Talk:رهان باسكال

Frankly I'm feeling uncomfortable with a main-space article which can't be checked by a considerable number of members of this wiki. larron (talk) 11:32, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

While I have no objection to foreign language articles in principle I don't think that they should be in our mainspace. If we have enough people who are sufficiently interested then we can have a separate language RW as we have for Russian. But random foreign language pages do not fit in with the rest of the site. Генгис^evolving 11:40, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

True, though it's worth noting we have had random non-English articles for some time. If this article goes, then all the other Babel articles should go too, otherwise it just becomes an argument over which languages are "acceptable" and which are not. -- 11:51, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I sort of agree, but if you're editing in Chrome it'll automatically give you the option of translating the page. I did that before patrolling the edits and it does a reasonably good job. rpeh •T•C•E• 12:00, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Of course, some languages are more acceptable than others - at least in the context of this wiki: acceptable are languages which can be read by a couple of editors, unacceptable are those which are spoken by only one editor. Auto-translation allow us to check the content of a non-standard article, but we don't know whether it is well written: it could be just awful. larron (talk) 12:21, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

At least delete all those Arabic categories. I suggest this be a subpage of Pascal's Wager. Wéáśéĺóíď^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 12:53, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I have created the categories to mirror the English categories in order to put this and the future articles in their correct place.Ibnpascal (talk) 16:58, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Delete

It's not lightheartedly that I propose to delete this article: Generally I'm for respecting the work of editors. But if we don't have a couple of Arab-speaking editors, it is not possible to guarantee the quality of articles in this language. larron (talk) 13:30, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Most articles on the site could be written much better so I don't see potential quality as a reason for deleting this one. rpeh •T•C•E• 13:32, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Is this article better written than most of our articles? Is it written worse? Or is it just a google-translation? larron (talk) 13:35, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Follow the precedent: Do what was done with Russian RW. (Which I can't follow either....) sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 13:56, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll point out that we've got at least one article in Hungarian and I don't suppose many people on this site are capable of checking the quality of that either.--Spud (talk) 14:02, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Make that two articles in Hungarian.--Spud (talk) 14:05, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

This is really molehill mountaineering. It's not hard to check the content using Google Translate. As for quality, we know from experience that what makes good wording is subjective, that's why wiki articles are under constant revision and copy-editing. If your objection is over quality then we may as well abandon the entire concept of shared content generation! ^theist 14:16, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Keep We have French and Spanish articles too. Really we should interwikis for them all, or at least namespaces. Sophie^Wilder 14:27, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes I visit websites where I find parts translated into German, either to address Germans as a target group or just to get some hits via google. When this is done by an automatic translation, I'm usually totally annoyed:

• it generally is unpleasant to read.
• if I'm interested in the subject, but don't understand the language, I could have it automatically translated myself, using the most recent software.

So, if User:Ibnpascal states that (s)he translated this article manually or wrote it in Arab in the first place, I can be convinced to keep it. But it is just an automatic translation, then delete. larron (talk) 14:40, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I think that's fair enough. If it's entirely auto-translated there's no real benefit in having it on the site. rpeh •T•C•E• 14:56, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Keep. Тy^JFBAA 15:40, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I was originally an advocate of "if there is enough people creating enough content in a language to justify a namespace, there is enough to justify a sister wiki project." However, that is no longer the case, as I do not even have to time to full support RW let alone multiple "sister" wikis. Until such a time as we find other people stepping up to the plate to provide technical support we are limited to what we can do on this wiki. Namespaces per language would likely get messy quickly, but maybe not, or maybe a different language namespace and categorized by language? Tmtoulouse (talk) 16:27, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks User:Ibnpascal (son of Pascal?) for your explanations - you put me on ease. larron (talk) 07:10, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Son of possibly another pascal, yeah :-) Ibnpascal (talk) 08:29, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I see that the delete tag was removed, which is a relief. Thanks! What's the best course of action now? Should we just concentrate on adding more articles for the time being and think about a subdomain/sisterwiki/namespace later? If that's the case, we probably only need to add a Template:ar to tag the translated pages, right? Ibnpascal (talk) 08:38, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Arabic team

I have translated the article almost to the letter from the English version. There is a group of Arabs who will be joining in the effort. I have created the article after discussing it with them on facebook. We did discuss having our own wiki but I personally proposed that the arabic articles be integrated into the rational wiki so that others can see them and join in instead of having the articles in some obscure place on the internet that no one would be interested it.

I did search the page and it clearly says somewhere (I can provide the reference) that you *are* indeed interested in having other languages and you already have the Russian pages and the Spanish pages, so, I didn't think it was a big deal.

