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I hope they don't use AI to automatically translate articles to other languages, the quality of the others Wikipedias would drop a lot

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Scoundreller 2y ago
Not saying they should, but as a PSA, if you’re anglophone and looking something up about a place in the non-Anglo world, it’s always worth switching to that area’s language and auto-translating. Even the images won’t be shared. Structure might be all different. Perspective may not be the same. E.g. a city in France’s BRT system: Contrast: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantes_Busway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantes_Busway With: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busway_de_Nantes https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busway_de_Nantes
- rcMgD2BwE72F 2y ago
  [dead]
- amiga386 2y ago
  Hard agree. Some random examples where the Wikipedia page in the native language is much more detailed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Florence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Florence vs https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete_tranviaria_di_Firenze https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete_tranviaria_di_Firenze (and an entire second article for the historic system!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense vs https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Défense https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Défense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi vs https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerium_f%C3%BCr_Staatssicherheit https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerium_f%C3%BCr_Staatssic... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_the_Iberian_Peninsula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_the_Iberian... vs https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquista_omeya_de_Hispania https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquista_omeya_de_Hispania ... but https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%AD_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A_%D9%84%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%84%D8%B3 https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%AD... is better than both of them Does anyone else have good examples? Or are there counter-examples, where enwiki has a better article than the native language wiki?
- kelvinjps10 1y ago
  I mean like using it for translating another existing article in another language sounds cool, but not that new articles in other languages are not getting written because it's easier to just translate the English version with AI. and what you said it's true, I think that Wikipedia should employ human translation as volunteers for those kind of articles
Aardwolf 2y ago
I actually like that some Wikipedia articles are smaller in my mother language than in English, it gets more straight to the point, so indeed replacing these with auto translations from English would be a loss
- nextaccountic 2y ago
  What about, rather than replacing, it were provided as an option?
bluGill 2y ago
It would be fine as a translation option. For cases when the page is not found, or the local language is lacking so you want to translate from a different language. It isn't a replacement for an expert writing the real page in the language though. But there are a lot of languages with very little content. German has less than half as many articles as English (Cebuano is number 2 by number of articles - but that seems fishy. German is number 3). At the bottom Cree has only 13 articles. There are also a small number of inactive wikipedias, some of which may want a translation option as better than nothing.
thadt 2y ago
Agreed. The bullet point "Helping editors share local perspectives or context by automating the translation and adaptation of common topics" could be unfortunate if not carefully reviewed - and hopefully it will be. Having recently spent some time doing translations with the current models, my experience is that their output quality can have a rather high variance. That, along with a tendency toward hallucination, often makes them a "fuzzy guess" at best. When I'm the user asking for that translation, I can factor that fuzziness into my understanding of the output. If its already translated for me, I'm depending on someone else to have done the work of making sure it is faithful to the original.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Scoundreller 2y ago

Not saying they should, but as a PSA, if you’re anglophone and looking something up about a place in the non-Anglo world, it’s always worth switching to that area’s language and auto-translating. Even the images won’t be shared. Structure might be all different. Perspective may not be the same. E.g. a city in France’s BRT system: Contrast: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantes_Busway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantes_Busway With: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busway_de_Nantes https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busway_de_Nantes

rcMgD2BwE72F 2y ago
[dead]
amiga386 2y ago
Hard agree. Some random examples where the Wikipedia page in the native language is much more detailed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Florence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Florence vs https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete_tranviaria_di_Firenze https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rete_tranviaria_di_Firenze (and an entire second article for the historic system!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense vs https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Défense https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Défense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi vs https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerium_f%C3%BCr_Staatssicherheit https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerium_f%C3%BCr_Staatssic... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_the_Iberian_Peninsula https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_the_Iberian... vs https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquista_omeya_de_Hispania https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquista_omeya_de_Hispania ... but https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%AD_%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B3%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%85%D9%8A_%D9%84%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%86%D8%AF%D9%84%D8%B3 https://ar.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%AD... is better than both of them Does anyone else have good examples? Or are there counter-examples, where enwiki has a better article than the native language wiki?
kelvinjps10 1y ago
I mean like using it for translating another existing article in another language sounds cool, but not that new articles in other languages are not getting written because it's easier to just translate the English version with AI. and what you said it's true, I think that Wikipedia should employ human translation as volunteers for those kind of articles

Aardwolf 2y ago

I actually like that some Wikipedia articles are smaller in my mother language than in English, it gets more straight to the point, so indeed replacing these with auto translations from English would be a loss

nextaccountic 2y ago
What about, rather than replacing, it were provided as an option?

bluGill 2y ago

It would be fine as a translation option. For cases when the page is not found, or the local language is lacking so you want to translate from a different language. It isn't a replacement for an expert writing the real page in the language though. But there are a lot of languages with very little content. German has less than half as many articles as English (Cebuano is number 2 by number of articles - but that seems fishy. German is number 3). At the bottom Cree has only 13 articles. There are also a small number of inactive wikipedias, some of which may want a translation option as better than nothing.

thadt 2y ago

Agreed. The bullet point "Helping editors share local perspectives or context by automating the translation and adaptation of common topics" could be unfortunate if not carefully reviewed - and hopefully it will be. Having recently spent some time doing translations with the current models, my experience is that their output quality can have a rather high variance. That, along with a tendency toward hallucination, often makes them a "fuzzy guess" at best. When I'm the user asking for that translation, I can factor that fuzziness into my understanding of the output. If its already translated for me, I'm depending on someone else to have done the work of making sure it is faithful to the original.