Open Knowledge Association (OKA)

[Giraffe Stapler]

Introducing the Open Knowledge Association (OKA)! It's a non-profit registered in Switzerland, run by Jonathan Zimmermann. You may know him as 7804j (T-C-L) on Wikipedia where he has made almost one thousand edits across all projects, including creating this biography of his own father.

It seems that OKA pays "translators" to translate articles from other languages and put them on English Wikipedia. Their web site says that they have 5 full-time translators (but it also says those are "freelancers," not employees). Qualified translators aren't cheap, but that doesn't seem to be a problem, since they are using DeepL to do the translation and then (theoretically) fixing any problems.

It appears that there may be problems. I randomly chose an article they did - Livestock in Brazil (T-H-L). It is not good. Part of the problem may be that you are translating a Wikipedia article, so it is probably not good to start with. I ran the first paragraph of the Portuguese article through DeepL to see if the result was the same. I was surprised to see that the problem wasn't DeepL, DeepL knows that when referring to cattle the plural of "head" is "head" not "heads". The translator apparently does not.

You would think that Jonathan Zimmermann would be smart enough to know that paying freelancers to "translate" crap is only going to given you translated crap. Sigh.

[owl be it]

Whenever you see these graphics on a website, you know it's a crock of shit.

[Giraffe Stapler]

I should have known. There already was an article on "livestock in Brazil". It's called Animal husbandry in Brazil (T-H-L). So they translated a poorly-written article from Portuguese and then made it worse, without checking see if one already existed.

We pragmatically prioritize work that generates the most impact. To maximize returns on our donors’ funds and decrease systematic bias, we hire content writers from countries underrepresented among Wikipedia editors.

Way to maximize those funds! High impact!

[No Ledge]

I should have known. There already was an article on "livestock in Brazil". It's called Animal husbandry in Brazil (T-H-L). So they translated a poorly-written article from Portuguese and then made it worse, without checking see if one already existed.

We pragmatically prioritize work that generates the most impact. To maximize returns on our donors’ funds and decrease systematic bias, we hire content writers from countries underrepresented among Wikipedia editors.

Way to maximize those funds! High impact!

High impact indeed. High impact on the small group of gnomes who are forced by the fundraisers to work overtime to mitigate the effects of the projects that get funded. The gnomes don't get funded and don't raise funds.

[Giraffe Stapler]

High impact indeed. High impact on the small group of gnomes who are forced by the fundraisers to work overtime to mitigate the effects of the projects that get funded. The gnomes don't get funded and don't raise funds.

Oh, those poor gnomes! I was particularly impressed by this edit to add "{{Short description|None}}". That seems really helpful to Wikipedia readers. Seems like that particular gnome is very invested in their edit count.

[Hemiauchenia]

High impact indeed. High impact on the small group of gnomes who are forced by the fundraisers to work overtime to mitigate the effects of the projects that get funded. The gnomes don't get funded and don't raise funds.

Oh, those poor gnomes! I was particularly impressed by this edit to add "{{Short description|None}}". That seems really helpful to Wikipedia readers. Seems like that particular gnome is very invested in their edit count.

Onel is citing Wikipedia:SDNONE (T-H-L) as a justification, which states:

All articles should have a short description (and therefore should belong to Category:Articles with short description), but some article titles are sufficiently detailed that an additional short description would not be helpful, e.g., Alpine skiing at the 1960 Winter Olympics – Men's downhill.

In those cases, {{Short description|none}} should be used to add the article to Category:Articles with short description. Occasionally, a default value of "none" may already be transcluded, for example in some Wikipedia list articles; that default should not normally need to be edited, but it can be overridden for a specific page by adding {{Short description|Overriding description}} at the top of the page.

[Giraffe Stapler]

Onel is citing Wikipedia:SDNONE (T-H-L) as a justification, which states:

All articles should have a short description (and therefore should belong to Category:Articles with short description), but some article titles are sufficiently detailed that an additional short description would not be helpful, e.g., Alpine skiing at the 1960 Winter Olympics – Men's downhill.

In those cases, {{Short description|none}} should be used to add the article to Category:Articles with short description. Occasionally, a default value of "none" may already be transcluded, for example in some Wikipedia list articles; that default should not normally need to be edited, but it can be overridden for a specific page by adding {{Short description|Overriding description}} at the top of the page.

My apologies to that gnome, then. Thanks for letting me know about that.

[Giraffe Stapler]

It took a while, but a discussion has been started at the conflict of interest noticeboard about OKA.

In related news, checking in on 7804j just now, I see that one of his "translators" has been blocked and he is attempting to facilitate an unblock. I don't see it working out.