Talk:OKA/Checklist

Before publishing

What does this mean?

8. Keep red links only if the page exists in the source language

I don't understand this.

Consider #9:

9. Make sure red links are accurately translated

This is a lot trickier than it looks, and it is *not* like translating running text in the body of an article, which is about translating meaning. A red link points to the title of a possible new article not yet written, so it is not about translating meaning, it is about discovering what people call this thing in their local language; translating just the meaning often gets you the wrong name.

Translating a red link, is just as important to get right, as what you name your draft, and in fact, depends on the exact same thing, namely: Article title policy. A lot of thought may be needed to get a red link title correct, and you should understand Article title policy in order to attempt it, in all but the most obvious cases (names of people and organizations, other proper nouns). DeepL often gets these wrong. (Google is worse.)

For example, let's say you were translating a German article about the Weimar Republic into French, that had a link in the original to the German article de:Kriegsschuldfrage. DeepL translates that to Question des responsabilités de guerre so you add that to your French draft, and get a red link. Are you done? NO! That is not the way academics refer to it in French; in fact, they use the German term as a loanword, so the French word for it is also Kriegsschuldfrage, and it turns into a blue link, because fr:Kriegsschuldfrage exists on fr-wiki. Okay, how about same question, but you are translating into Spanish, now what do you call it? DeepL gives Cuestión de culpabilidad de guerra. Wrong again!! Spanish also uses the loanword from German, so you will find the article at es:Kriegsschuldfrage, and the link is blue, not red. Last example: okay, you are wise to the pattern now, so when you finally get around to translating it into English, *this* time, you write the red link as Kriegsschuldfrage in your English translation, smug with the knowledge that you finally got it right this time. Sorry, no; wrong again! In English, the common term for it is en:War guilt question (and DeepL is no help, and gets that one wrong, too).

So as you see, translating links is a very tricky business, and the strategy for how to handle links that end up red in the target language, should be considered very carefully. It's just as complex as naming your draft correctly (with much less marginal return; i.e., you get no recognition for doing a great job translating red links, but getting it wrong has a big downside and can confuse and hinder future article creation, or lead to duplicate articles being created with great waste of time).

My preference would be to unlink all red links so they become plain text, unless the translator is really, really sure what scholars would call that term in English (or whatever the destination language is). If there is any doubt about what it should be, then do not red link it; that would be my take. Mathglot (talk) 10:06, 6 September 2024 (UTC)