In brief
- Each language edition of Wikipedia has its own rules for inclusion, content and sourcing.
- An article on one Wikipedia does not establish notability on another, and English Wikipedia expects translated articles to meet its own notability guidelines.
- Translated text must be attributed, normally with an edit summary linking the source article by name.
- English Wikipedia's consensus is that an unedited machine translation is worse than nothing.
- Language versions are linked through Wikidata, and keeping their facts consistent is ongoing work.
What does the translation service cover?
Three kinds of work, all through the processes of the edition concerned:
- A new language version. An article exists in one edition and you need one in another, for example English to French, or Arabic to English.
- Adapting an existing version. Another edition already has an article that is out of date, thinly sourced or inconsistent with the English one.
- Keeping versions aligned. After a change of role, name or ownership, making sure each language version is updated through its own edit process.
Work on an English article that already exists is covered by updates and editing. Where there is no article in any language yet, the starting point is article creation.
Why is translating a Wikipedia article different from translating a document?
Because the destination is a separate encyclopedia with its own community and its own standards, not a mirror of the source. English Wikipedia's guidance on translating out of English says each language edition has its own rules for inclusion, content and sourcing, and asks translators to make sure the result complies with the destination's policies.
The same applies in the other direction. English Wikipedia's translation page says articles translated from other languages are expected to meet English notability guidelines, that having an article on another Wikipedia does not by itself establish notability, and that content which cannot be verified must not be imported.
In practice, translating a Wikipedia article means three separate jobs:
- checking whether the subject qualifies under the destination edition's rules, which may differ from the source edition's;
- checking every source the translated text depends on, and replacing or removing claims that cannot be verified;
- rewriting where the destination's conventions on tone, structure or citation differ.
The translated article that results is often shorter than the source, because unverifiable material has been left behind.
How is translated Wikipedia content attributed?
By naming the source article, normally in the edit summary of the edit that adds the translation. Wikipedia text is licensed under CC BY-SA and the GFDL, and both licences require credit to the original contributors. English Wikipedia's guidance on copying within Wikipedia treats translations, even from other Wikimedia projects, as derivative works that need attribution.
- Edit summary. The first edit names the source project and page, with an interlanguage link such as [[:fr:Exact name of French article]].
- Talk page. On English Wikipedia, the {{Translated page}} template can be added to the talk page to supplement the attribution.
- Repairing it. Where a translation was added without attribution, a dummy edit with an attributing summary can fix it, and unattributed translations can be tagged so the gap is visible.
Translating out of English carries the same duty. The guidance asks translators to give an interlanguage link to the source article by name, to credit its original writers.
Can machine translation be used?
Only as a starting point that a fluent human then rewrites. English Wikipedia's translation page records the consensus that an unedited machine translation, left as an article, is worse than nothing, and says that translations produced by large language models need review by someone skilled in both languages before they go into articles. The guidance on translating out of English describes mere machine translations without substantial modification as highly undesirable.
English Wikipedia's built-in Content Translation tool is also restricted. It is currently limited to editors with extended confirmed rights, which are granted automatically at 30 days' tenure and 500 edits.
How is paid editing disclosed on other language editions?
The Wikimedia Foundation's Terms of Use apply across its projects and require paid contributors to disclose each employer, client, intended beneficiary and affiliation. The Terms also allow an individual project community to adopt an alternative paid contribution disclosure policy, which can add to or replace the default.
So the rules on one edition are not a reliable guide to another, and each edition's own policy pages are the place to check.
How are language versions kept consistent?
By linking them properly and updating each through its own process. Interlanguage links, the list of languages shown beside an article, are now stored centrally in Wikidata rather than in each article's text. Linking a new version means adding it to the Wikidata item for the subject. Wikidata allows only one item to point to any one article, so a mismatched link has to be resolved rather than duplicated.
Facts drift apart over time. A new appointment is added in English and nobody updates the German or Arabic version, or a name is spelled three ways across editions. Consistency means proposing the same sourced change on each edition, in its language and under its rules. It does not mean making the versions identical: each one reflects the sources and decisions of its own editors.
What will we not do?
- Publish an unedited machine translation, or a large language model translation nobody fluent has checked.
- Carry unverifiable claims across from one edition to another.
- Add translated text without attribution to the source article.
- Assume that a subject accepted on one edition qualifies on another.
- Promise that an article will be kept.
When does translation need specialist editors?
If you are fluent in both languages, an experienced editor on the destination edition, and able to disclose your connection, you can translate an article yourself.
The risk for a connected subject is that a translation is a new article on a new project, with the same exposure to deletion and tagging as any other. A version created on a smaller edition without checking its rules can be deleted there under that edition's own rules, and the attempt becomes part of that edition's record. A translation added without attribution can be tagged. The judgement needed is less about language than about each edition's standards, and that is where experienced editors earn their place.
How do you start?
Tell us which article you have, which language editions you need, and any local coverage you know of, through the contact form, and an editor will come back to you within a working day. If any version of the article has had problems, a free page health check, usually within two working days, will show where things stand.