TIIP for Iran

Blog has moved

translate4iran — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:19:39 +0000

Please note that this blog has moved to http://www.translate4iran.org This blog will be deleted in a few days. All posts and comments were moved to our new URL . Thank you for your support of the TIIP wiki.

Thank you to all our contributors

translate4iran — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:09:50 +0000

I would like to express my gratitude to the contributors to this new grassroots initiative to provide free translations for the Iranian protest movement. Our volunteers have played a key role in getting this effort off the ground. In particular, I would like to recognize Mrs. Bee, Paul Miers, aoibhneas, and Gene for their work on the wiki, and Abby Nelson and Wheelman for their contributions to media relations and graphic design, respectively. And a big thank you as well goes out to all the other contributors and anonymous wiki gnomes out there who helped us establish this initiative.

Reading the news coming out of Iran, including the moving reports translated in our wiki, I know that the future in Iran seems grim. And I realize how small our efforts seem in comparison to the risks of life and limb that the Iranian protest movement faces on a daily basis. But it gives me great hope to see a group of Iranians and Americans work together to further the cause of freedom and justice in Iran. On the basis of these relations, a future with Iran and the US as close neighbors and allies seems more than just a pipe dream. And that dream appears closer each day that the protests and strikes continue in Iran. The regime has blinked. The genie is out of the bottle.

Problems with Gmail

translate4iran — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:31:22 +0000

Gmail has decided that TIIIP’s email is a spam account, even though the account has never been used to send out more than one e-mail at a time and all our e-mails were related to TIIIP’s efforts to provide translations for the Iranian protesters. Evidently, we sent out a text that looked “spammy”. Needless to say, I’m pretty upset at Google at the moment. I’m going to have to create a new account for the initiative even though press releases are circulating with the old gmail account. Furthermore, I’m out of the office all day today. So if you contact me at translate4iran@gmail.com please and you have a gmail account please understand that my e-mails to you are being unreasonably blocked. Meanwhile, if you have any questions please contact our wonderful volunteer Abby with media relations at translate4iran.media@gmail.com — if Google has not blocked hers as well.

UPDATE: I called Google but they provided no help. I’ve decided to cut my losses and just buy a personalized domain name and web hosting account for this initiative, since it’s looking like it will be sustainable thanks to the hard work of all our volunteer translators, editors, and other volunteer staff. I plan to dedicate my next post to this very topic.

On a much more sad note, it appears that the true crackdown has arrived in Iran. Very little information seems to be getting out at this point. My thoughts and prayers are with all the Iranian people, and particularly those TIIIP volunteers who still have friends and family in Iran. May your friends and families remain safe and secure. May justice and freedom prevail.

Wiki is up!

translate4iran — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:25:33 +0000

The wiki is now up that we will use to translate the communications coming out of Iran. For the present time, the only text on the wiki is a page from a samizdat newsletter being distributed among the Iranian protesters called Khyiban (Street). If you would like to help to translate immediately, please go to http://translate4iran.wikispaces.com/Khyaban+4.2 Please recall that you don’t have to be a Farsi translator or even a Farsi bilingual to help! We desperately need help from English writers, editors, proofreaders, publication relations professionals, techies, geeks, and administrative personnel. There is a role for everyone! Please e-mail me at translate4iran {at} gmail {dot} com to let me know what you skills are and how you would like to help out. For more information on this initiative, please click on About TIIP above or scroll down to see other posts.

Volunteers of all sorts needed!

translate4iran — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 19:53:47 +0000

I want to stress again that you do not have to be a Farsi translator to help with this initiative. In fact, even though qualified Farsi translators will be the final arbiters of our translations, they will be only a small part of the overall organization. We have a critical need for native English-speaking writers and editors, Farsi/English bilinguals of any profession, techies and geeks, and so on. Right now I have a lot of ideas on how to get this project going but I don’t have the manpower to implement these ideas. So if you can spare an extra hour or two to provide a voice to the protesters risking their lives in Iran, then please contact me at translate4iran@gmail.com or post your contact information below.

