Wikipedia:Content translation tool

Content Translation Tool Restrictions This utility is currently suspended for newer editors on the English Wikipedia. This restriction does not impact translating pages from English.

Shortcuts WP:CXT WP:CX

This page in a nutshell: The Content translation tool is a beta feature that provides a framework for translating pages from one Wikipedia to another. Both the software and the community expectations for this tool are still under development. Go to Special:ContentTranslation

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The content translation tool assists users in translating existing Wikipedia articles from one language to another. Users select an article in any language, then select another language, and the interface provides machine translation which the human user can then use as inspiration to make readable text in another language.

Users should be familiar with the target language. Also, they should not publish the machine translation as is, but should proofread the translation, which usually contains strange wording and errors.

The English Wikipedia community has restricted article creation by the WMF's semi-automatic content translation tool to

Due to a configuration error,[2] between at least 11 December 2015^[3] and 26 July 2016,^[4] this tool was using machine translation from the source language to English. The user was then expected to check and fix the translation before publication. Unfortunately, a high proportion of these articles were considered unacceptable by English Wikipedia's standards. Estimates are that, before machine translation was turned off, 95% of articles created with this tool were unacceptable without significant additional work.^[5] Additionally, other issues with the tool, such as poor markup and mangled references, were common. A list of affected pages can be seen at User:ToThAc/CXT list.

In 2016, the community talked about developing a process whereby trusted editors would be able to gain access to this tool.

may be used as a venue for less experienced editors to submit translations for evaluation.

Use of the content translation tool for machine translations from the English Wikipedia into other projects is controlled by the destination projects.

Extended confirmed users can enable the content translation tool by clicking on the blue button at the top of this page in the nutshell description, labeled "Go to Special:ContentTranslation" and then choosing the link for "Try it now!". Doing so automatically invokes the tool's entry at the beta features of your preferences. In order to disable it, you must visit that section of your preferences and remove the checkmark for its entry.

Raw or lightly edited machine translations have long been considered by the English Wikipedia community to be worse than nothing.

, cannot be checked automatically either, and need a human familiar with English Wikipedia's version of the applicable policies to know if the translated article is acceptable.

Pages created prior to 27 July 2016 used to be evaluated for speedy deletion under now deprecated temporary criterion

. These pages may now be moved to draft space for review since most of the remaining articles did not need speedy deletion but rather a review.

The following logs are related to the CXT extension:

• Recent edits that were prevented:
  • Edit filter 782 action log
• Recent edits that were successful:
  • Special:NewPages feed
  • Special:RecentChanges feed
• Extension statistics

• General information about the content translation tool from MediaWiki.org

External links

• The Wikipedia Content Translation Tool celebrates 100,000 translations
• How to translate Wikipedia articles | Wikimedia UK
• Meta:Abstract Wikipedia — A project that lets people share more knowledge in various languages