Simny

Can you help verify translations of articles from Norwegian

Hello Simny,

Would you be able to help evaluate the accuracy of translations of Wikipedia articles from Norwegian to English Wikipedia?

File:Language icon.svg

This would involve evaluating a translated article on the English Wikipedia by comparing it to the original Norwegian article, and marking it "Pass" or "Fail" based on whether the translation faithfully represents the original. Here's the reason for this request:

There are a number of articles on English Wikipedia that were created as machine translations from different languages including Norwegian, using the Content Translation tool, sometimes by users with no knowledge of the source language. The config problem that allowed this to happen has since been fixed, but this has left us with a backlog of articles whose accuracy of translation is suspect or unknown, including some articles translated from Norwegian. In many cases, other editors have come forward later to copyedit and fix any English grammar or style issues, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the translation is accurate, as factual errors from the original translation may remain. To put it another way: Good English is not the same as good translation.

If you can help out, that would be great. Here's a sample of the articles that need checking:

• Midnight Choir (album)
• Girls Spinning at the Gate

All you have to do, is compare the English article to the Norwegian article, and mark it "Pass" or "Fail" (templates {{Pass}} and {{Fail}} may be useful). (Naturally, if you feel like fixing an inaccurate translation and then marking it "Pass", that's even better, but it isn't required.)

If you can help, please let me know. Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elinruby (talk • contribs) 09:24, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi, Elinruby!

Just to warn you, I don't usually translate into English, and I have never worked with templates such as pass or fail. That said, I have had a look on the articles you mentioned above. The Girls Spinning at the Gate article had one minor issue which I fixed. The Midnight Choir album is more difficult, seeing as the Norwegian article has been updated prior to the English translation. This makes the comparison between the versions rather difficult. I fixed some minor issues with it, but the English article has to be updated before I can check the content accuracy. I hope this helped you nonetheless.

Before accepting more, could you tell me how many articles there will be? Simny (talk) 07:55, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi Simny, there are 37 in all (1 Nynorsk; several tagged Bokmål, but mostly just tagged "Norwegian") But there are other editors available with Norwegian skills as well, and Wikipedia is an all-volunteer encyclopedia, so you only do what you like. You can have 1 more, 5 more, 37 more, none, or any number you want. Plus, there's no commitment on your part to do anything; if we send you articles, you can skip whatever you don't like and do a different one, or just skip them all and go fishing instead and never come back.  ;-)

{{Pass}} and {{fail}} are templates that are not magical, they just stick an easy-to-read token inline. Examples:

• Some well-translated article - ✓ Pass
• Very poor article - ✗ Fail Obvious machine translation, they are even translating people's surnames. Junk.

You don't have to use the templates, you can just label articles "good" and "bad" or anything that works for you.

If you wish, I can explain how to find the version of the Norwegian article and the English article at the time that the translation happened, so you can compare those. Of course, it's quite possible that they diverged after that point, but a lot of these articles are about quite minor topics, and don't see a lot of editing after they are created, except bots, and typos, and things like that. Mathglot (talk) 02:28, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Elcor, Minnesota

Hello, Simny!

Would you have any interest in translating the featured article Elcor, Minnesota for the Norwwegian Wikipedia? Since many of the immigrants who settled here were from Norway, I think having the article translated in this language is important, especially for any relatives of former residents who are looking for information about the town. Thanks! DrGregMN (talk) 14:36, 13 March 2018 (UTC)