Now if you're concerned that I'm the only one here, I understand, but just give it some time and the problem will be resolved.

Are there any other concerns?

PS. The article is hand (brain) translated, not auto translated. Auto translated articles are complete gibberish. I do ensure quality and others will testify to that. Ibnpascal (talk) 15:35, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I think a good question is simply How many articles d you plan to do? Because while having more visibility here is great, if your going to do anything dedicated (Which should be the goal), Creating a Arabic RW (like what happened with RussianalWiki) would probably be a better option then having articles here that the majority of users can't actually read or contribute to.--Mikal ^{Harass Follow} 15:45, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll be creating articles for as much as my time allows (I was about to put another but I noticed that there was a problem). We were thinking about a subdomain but thought we'd ask once we reach a certain number (say 100 or 1000 articles? I dunno).Ibnpascal (talk) 15:50, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm another user who can read Arabic. I'll add/translate more articles. I'll review Arabic articles too. I think we'll have more Arabic users soon. Bahaa (talk)

Ibn, it gets my support for what it's worth. I could be wrong here, but I think it was Bertran who kicked off the Russian translation efforts, so you could have a chat with him to get some advice on how to approach this in terms of presenting a plan for something that's reasonable verifiable and sustainable. By the sounds of things you're already doing some serious groundwork here, and I hope we end up seeing a steady collection of Arabic articles. Concernedresident ^{omg!!! ponies!!!} 17:50, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I have just joined RW and I'm interested to be in the Arabic Team. I've read you're comments about the Arabic article so far and I think you've got a good point there but not a solution to the problem. I've read the Arabic article and I found it well written and wouldn't change a thing. It is not auto translated for sure. Obviously you are all worried about the quality and quantity of articles in foreign languages but deleting them is not a "rational" solution. Everything must start with something.. Perhaps you should just give it more time and see how it goes. PEACE! ^{— Unsigned, by: Poshahantos / talk / contribs}

While I welcome a group of Arabic editors who wish to pursue a rational line could you elucidate how you will deal with Islam bearing in mind that we are a secular site and are prone to criticising and mocking many aspects of religion. Генгис^unbelieving 09:31, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

(1) Not all Arabs are Muslims. (2) Everybody who's here should follow the RationalWiki:Community_Standards. (3) Regarding the mockery, I'd welcome it, but at this time I'd rather focus on topics related to science/anti-pseudoscience/logic/general antiapologetics (like Pascal's Wager). I don't want to invite the E-Jihadist trolls at such an early stage of development. Ibnpascal (talk) 10:18, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually, we can help in enhancing English content about Islam too. I've read the Quran article, and I think it can be enhanced in many ways, by both adding and correcting some info. User:bahaa

That would be great, coming from a culture where knownledge of Islam is not practicly needed, some perspective from people raised in these countries or communities would be great - frankly on these topics it feels like a circle jerk of people that once read something about it. Same goes for topics specific to the Arab speaking world.

Maybe if you created something like a portal (like RationalWiki:Arabic Project or something like that) for coordination and questions from people who aren't able to read, write and speak Arabic the concern about it would be minimized. --K. (talk) 12:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Title

Could the titles of the new Arabian articles include their English translation? Instead of رهان باسكال I'd prefer to see رهان باسكال (Pascal's wager). I think this has a couple of advantages - at least for us illiterates:

• Special:RecentChanges becomes less cryptic
  • In practice, would you care about changes to the Arabic pages? I know they look like line-noise, but I'm not 100% sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. If you're really curious, you can always follow the link and see the "This article is also available in English" template, right? (I know a flurry of cryptic changes would make one uneasy about what's really going on.) Ibnpascal (talk) 06:28, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• The articles can be more easily searched for
  • This has a downside for English speakers because it would hit non-English articles as well.Ibnpascal (talk) 06:28, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
• The list of articles in a category like Category:الويكي العقلاني becomes readable - we know what it is about.
  • I think articles/categories that might interest both Arabic and English speakers (e.g., list of Arab Wikians, list of all Arabic articles, etc.) should have both names in the title. Articles that are only of interest to Arabic speakers should get out of the way. No? Ibnpascal (talk) 06:28, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

BTW: obviously this should be done for the categories, too. larron (talk) 09:21, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Um, so then an Arabic reader has to know Arabic and English to find anything? I guess it seems like a double standard to the version of RW. sterile^{sporadic heavy hitter} 12:36, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

No, RussianalWiki is not in our mainspace. If there was an Arabic version of RW then that would be a different matter. I would suggest that plain Arabic titles be redirected to a combined title. Генгис^{You have the right to be offended; and I have the right to offend you.} 12:44, 31 August 2012 (UTC)