Facebook turns users into web translation engine

Looking to translate your website into another language? You can now seek help from the social-networking-obsessed masses - and juice Facebook's advertising schemes in the process. Today, at a web app conference in London, Facebook introduced a free service dubbed Translations for Facebook Connect, a translation engine driven …

[DelM]

"My hovercraft is full of eels"

And who else immediately thought of this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao

Say no more, say no more...

-Del, who has "English (Pirate)" enabled on his FB time waster

[Anonymous Coward]

OK - please translate into the major European languages...

..."Should Obama be killed?"

Right. I'm getting my coat.

[Jenkins]

"Google's engine uses machines for translations, not social networkers."

Machine translation ...but also mouseover option to "Contribute a better translation"...presumably this user generated data is also utilized therein...

[Anonymous Coward]

Logopolis

Reminds me of Logopolis, oh noes, The Master!

[Antti Roppola]

United Nations

Can we take a sweeps on the first legal dispute that arises because someone was too cheap to stump up for a qualified translator and got a teeming hoard of FB LOLT33nz to vote on the translation of that vital legal document? That or they just don't realise there's a difference between a teeming hoard of FB LOLT33nz and a qualified translator.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmmm...

I shall have to advise the good folks at 4chan abut this new development... I'm sure the indigent /b/tards will be able to work the voting system to translate "Ich liebe dich" to "I give u teh SURPRISE BUTTSECKS in dat ass cumdumpster" without too many problems!

[Anonymous Coward]

Refuse! Resist!

They can pay for their translations like anybody else.

[The Indomitable Gall]

Apples and oranges

Google Translate is designed to translate large texts, where you've got a lot of repeated language, related terminology and redundant information.

Facebook translations are for user interface elements: small messages containing no repeated information and virtually no redundant information.

Anyone with a modicum of knowledge about translation knows that small translations are actually more demanding than long ones.

[Richard IV]

In crowds there's a high chance of finding idiots

They've been burnt by this before. Nice to see them not learning from mistakes...

http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2008/08/facebooks-norwegian-tos

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when

...can most Facebook users even manage English spelling and grammar? Bet they'll turn out a lot of awful tripe.

[Field Marshal Von Krakenfart]

Drop your panties, Sir William; I cannot wait 'til lunchtime

Ha Ha, first we had the Google bomb (Weapons of mass destruction, Famous French Military Victories, etc), now we have the FaceBook translation Bomb, it will only be a short time before my nipples explode with delight.

Hmmm... I see a posibilty for a new FaceBook App for voting on translations....

Paris, whose nipp . . . . . . . .

[DJ 2]

I remember in the French Facebook

the phrase "dans ton cul" apearing in a menu somewhere, which is a french cultural reply to any question of the sort "Where should I put this?" "In your arse"

DJ