[Translators-l] What to do with outdated translated pages?

[Aphaia]

On 12/24/06, Christophe Millet <kipmaster at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,

'lut, bienvenue a translators-l,
> 1/
> I'm quite new to translation, so, first question (related to outdating):
> do we have a template to indicate which version/revision was translated?

I think we have no template to indicate revisions. As Louis pointed
out sometimes, we don't have version management now. Or we haven't
assigned version number to our translation request. In my opinion,
such management will require technical support - like CVS. Unless we
have some neat extention, such support may be not available on
MediaWiki, as far as I know.

> That would allow to have easily a diff between what was translated and the
> current original article.

> On fr.wp, for example, when an article becomes featured, there is a banner
> at the bottom
> ( e.g. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_safavide , scroll
> at bottom )
> where the link "comparer avec la version actuelle" allows to view the diff
> between
> the version that was elected featured and the current revision.

It is smart. Besides we solve the problem who put this template to
every translation page, it would be a solution.  Christophe, could you
please make its modified version to meta translation request page? We
could make a test on a series of requests ... say how about "Our
projects", the newest request now we have?

> 2/
> The template above could/should be hidden on published pages (on
> foundation?),
> but available for translators (on meta?).

Reasonable.

> But I think it would be good to at least always have a disclaimer saying
> "This page was last updated on 15 November 2005", so that people reading
> it at least can know that it is one year old and may not be accurate.

I agree such information is worthy to be reminded. MediaWiki
developers do. All MediaWiki page (except some special pages) contain
their latest update date. (See the footer). I don't know how we get it
automaticlly on each page.

So questions are A. we want to make it more visible? (But it may
annoyed other editors ...) B. if so, how?

> Maybe we can add something like "the original English version may be
> more uptodate"?

It is an idea. Do you mean where we add it? To meta version or to the
foundation site (and published) version or to both? To meta version,
it will be simple; we can add a notice on source page. "Note: The
source document may be updated after you began to work on your
translation. Please make it sure periodically, if any big change
happened on the source. blah blah blah".

If we care for the foundation website, we need to find a different way
of wording.

Thought?

> 3/
> I'm wondering if someone know of a better tool for translations and keeping
> things
> uptodate. Is there some system which, for example, would automatically add
> an "outdated"
> tag when the original is updated?
> I'm sure the current mediawiki software is not the best for this (though,
> not that bad),
> but I don't know what other tools are available.
> Do professional translators have such concerns? (Sabine, are you here...?
> ;-) )

/me pokes Sabine too
Btw, seasons greetings for all.
Cheers,
-- 
KIZU Naoko
  Wikiquote: http://wikiquote.org
  * Nessuna poesia prima di noi *