Translations

Summary:

What's the guidelines for bring work from our sister sites to the main?

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Translations

MisterFlames 20 Mar 2015 10:22

Decibelle popped into SSSC with a very good question. What's the guidelines for translating an original work from one of the translated sites to our own. I know the Russians, as a for instance, have created their own articles. Decibelle found one that she really wanted to translate, and asked if anyone knew what to do.

Once I figured out what she was really asking, I recognized it as a very good idea. I suggested taking it to Roget, but he's on a long weekend and might not know, himself. So, what's the scoop?

Re: Translations

RJB_R 20 Mar 2015 13:43

The guideline is to message the original author or a member of the translation sites administration to let them know and to make sure it's cool. I'm still checking 05, even when I'm out.

Also, out of curiosity, what's the article she wants to translate.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Last edited on 20 Mar 2015 13:47 by RJB_R Show more

Re: Translations

spikebrennan 20 Mar 2015 19:15

Out of curiosity, why the suggestion to ask the original author? Our non-English affiliated sites don't ask our authors before they translate an English wiki article into their own language (nor do I think we would expect them to).

Another potential complication is that the Russian articles use an #-RU system for numbering their articles, where # is almost always a number slot that is already taken by an existing article on the English-language wiki. So the translation would have to be re-numbered.

And the original author ought to be given credit. Because of CC license and common courtesy and all that.

Re: Translations

DrEverettMann 20 Mar 2015 19:23

So, keep the number format. SCP-XXXX-RU, SCP-XXXX-KO, SCP-XXXX-ES, etc. It will help to acknowledge the origin of these articles and be a nice nod to the translation sites.

And agreeing that asking for permission isn't necessary, though credit certainly is, done precisely as we've asked them to credit our authors.

Re: Translations

RJB_R 20 Mar 2015 19:44

So, keep the number format. SCP-XXXX-RU, SCP-XXXX-KO, SCP-XXXX-ES, etc. It will help to acknowledge the origin of these articles and be a nice nod to the translation sites.

But we already have translated articles in the main series one and two, plus stuff like the Foundation departments page. If we want to do this going forward, we need to have a conversation on how we want to do treat those articles, and to codify the policy changes. I don't have any preference, and will carry out what administration deems best but I do want consistency and fairness in how we treat translation content.

E: point of interest, I'm under the impression that translation sites may prefer their content being in the main series, rather than its own section. It's more exciting for an article to succeed on the mainlist on its own merits than to be perceived as "good for a translation"

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Last edited on 20 Mar 2015 19:50 by RJB_R Show more

Re: Translations

MisterFlames 20 Mar 2015 19:50

But we already have translated articles in the main series one and two, plus stuff like the Foundation departments page. If we want to do this going forward, we need to have a conversation on how we want to do treat those articles, and to codify the policy changes. I don't have any preference, and will carry out what administration deems best but I do want consistency and fairness in how we treat translation content.

Precisely why I wanted to bring up the question here… and also I'm pretty sure why Decibelle popped in and asked. We're the main site, sure, but that doesn't mean we pick on our little sisters. Good ethics should be a given, and good policy would only help that.

Re: Translations

(account deleted) 20 Mar 2015 23:25

Unless the numbering is something important to the article itself, I don't understand why the article can't just be given another number. If the numbering is important, then… we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

Other designations, like -J and -D, serve to show that the article being read is different from articles on the mainlist in some important way. Having -RU or whatever wouldn't necessarily do anything helpful to the article. In fact, a separate designation for translated works seems more harmful than anything, as it would necessarily remove the translated works from the main list, which would mean that fewer people could read it.

So I say that we continue the tradition of "renumber it if necessary, credit it to the author, but otherwise treat it as a normal SCP."

One idea is a tag for "russian" "spanish" etc. or even just "translation," if it's that big of a deal for people.

Re: Translations

anqxyr 21 Mar 2015 06:18

Having -RU or whatever wouldn't necessarily do anything helpful to the article. In fact, a separate designation for translated works seems more harmful than anything, as it would necessarily remove the translated works from the main list, which would mean that fewer people could read it.

Seconding this. Also, I'm concerned that people would unconciously treat the -RU or whatever articles differently. Or even conciously. E.g. "I don't particularly like this article, but the translator did a good work with the translation, so I'm gonna upvote it". This isn't something I'd like. So, yeah, just renumbering and putting them on the mainlist seems best to me.

I'm not opposed to a tag. If we do make one, I like "translation", since we don't have that many, and the source is usually mentioned in the comments.

Re: Translations

RJB_R 20 Mar 2015 19:26

1. They feel ggood about their stuff being translated which fosters a sense of inter-site community and they can collaborate with the translation process. Plus, it makes certain that they'll be credited.

