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Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2018-03/Including translation hubs

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Including translation hubs

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Voting on: Adding the following paragraph to WT:CFI, after Idiomaticity section on the same heading level:

Translation hubs

A translation hub (translation target) is a common English multi-word term or collocation that is useful for hosting translations. Some attested translation hubs should be included despite being non-idiomatic and some excluded, but there is no agreement on precise, all-encompassing rules for deciding which are which. Therefore, the following criteria for inclusion of attested non-idiomatic translation hubs are tentative:

  • The attested English term has to be common; rare terms don't qualify.
  • A translation does not qualify to support the English term if it is:
    • a closed compound that is a word-for-word translation of the English term: German Autoschlüssel does not qualify to support the English "car key"; or
    • a multi-word phrase that is a word-for-word translation of the English term; or
    • a diminutive: Spanish mecedorcito does not qualify to support the English "small rocking chair"; or
    • an augmentative: Portuguese amigão does not qualify to support the English "good friend"; or
    • a comparative or a superlative; or
    • a phrase in a language that does not use spaces to separate words.
  • At the very least, two qualifying translations must support the English term. Editor judgment can require a higher number, on a case-by-case basis.
  • The existence of a rare single-word English synonym of the considered English term does not disqualify the considered English term: the existence of Anglistics, which is rare, does not disqualify English studies.

Rationale: See Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2018-03/Including translation hubs#Rationale. The voters only vote on the proposed action, not on the rationale.

Schedule:

Discussion:

Support

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  1.   Support. A rationale is on the talk page. Dan Polansky (talk) 19:57, 24 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  2.   Support - seems reasonable. SemperBlotto (talk) 20:05, 24 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  3.   Support -Xbony2 (talk) 21:56, 24 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  4.   Support --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 00:02, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Weak   Support. I would much, much rather this be in the context of a collocations namespace or heading rather than these existing as actual entries. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      Support. This makes sense to me, and I think the restrictions are well-chosen. --SanctMinimalicen (talk) 13:50, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Changing my vote to abstain. As the discussion has unfolded I've become less certain of these precise criteria. I'm not against them, but I haven't the background experience to definitively support them. --SanctMinimalicen (talk) 18:48, 5 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  6.   Support Matthias Buchmeier (talk) 15:14, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  7.   Support — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 03:11, 26 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  8.   Support strongly. It's about time this was codified into policy. This, that and the other (talk) 10:07, 27 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  9.   Support --Vahag (talk) 12:20, 28 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  10.   Support —AryamanA (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान) 18:00, 28 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  11.   Support ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 10:38, 29 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  12.   Support, and good job! bd2412 T 10:32, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for co-authoring the proposal on my talk page :). --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:51, 31 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  13.   Support I like it. BUT add a good example or two of terms that do qualify and a brief explanation of why they do, provided that it doesn't get too wordy – Gormflaith (talk) 15:08, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    For instance, older sister is included despite it not passing tests of idiomaticity, because many languages have a single word for the term. (or a better wording)
      Support --Vahag (talk) 13:17, 24 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Vahagn Petrosyan: You've already cast a vote :p --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 13:26, 24 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Struck duplicate vote. —Granger (talk · contribs) 13:28, 24 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry :( --Vahag (talk) 14:51, 24 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Why is this vote so long? I keep coming back to vote. --Vahag (talk) 17:22, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Good question. Don't votes usually last a month? —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:28, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    I made the vote last two months for the fear that not enough supporters will notice the vote in one month. Our history of RFD discussions shows there have been many supporters of some form of translation hubs, but some of them do not frequent votes. This could be handled by smoothly practicing vote extensions, but these have been controversial; detractors complained that extensions allow for fishing for results, or something of the sort. The result so far took me by surprise. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:00, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  14.   Support Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 15:46, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

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  1.   Oppose - I support the idea of translation hubs / targets in principle, but I find one or two of the restrictions are unacceptable, notably the exclusion of word-for-word closed compounds. I think this is rather arbitrary, and I suspect it will be unworkable in practice. I also think all languages should be included, including those like French where two-word terms are the norm when compared with English two-word terms. DonnanZ (talk) 23:48, 24 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  2.   Oppose. My idea of translation hubs was for extremely common things like this way, what number, day after tomorrow (things you need all the time in spoken language). Imo, these criteria are too lenient and are going to reduce the concept to meaninglessness.

