Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Translation articles

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A whole host of translation articles:

A deeper definition of Computer Assisted Translation (CAT), Automatic translation, Content scanning, Frequent questions, History of machine translation, Introduction to the Machine Translation, Machine-aided Translation, Second Episode, Second episode, Source language, (source language), Standalone translation programs, Target language, (target language), Translation technology, Translator service All of which have been uploaded today by the same user using a range of sockpuppet user id's, most are wikisource if not copyvios. -- Graham  :) | Talk 11:48, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]


The Assault of the Machine Translators (from Wikipedia:Village pump)[edit]

Does anyone know what is going on with all the articles being added related to Machine Translation? E.g., Online Dictionaries and Translators, History of translation technology, Basic features and terminology, Ancient wisdom for the modern world, The great library of Alexandria, Translators throught history, History of machine translation by W.John Hutchins, History of translation and on and on.

Most appear to be copy and pasted from somewhere, quite likely a copyvio, and others are simply unencyclopedic substubs. The following users have contributed, though there may be others as well. User:212.8.80.248, User:Iratxe gonzalez, User:Irune Berdún. Some blithely recreate articles that have been speedily deleted and others overwrite the copyvio notices. If this is a class of some sort, is there any way to contact the instructor? olderwiser 19:10, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

at least one (the "throught" one) links to a copyrighted article on http://www.completetranslation.com/ -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:19, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like there has been some discussion of this already at MediaWiki:VfD-Translation articles. olderwiser 19:31, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Well, how about AssumeGoodFaith for the present? It looks like a Spanish group (judging by the names) making a collective effort. Right now it is something of a tangled mess, to put it mildly.

Charles Matthews 11:59, 5 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

See also these contribution lists: Student 1 Student 2, and Student 3. Looks like they're students in Spain trying to incorporate their wiki-based class work into Wikipedia. See the class project page. Not sure if this would constitute a copyvio, given that they seem to be the authors of this material, and the class project page states "The main objective is to complement what is already written on the Wikipedia..." Lupo 10:08, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

More students: Student 4, Student 5. Lupo 10:11, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, it's even part of their class assignment to incorporate their stuff into Wikipedia, see [13]! Lupo 10:30, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Even more students: Student 6, Student 7, Student 8, Student 9. Lupo 10:45, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Remains the question: is all the content from their wiki their own work, or does it contain copied-over content from other sources? Then we might really have a copyright problem! Lupo 10:45, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I have just e-mailed the professor alerting him to the debate and asking him to come by and illuminate the matter. Snowspinner 15:00, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, dear! the thing is really a mess. I may venture to write to them (in Spanish) and clear this thing out. Want me to do it? Pfortuny 16:51, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Yes please - things are getting a little better, I think - and of course the wiki really is open. Some basic things about search, linking, titles and use of copied material would be useful for theser people to know.

Charles Matthews 17:00, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

There's more:

They've also put up articles at TAUM system, Elliott Macklovitch, Pierre Isabelle and John Chandioux. I'll rewrite those if I can think of a page that ought to link to them. I've met two of them and worked with TAUM way back when I was a wee grad student in Montreal. At any rate, they've been adding bad text to existing articles as well as dumping stuff to new articles. Diderot 19:58, 6 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I've written to the professor. Now, after seeing the schedule, I think this is going to stop right now (submissions to WP were expected for May 5). I think there has been the typical misunderstanding by students: they had to incorporate their material to the Natural Language Processing article and some may have said "this article is full, our material has to go elsewhere". But I am theorizing now. Let's see what the professor has to say. (I told him barely that we wanted to help them & us, but that they need to know-how). Pfortuny 07:16, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest a comprehensive list of these articles be put first on Cleanup. I don't think a VfD vote has any chance of discriminating any value here, without some preliminary filtering. Charles Matthews 07:47, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, absolutely. They will at least get a bit of deeper attention and if some work is keepable, it will be kept. Pfortuny 07:55, 7 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Don't forget about History of translation technology and everything linked from there. Delete immediately. There's no useful content. --Jiang 02:20, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, cleanup. Does anybody here know how to edit or is this a role play fantasy game where the object is to knock other players out of the game? Editing teaches editing skills. VfD encourages a group to gang up on weaker or controversial members. SimBot2 17:33, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
  • A sock puppet whose only votes have been on VfD pages. 'course, there may be something worth keeping with some of the articles, but most of what I've seen are either blatant copy and pastes (without the express permission of copyright holder that I can see) or else worthless sub-stubs and lists of external links. Unless someone here is interested in cleaning up the mess left behind as a legacy of this well-intentioned, but poorly executed exercise, I see no reason to keep any of it. olderwiser 18:12, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote to them (to the supervisor) and got a response which had already been sent to some Phil Sandifer (?). Quote begins:

Thanks for your attention. I understand the problem you mention with copyright violations. Is something I repeat almoust every day but my students find difficult to understand. Probably I have to say it more clearly and even more often, your note will be a good argument.

My objective is to let them learn while they browse the Internet looking for relevant information on HLT. Sdudents are developing their own wikis and the idea is to transfer contents to the wikipedia where their materials provide something new or additional. I keep saying that they have to acknowledge the sources and quote originalauthors, but often they fail to even understand why they should doit.

I'm sorry for the inconvenience and the extra editing work this iscausing you. The course will finish soon, and I am now in the processof reviewing with the students their work and contributions. So ifyou could be patient for one or two more weeks and perhaps adding put

So, clearly cleanup is the precise way, but better wait (?). I'd rather put them all in cleanup right now. Any objections? Pfortuny 18:36, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you want to take the lead on following through with the cleanup effort, I have no objection. But the copyvios should be removed first rather than re-writing over the copyvio as has happened already in a few cases. olderwiser 18:49, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
No, it is not that I am eager to do it. Also I had not realized the copyvios problem (my mind is in a mess right now as for these contributions). So, copyvios should go away, yes, and cleanup for the non-copyvios. Pfortuny 19:13, 10 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that User:Mikkalai has been deleting some of the redirects that have been used to replace these postings. This may risk having the pages recreated; by making a red link somewhere. Charles Matthews 08:44, 11 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

A complete(?) list[edit]

Ok, here's a list of all the related articles that I could find. Feel free to add ones I may have missed or make comments about the what to do with the articles. As I don't know a whole lot about translation or speech processing, I do not expect that I can contribute much to any revisions. olderwiser 19:22, 11 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

nothing but links[edit]

Copyvios[edit]

(I'm not sure if all of these have been listed on the copyvio page, but they do all contain the copyvio notice.)

delete or cleanup, if not a copyvio[edit]

already deleted--check if recreated[edit]

(some may not have actually been created, but only intended)

stubs or duplicated articles made into redirects[edit]

(Reason for listing these is to check if the redirected articles might have been edited as well and possibly need cleanup--some of the history of these redirects may contain copyvios as well.)

Users[edit]

These users have all contributed to one or more of the articles listed above. Of course all of these users are welcome to edit Wikipedia, but simply due to the issues with these articles, their contributions may need extra scrutiny for a while (but keep in mind Please do not bite the newcomers).