2. Renumbering has never been a problem, we do it all the time.

3. That's pretty much a given at this point, anyone involved in translation would have to know that.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Re: Translations

MisterFlames 20 Mar 2015 20:19

Here's a word from our Sponsor…

<@MisterFlames> Hey, Decibelle, have you been following the Translations thread?
<Decibelle> MisterFlames: i have
<Decibelle> ftr, the original article i wanted to work on was with something that was already translated from japanese into russian for the wiki (i was raving about it in 19 in the wee hours) but there have been articles on other wikis that i wanted to do but stopped short of cause i didnt know policy
<Decibelle> also i think there should be a tag for stuff thats translated from a sister wiki to ours
<Decibelle> even if you dont keep the subdesignation of -ES, -RU, -KO etc, it can help people to know whats being brought over from the other wikis and better solidify the writing skills
<Decibelle> whichever way we go though i definitely agree with focusing on sister wikis and the work they've done
<Decibelle> they do shit like that for us too
<Decibelle> like i know on the korean and spanish wikis, they showcase a translated article, and one of their own works for featured stuff

Decibelle needs to be part of this conversation, after all. So I get to be her angel.

Re: Translations

RJB_R 20 Mar 2015 20:31

I think the best thing to do would be to put the options to our sister sites through the scp-int site, and go with the prevailing opinion from there of how they would like their works to be treated.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Re: Translations

AdminBright 21 Mar 2015 01:59

I'm down with adding them to new numbers, if the author wants.

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Admin, SCP Wiki

Re: Translations

Pig_catapult 21 Mar 2015 12:00

Also in favour of new numbers unless the author specifically wants that number, then -RU(or whichever) it.

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Piffy is an SCP Foundation Moderator, Lv. 9001 Squishy Wizard, and Knight of the Red Pen.

Re: Translations

Drewbear 21 Mar 2015 15:08

I vote for using "translation" as a tag, rather than making them -RU or whatever.

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Giving bearhugs to the unsuspecting since 1872.

Re: Translations

(account deleted) 21 Mar 2015 15:18

Asking the other sites what they think, like Roget suggested, is probably a good idea.

Re: Translations

Gene R 22 Mar 2015 12:37

Russian wiki reporting in.

When we started writing our own articles, we used 4-digit numbers because there were no articles numbered higher than 999, the flow of new articles was pretty thin, so we thought we should use 1000 and above, so there would be no overlap. Little did we know…

As for the question discussed here, we would prefer having a "translation" tag and not using any country suffixes. This way we would avoid unnecessary bias. Also, the authors would be more happy with their articles being on the main list, rather than on some subsection.

Re: Translations

RJB_R 22 Mar 2015 12:44

Thanks, Gene. The tag is a matter for the technical team, but your input supporting our longstanding policy is appreciated.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Re: Translations

Vincent_Redgrave 22 Mar 2015 19:06

IO member weighing in-

I think that adding a tag to these articles to indicate they're a translation is a good idea, and that site members should be more willing to act and interact with the members of foreign sites (relative to them).¹ I'm assuming that pretty much anyone that can read an article on our wiki or one of the non-english wiki's is fully capable of communicating in that language, and would hope that a little courtesy "hey check out this translation of your work I've been working on!" would be among their checklist as they get at it. Whether the original author would be able to read the translation is a different story, but hopefully someone would be able to confirm that the article attempts to keep the same general feeling and tone across language barriers. I recognize that not asking the original author is a high probability from our wiki to one of the non-english ones, since we were the original, but I hope that that will begin to dissolve and we can turn article swapping and sharing into a way of bringing our sites, and the greater SCP community in general, closer together.

_{I'm a little miffed that I'm a bit late to the party here, but that's largely thanks to me trying to catch up on homework and recovering from Spring Break.}

Footnotes

1. I'm not attempting to set non-english policy, of course, just stating general camaraderie and politeness guidelines I hope we all would follow lol.

Re: Translations

Crayne 23 Mar 2015 08:17

I'm down with a translation tag, possibly combined with a two letter tag to denote the translation wiki of origin. As for page names, I'd stay away from using suffixes; we already have grab bag full of them laying around. I'd also recommend just getting new numbers for articles. Slots being important to the article is usually as a wink and a nod, not really the core thing, so a different number really shouldn't matter that much.

I'd also want the translator to do an attribution post as the first post on the discussion thread, giving full credit (of course) to the main author, linking to the original article (even if many members can't read the original, the added traffic and the link are a courtesy), and explaining why this article appealed to the translator.

Re: Translations

Decibelles 28 Apr 2015 20:40

Having got your tell and re-reading this, is this permission to go ahead with the tagging of translated articles?

Re: Translations

Crayne 29 Apr 2015 05:10

By all means. I'll edit the tag guide today.

Re: Translations

Decibelles 29 Apr 2015 06:37

Tagging all translated articles with "translation" and "ru", "es", and whatever else I can find (though I think those two are the only ones at the moment.)

EDIT: If anyone finds something that I missed, please tag it, or if you find or know of something, and don't want to tag it until you get confirmation if there is none, contact the poster of the article (or me if you want to make me do the grunt work :P).

Last edited on 29 Apr 2015 07:07 by Decibelles Show more

Re: Translations

Crayne 29 Apr 2015 10:11

Tag guide's been edited.

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