    Moreover, since we put all the translations in the same place, it's not clear which ones are qualifying and which ones aren't; nor is it clear who's going to judge whether a translation is qualifying or not. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 11:02, 4 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

    "it's not clear which ones are qualifying and which ones aren't; nor is it clear who's going to judge whether a translation is qualifying or not" – That would be determined in a RFDE discussion by the participants. The single-term and idiomatic multiple-term translations are qualifying, the others aren't. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 10:38, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    I will take royal family as an example. In this diff, I made a point to separate "qualifying translations" from "non-qualifying translations", but it was reverted by Wyang, on the pretext that it was a "Eurocentric split". For further discussion, see Talk:royal family. I consider the policy to be insufficiently clear on this point. Canonicalization (talk) 13:43, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Absolutely   Oppose. People even support this ridiculous proposal? Words being discounted for being an alleged “word-for-word translation of an English term”, for being a diminutive, an augmentative... Can it be any more English- and Eurocentric? Any translation, regardless of etymology, should be counted equivalently if it is entry-worthy. The examples listed, “car key” and “good friend” have numerous perfectly valid foreign-language equivalents that are includable. Car key: Cantonese 車匙／车匙 (ce1 si4), Norwegian Bokmål bilnøkkel, Dutch contactsleutel, German Autoschlüssel, Finnish autonavain, Northern Sami biilačoavdda, Hungarian kocsikulcs, ...; Good friend: Chinese 好朋友, Chinese 好友 (hǎoyǒu), Chinese 良友 (liángyǒu), Japanese 良友, Korean 양우 (yang'u)... Wyang (talk) 07:02, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    And no comments or harassments, thank you. This is a vote, not a discussion. Wyang (talk) 07:05, 2 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a vote-cum-discussion, per long-standing practice. From what I understand, you would like to see a broader translation hub policy, allowing more translation hubs, right? I admit that the treatment of Chinese and Japanese should be better, and it is a pity I did not come with a better proposal for them; OTOH, since the criteria are merely tentative, this can be addressed in RFD by voters. Furthermore, specific wording change proposals are welcome. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:13, 4 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Abstain

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  1.   Abstain --Victar (talk) 14:40, 28 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  2.   Abstain. In general most "translation hub" terms are things that I would include, but this is not the way I would choose to describe the rationale. For me, the point is that usually the existence of lots of specific foreign terms for an English construction is a big indicator that the English term is actually idiomatic, however transparent it appears to English speakers. If there were examples of translation targets that I genuinely did not consider to be idiomatic (in the loose sense of being "the natural way we have of referring to this concept in this language"), then I would be against keeping them, though I'm too lazy to sit and think of concrete examples right now. Ƿidsiþ 06:46, 11 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    I think I agree with this. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 18:02, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    domestic animal is a natural way of referring to a group of animals; should it be included? (It should because of the lemming principle: M-W[1], but that's a different story.) --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:05, 27 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, probably, especially if other languages describe the concept differently. Ƿidsiþ 07:22, 5 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ƿidsiþ: So the alternative policy proposal would be, "If an attested English multi-word term is the natural way we have of referring to a concept, it should be included even if it seems to be a sum of parts", right? The problem I see is that "green leaf" is a natural way of expressing something, it seems. It would probably come down to what is meant by "concept". --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:31, 5 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @Widsith: As an answer to the last part of your message ("If there were examples of translation targets that I genuinely did not consider to be idiomatic [...], then I would be against keeping them"), I would like to ask you what you think of address with the formal pronoun. Per utramque cavernam 14:26, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    See also Talk:address with the formal pronoun. Canonicalization (talk) 13:45, 15 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  3.   Abstain. I'm not a fan of translation hubs, but it's probably better to have guidelines for them than not to. --WikiTiki89 13:25, 24 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  4.   Abstain. I think I like the idea of translation hubs, but I'm not sure if the restrictions listed here are optimal. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 17:55, 5 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  5.   Abstain. --SanctMinimalicen (talk) 18:48, 5 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    @SanctMinimalicen: I also do not know exactly how the criteria are going to play out. This is why the proposal says "Therefore, the following criteria for inclusion of attested non-idiomatic translation hubs are tentative", italics mine, allowing override in RFD discussions. Of course, if you want German Autoschlüssel to count toward car key, then you also know you want the criteria less restrictive. The restriction is there since translation hub opposers objected that languages like German or Finnish would contribute to there being a large set of translation hubs. As for the diminutive constraint, you can ask yourself whether you want little tree, little car, little sky, and little (NOUN) for a huge number of nouns (NOUN) as translation hubs.--Dan Polansky (talk) 07:41, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Right--and I'm definitely inclined towards the idea of these kinds of restrictions. My abstaining comes from what I feel is my inexperience with the matter--I have rarely encountered translation hubs and have done no work with them, so if I were to vote either way it would be largely theoretical, and I want to make sure this vote is carried by those who really know what is going on in this regard. --SanctMinimalicen (talk) 13:33, 6 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Decision

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Passes 14-3 with 5 abstentions. Pinging SemperBlotto (the first administrator to support the vote) to make it so. This, that and the other (talk) 11:20, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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