Posted on 19 February 2022 by BaerbelW

This is a renewed call for help to get involved with various translation projects. It updates an earlier version which was published in January 2014. Some details and numbers about available translations were updated in this blog post on April 15, 2023.

Are you a bi-, tri- or even multilingual Skeptical Science reader and would like to help make a wide variety of materials available in different languages? If your answer is ‘Yes’, then here is your chance to make a difference!

What this is all about

We already have translations in 24 different languages on Skeptical Science as indicated by the flag-icons on our homepage:

The number of published translations for each language, however, varies greatly. Just click on some of the flags in the banner to see for yourself! We have the goal to make more content available in more languages and to update existing translations where the original rebuttal has been changed from when the translation was first created (even if it's as simple as fixing broken links!).  In order to do this, we need your help!

Translating texts can be a time consuming effort, but please don’t let this stop you from raising your virtual hand or stepping forward as we have different translation tasks waiting to be tackled. I know from my own experience when I first got involved in 2010 that the work is surprisingly rewarding - and it was (and still is!) a means to turn my concerns regarding climate change into something productive. You can contribute as much (or little) as your time allows and at least some of the tasks shouldn’t be too much of a timehog (or so we hope). More often than not, there'll be a small team working on a language collaboratively, so you won't be on your own. We published a blog post about the then active teams and the tasks tackled by them in June 2020.

Translation projects available to be tackled

Here are some items on the to-be-translated-list and what’s already out there:

• Rebuttal translations (1050 translations in 24 languages)
• Blog Post translations (203 translations in 17 languages)
• The Debunking Handbook 2020 (18 translations)
• The Conspiracy Theory Handbook (18 translations)
• The Consensus Handbook (2 translations)
• The Cranky Uncle Game (Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Swedish and Turkish, several more in the works)

Rebuttals (and blog posts)

There are two general types of tasks involved with rebuttal translations: create new translations from scratch and keep already existing translations in sync with the English originals. The second task is especially important for rebuttal translations where quite a few have not seen any updates even though the original texts have been updated since the translations were first created. This is becoming a more pressing issue since launching the rebuttal update project in February 2023.  We have plans to add a notification tool so that translators get an email whenever one of the rebuttals saw major updates. Before we go down that route, we however need to know if there are any recipients for those emails (hint, hint!).

Handbooks

The handbook translations usually involve 2 or more people for a language who take turns translating and proofreading the text. We provide a template document and some general information about the translation and also organize the "type setting" to get the translation into the respective handbook's layout.

In addition to the handbooks mentioned in the bullet list above, we also support the translation of the COVID-19 Vaccine Communication Handbook which may seem a bit out of place for Skeptical Science but where good reasons actually exist to do so.

The Cranky Uncle Game

Because it's a very large and creative translation project, the Cranky Uncle Game requires larger teams for a language and also involves discussions about how to best tackle some "tricky to translate" content. You can get an inkling of what all is involved in the blog post we published when the multilingual version became available with Dutch and German as the first two languages.

Translation teams

Our goal is to eventually have a team per language so that you won’t be toiling away on your own. Ideally, each team should have three or more people who can then take turns creating and proofreading translations. Furthermore and as mentioned above, for some languages we already have seasoned translators at hand who’ll provide valuable input and lend a helping hand whenever necessary.

Even more information

If you'd like to know more about our translation projects than mentioned in the short paragraphs above, please give the following episode of The European Skeptics Podcast a listen. András Gabor Pintér and Pontus Böckman had invited me to talk about our translation projects and the recording went live on February 18, 2022.

Interested to join our community of translators?

Is this something up your alley you’d like to help with? If your answer is 'Yes', then please let us know by filling out the short form below. I'll then be in touch to let you know about the next steps, depending on your preferences of where you'd like to get involved.