Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/AfroCrowd/Translate-a-thon

LIU ILLC AfroCROWD Translate-a-thon
When:	Monday 25 June 2018
Time:	11 am - 2:30 pm
Address:	1 University Plaza, room: Pratt 122, Brooklyn, NY 11201;

This meetup page is an archive of a past event. Please do not edit the contents of this page.

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Event participants will leave with the following:

Perspective and the ability to discuss Wikipedia's place in the media
Live publication of information in Wikipedia and instructions for seeing how many people read it
Experience of having edited Wikipedia a few times in the typical way

Event Information

Date: Monday, June 25 2018

Time: 11 am - 2:30 pm EST

Location: Long Island University Downtown Campus, 1 University Plaza, room: Pratt 122, Brooklyn NY, 11201

Who can attend: Everyone, but bring an ID card! Open to the public

What to bring: There will be computers available in the lab. Guest wifi accounts available if you bring a laptop.

Create an account and register:

Transit: Near Hoyt Street A train on MTA or DeKalb Avenue on the B, Q or R train

About the translate-a-thon

Do you read or write in more than one language?

Please join this event in which attendees will translate Wikipedia content. Since its founding in 2001 Wikipedia has been among the most popular sources of information on all topics in all languages. In English language search engines return Wikipedia articles among the highest results for many queries. In other languages Wikipedia articles even more popular and might be the only source of information available. This event seeks to share the highest quality information which participants find most important to share with the most people in the most languages. After the event the login page continuously updates to report readership and use of the pages which participants edited.

List of languages expected at this event:

List of suggested articles to be translated

Advanced support

The best way to get started at this event is to talk in person with one of the trainers at the event. As advanced preparation, anyone might select a Wikipedia article which interests them and which they might like to translate at the event. The best way to learn Wikipedia's method for translation is to come to the event, listen to the presentation, then ask for assistance at your computer if you need it.

If you want to read technical documentation on your own then click "show" to the right and read the following guides.

click "show" to the right

How to find the list of languages in which a Wikipedia article already exists

Suppose that one has a Wikipedia article in one language, and wants to see the other languages in which that Wikipedia article exists. Here is the process:

Go to any Wikipedia article in any language
In almost all cases, if the article exists in another language, the name of that language will be on the left side of the screen
1. Click the name of the language to see the translation of the article in that language
2. Ask for assistance if you go further than this, because a person with experience will be able to quickly confirm what any new user finds
On the left side of the screen there is a menu. Look for "Wikidata item" or a translation of that phrase
1. If there is no statement "Wikidata item", then go to Wikidata and search for the article's name in any language
2. If there is still no result, that article has not been translated. Start a translation!
3. After publishing a translation create a Wikidata item for the concept. List the original article there and your translation so that they will be interconnected. Ask for assistance with this if Wikidata looks confusing.
If you find a Wikidata item for a concept, then the Wikidata item will list all language Wikipedia articles covering that concept.
Use the Wikidata item to get the link to other languages for that item

How to find articles that need translation

These are the most common methods:

1. Use Wikipedia Gap Finder (you can customize your search): http://recommend.wmflabs.org/#Recommend

2. Using the English Wikipedia, find an article that interests you. Then, look to the left of the page, in the gray bar beneath the Wikipedia globe. At the tail end of that list of links, you'll see "Languages," and links to all of the languages that also have that article. Languages are spelled in that language's alphabet or phonemes. For example, you won't see "Japanese" or "French," you'll see "日本語" and "Français".

Is the language you're studying listed? If so, click the language to see the same article in that language. You can compare the two articles to get a sense of what one has that the other does not. If not, that means there's no corresponding article in that language.

3. Head to the Wikipedia in the language you are studying. In the search bar, type: WP:GA (this will also work with Wikipedias using non-Roman alphabets). You'll be taken to a list of "Good Articles" on that language's Wikipedia, the best articles it has to offer. (You may need to find the page that lists them, if it's separate). Find a Good Article on your target language's Wikipedia. Check the bar on the side to see if there is a corresponding article in English. If there isn't, great! You can translate the article into English, and contribute it to the English Wikipedia.

Sometimes, the article exists, but is very short. That's OK, too. However, if both languages have well-developed pages on the topic, you will want to find another article. It can be very challenging to add content to an already-developed article.

Try the tool

You can access the tool from Special:ContentTranslation from Wikipedia in any language. Accessing it for the first time will also enable the tool for that wiki.

Content translation is available [[<tvar|beta>Special:MyLanguage/Beta Features</>|as a beta feature]] in all Wikipedias for logged-in users. Once it is enabled, you will see additional entry points to easily start a translation from your "contributions" page or from the list of languages of Wikipedia articles when they are missing in your language.