Wiki has been created

translate4iran — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:39:11 +0000

Unless and until someone with more wiki experience advises otherwise, I’ve created a wiki for this initiative at http://translate4iran.wikispaces.com/ If we end up using wikispaces as our permanent wiki host, then I’ll pay to eliminate ads. Now we just needs our first text to translate and loads of volunteers! Please spread the word!

Google’s Persian (Farsi) Machine Translation

translate4iran — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:52:01 +0000

Using a statistical approach, Google has managed to create perhaps the best machine translator on the Web over the past few years. I’ve tried our their French and Spanish machine translator and the quality is quite good for non-human translation. Admirably, Google expedited the launch of the Persian-language machine translator due to the situation in Iran. Unfortunately, the quality of the translation from Farsi to English remains poor and occasionally incomprehensible, probably due to the lack of a sufficiently-large bilingual corpus to support their statistical approach.
Accordingly, TIIIP will provide human translation services for Iranian protesters, including subtitling of You Tube videos. I’m convinced that if a sufficient number of Farsi translators, other translators, editors, and proofreaders come together to collaborate via a wiki, we can meet the translation needs of the Iranian protest movement without having to resort to the use of poor-quality machine translation.

Introduction to TIIIP

translate4iran — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:11:12 +0000

The Translation and Interpretation Initiative for Iranian Protesters (TIIIP) is an ad hoc initiative to produce free, publication-ready translations and high-quality interpretations of the written and spoken communication streaming out of Iran in the Farsi (Persian) language in the form of e-mails, YouTube videos, Facebook entries, press releases, etc. We leverage volunteer translators, interpreters, linguists, bilinguals, and technical and administrative support personnel to achieve these goals. Our approach is similar to crowdsourcing, but with greater emphasis on the use of professional translators, writers, and editors. Our platform is the wiki. We make liberal use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook to communicate and to attract attention to our initiative.

Language Pairs

At the present time, we are focussing our efforts on translating Farsi text into English, but as we gain recognition we will add additional target languages.

Volunteers

One of the cornerstones of the TIIIP approach is the use of not just Farsi translators but also any translator familiar with any of the Arabic-based alphabets (used in Arabic, Urdu, Punjabi, etc.) who are willing to learn a few extra letters of the Farsi alphabet and thereby equip themselves for the task of translating a sentence or two of Farsi with the help of an online Farsi dictionary and grammar. This will greatly increase our pool of available translators. Naturally, qualified Farsi translators are critical to our efforts and we will defer to such translators on all translation-related issues.
Qualified editors and proofreaders are also requested in the event that no Farsi translator is available and the task of translating a document falls onto the shoulders of native-Farsi-speaking bilingual. In this case, editors and proofreaders use their skills to correct errors of style, grammar, or spelling without altering the meaning of the text.
Interpreters, subtitle engineers, and voiceover artists will be required to work with the massive number of Youtube videos and other forms of spoken communication being produced by the Iranian protesters.
Technical support will be crucial to our success. Assistance is needed in setting up and maintaining the wiki, facilitating communication, and maintaining security.

Specific volunteer TIIIP positions include:
Translator, native Persian-speaking (Farsi, Tajiki, or Dari)
Translator, native English-speaking with knowledge of Persian
Translator, other (particularly needed are those with a knowledge of the Arabic alphabet and a desire to learn Persian)
Interpreter
Editor/Proofreader
Voiceover talent
Subtitle engineer
Bilingual contributor (Farsi/English)
Wiki engineer
Media relations professional

Anonymity

Due to the potential risk involved in facilitating communication between Iranian protesters and the outside world, contributors are permitted to remain anonymous. Protesters inside Iran are encouraged to refrain from contributing to the translation initiative. You are risking your life protesting in the streets and passing on documents, videos, and images to the outside world. Let us take care of this mundane task so that you can focus on your efforts to sustain freedom and democracy in Iran.