ok. in this case required some one who will check all (few weeks/months) contributions. i don't know czech language. maybe some one from czech native can do this work?

Guys here: please kindly be noted that I will update a summary with another user here when the discussion is over.

User BenyElbis is blocked over nine month. How can teaching from own mistakes, when can't do any edit? Help of the automatic translator for translate it's absolutly ok, I use it too. Find optimaly translation is not easy. By my mind, uncorretly or mistake translation isn't reason for block, because do mistake translation is better than no translate.

I do translate more years, and my experience is – wrong translation motivate another translators to repair, for better translation.

BenyElbis has his page (and also talk). Can we have permission to delete it folks? Thank you!

wtf?

The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees is organizing a call for feedback about community selection processes between February 1 and March 14. While the Wikimedia Foundation and the movement have grown about five times in the past ten years, the Board’s structure and processes have remained basically the same. As the Board is designed today, we have a problem of capacity, performance, and lack of representation of the movement’s diversity. Our current processes to select individual volunteer and affiliate seats have some limitations. Direct elections tend to favor candidates from the leading language communities, regardless of how relevant their skills and experience might be in serving as a Board member, or contributing to the ability of the Board to perform its specific responsibilities. It is also a fact that the current processes have favored volunteers from North America and Western Europe. In the upcoming months, we need to renew three community seats and appoint three more community members in the new seats. This call for feedback is to see what processes can we all collaboratively design to promote and choose candidates that represent our movement and are prepared with the experience, skills, and insight to perform as trustees?

In this regard, two rounds of feedback meetings are being hosted to collect feedback from the technical communities in Wikimedia. Two rounds are being hosted with the same agenda, to accomodate people from various time zones across the globe. We will be discussing ideas proposed by the Board and the community to address the above mentioned problems. Please sign-up according to whatever is most comfortable to you. You are welcome to participate in both as well!

• Round 1 - Feb 25, 4:00 pm UTC
• Round 2 - Mar 4, 4:00 am UTC
• Sign-up and meeting details: Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees/Call for feedback: Community Board seats/Conversations/MediaWiki and Wikitech

Also, please share this with other volunteers who might be interested in this. Let me know if you have any questions. KCVelaga (WMF), 14:37, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi Hamish

Hey

Hello? Anything in need?

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