WikiProjectMed:Translation task force

Translation Task Force

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The Healthcare Translation Task Force – brings high quality, easy to understand health information to as many languages as possible. We do this by creating well referenced summaries of key health topics in English followed by translation into other languages. It originated as a joint venture between Wiki Project Med Foundation and Translators Without Borders in 2011.

Together we have created over 20,000 articles, representing more than 22 million words of text and worked in more then 150 languages! This translated content has received more than 3.7 billion pageviews since we began collecting data in 2015. And work has be carried out by more than 3,250 translators.

In 2021 the project was relaunched within the MDWiki - Wikipedia environment, using our translation dashboard. Simply open the dashboard, log in using your Wikipedia credentials, enter the target language (using the two letter language code), and hit "Do it". Once the list of missing articles is generated, hit "translate" to start work on an article.

Mobile

The tool works best on a desktop. Mobile translation is available in a few languages with more being added as time goes on.

Campaigns

We have an overall campaign plus campaigns on specific topics including Women's Health, Essential Medicines, and Hearing topics.

Translation process

Steps to translate an article
	To login to the tool simple click login and "Log in with your Wikipedia account". If you do not yet have a Wikipedia account please create one.
	Open the dashboard and (1) enter the two letter language code for the target language. (2) Click "Do it". (3) Select the article you want to translate.
	Click on the blue link starting with "User:Mr.Ibrahem/ARTICLE".
	Click on the blue button "Start translation"
	Translate the article title into the target language and hit all the "+ Add translation" to bring the text over to the translation side (right side).
	Translate the text in question. It may already be partly machine translated for certain languages. Than hit the blue "Publish" button.

Fixing references

Once the translation is live we have an automated tool to help clean up the references. Simple hit the "fix" button beside your translation. We are still working to make this tool more specific for each language and would love to collaborate on making it work better for you.

Q&A

1) Why is the starting content separate from English Wikipedia?

Some on English Wikipedia do not see English Wikipedia as an appropriate place to develop content for translation into other languages.[1] For example some oppose using easier to understand language[2] and others oppose the use of references in the lead.[3][4] Working from here also allows pre-processing of article content to address issues within the content translation tool,[5] and gives us the ability to collect metrics. Simple put we have a greater ability to manage things here.

2) Why is only the lead available for translation?

We have had a number of languages request that smaller amount of content be translated as entire articles are more content than certain communities have the capacity to maintain. Additionally typically we here have only extensively reviewed and rewritten the leads for accuracy. We are looking at adding the ability to translate entire articles for those who wish to do so.

Tools

• Tool for fixing references
• CTX debugger (explanation)
• Linking to specific categories

Press

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Imagine if all our health information was available only in Dutch!

Lori Thicke, TwB GlobalVoices-Rising Voices: Translating Health Content Without Borders

We are working to build a world where knowledge doesn't have borders

Lori Thicke, TwB The Guardian: Translators fight the fatal effects of the language gap

• "Antidote for a stigma: Translated content on vaccines helps fight a taboo", Times of India, October 22, 2016
• "Making Wikipedia’s medical articles accessible in Chinese", Wikimedia Blog, June 2, 2015
• "A Fight for Awareness in the Age of Globalization", Huffington Post, October 2, 2014
• "Doctors and Translators Are Working Together to Bridge Wikipedia's Medical Language Gap", Global Voices & Wikimedia Blog, July 27, 2014
• "Translating Health Content Without Borders", Global Voices, August 30, 2012
• "Leveraging the Web to Overcome Challenges in the Developing World", EContent Magazine, July 5, 2012
• "Translators fight the fatal effects of the language gap" The Guardian, April 11, 2012

Get in touch!

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Doc James
Dr. James Heilman
jmh649gmail.com
ER Physician, Project Lead

Mr. Ibrahem
Ibrahem Al-Radaei
ibrahem.al-radaeioutlook.com
Programmer