When supporting links the idea is to link to the community-created contents when contents are available in the target language, and to a machine translation when the contents are not available. Unlike other translation services such as Google Translate, which always link to machine translated versions of the content (hiding the community. work) we may want to give priority to community-created content instread.

In the long term we may want to anticipate whether the destination is a community-created article or an MT version as captured in T359824: MinT MVP: Link preview. More short-term solutions could be to skip links to missing content to avoid showing them as links (or showing them in red, where we could incentivize the creation of the local articles missing).

Change #1122966 had a related patch set uploaded (by Wangombe; author: Wangombe):

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] Mint for Readers: fix unadapted links shown as blue links

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1122966

We can start off by not showing the link. It's a low effort fix. This essentially blends the links to the rest of the article text where links are unadapted by removing text decoration. Patch: 1122966

T387482 Then turn our attention to showing a useful red link that would redirect the user to the Unified Dashboard. Is it technically possible to use Preview as an entrypoint into the Unified Dashboard? This would keep the user interface consistent.

The number of blue links has significantly reduced with the new patchset. The patch targets unadapted links. However, I have noticed adapted links where the Popup Preview still shows that "There was an issue displaying this preview". The data-cx object has adapted:true.

The unadapter links are confuse me, for example on this page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:AutomaticTranslation?page=Tokyo&from=en&to=ig&step=translation

all this unadapted links are all valid, can article preview, can link to wikipedia page.

In T376862#10627166, @hueitan wrote:

The unadapter links are confuse me, for example on this page
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:AutomaticTranslation?page=Tokyo&from=en&to=ig&step=translation

all this unadapted links are all valid, can article preview, can link to wikipedia page.

I think it says adapted:false because there is no corresponding article on Igbo.

But then when I look at adapted links (Like Japan, Kyoto), even that appears to redirect to the English wiki.

In T376862#10627796, @abi_ wrote:

But then when I look at adapted links (Like Japan, Kyoto), even that appears to redirect to the English wiki.

They always point to the current wiki. I think CX does something on the cxserver output to make them point to the right place and MinT is not doing it.

The patch hides unadapted links to avoid a broken user experience. Removing all links (inter/intra-wiki) would significantly affect the ability to measure key page interactions, such as:

1. Direct views to machine-translated content: Including clicks within translated articles to non-existent human-created articles.
2. Pageviews to human-created articles referred by MinT: Including clicks on interwiki links or links from various feature points (e.g., article end, confirmation step, language menu).
3. Removing all references and links could limit how much can be learned from interactions within the page and beyond the page.

Link Behavior:
For articles existing in the target language, a preview is shown when hovering over intra-wiki links.

For articles not existing in the target language, an error is displayed. This applies to references as well:

Both adapted and unadapted links currently point to the current wiki, regardless of the intended target. This needs to be fixed. Clicking a link redirects to the article if it exists in the target wiki, but no machine-translated version is shown (contrary to some expectations).

A decision is needed as to whether unadapted references should be hidden as well. This can be a follow-up patch. Given the instrumentation constraints, however, this might not be a good approach.

Change #1122966 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX: Hide unadapted links shown as blue links

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1122966

In T376862#10628590, @Wangombe wrote:

Both adapted and unadapted links currently point to the current wiki, regardless of the intended target. This needs to be fixed. Clicking a link redirects to the article if it exists in the target wiki, but no machine-translated version is shown (contrary to some expectations).

Links are important to support the user learning journey when going from one concept to another through "a rabbit hole". We have considered this as part of the measurement plans in order to check whether machine translation can help prevent a learning journey to get interrupted just because an article in a longer sequence is missing in the user language. To evaluate this, it is important that we are able to support users to navigate to both the articles available in the target language and the machine translated version of those articles missing in the target language.

Ideally, cards or preview pop-ups should help inform users about the destination. However, if there are technical limitations, I think it is preferred to allow users to access the linked articles or their MT, even if we have to hide/adjust the tooltip in some cases.

A decision is needed as to whether unadapted references should be hidden as well. This can be a follow-up patch. Given the instrumentation constraints, however, this might not be a good approach.

Ideally, references should not be adapted. When showing MT to readers we don't need references to be in the target wiki format or using the target wiki templates. For this context, I think the approach that makes most sense is to translate the rendered HTML contents, while keeping the rest as it is in the source wiki. This is consistent to the experience provided by translation services such as Google Translate: when getting [a machine translation for Moon from English into Korean]](https://en-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Moon?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=ko&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp), the English Wikipedia infobox is shown with the contents in Korean in the machine translation.
This approach will ensure that all the references from the original article are preserved regardles of the templates available in the target wiki (note that we could even translate into languages for which a Wikipedia does not exist yet).

Change #1128485 had a related patch set uploaded (by Abijeet Patro; author: Abijeet Patro):

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX: ViewTranslationPage: Don't hide un-adapted links

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1128485

Change #1128486 had a related patch set uploaded (by Abijeet Patro; author: Abijeet Patro):

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX: ViewTranslationPage: Perform link adaptation

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1128486

Change #1128485 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX: ViewTranslationPage: Don't hide un-adapted links

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1128485

In T376862#10643317, @gerritbot wrote:

Change #1128486 had a related patch set uploaded (by Abijeet Patro; author: Abijeet Patro):

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX: ViewTranslationPage: Perform link adaptation

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1128486

The above patch handles two cases:

1. If the link is adapted, expand its href to include the full wiki article, ensuring accessibility across different wikis.
2. If the link is not adapted, expand the URL to point to the source language wiki.

Since we are now putting the full URL for links in the article, link preview no longer works.

@Pginer-WMF In the second case, would it be preferable to redirect the user to the confirm step with the un-adapted article link? We can try doing that in a follow up patch.

In T376862#10645255, @abi_ wrote:

@Pginer-WMF In the second case, would it be preferable to redirect the user to the confirm step with the un-adapted article link? We can try doing that in a follow up patch.

For un-adapted links, we could link directly to the Translation View (T359801) to display the machine translated contents directly. Given that users are already in a context of machine translation, we can assume that they may be already familiar with the corresponding signals.

The Confirm step seems a bit too much of a stop in this particular workflow. A more lightweight introduction as the one provided by the Link Preview cards (T359824) can be considered in the future.

Change #1128855 had a related patch set uploaded (by Abijeet Patro; author: Abijeet Patro):

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX: ViewTranslationPage: Link to AX for unadapted links

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1128855

Change #1128486 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX: ViewTranslationPage: Perform link adaptation

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1128486

Change #1128936 had a related patch set uploaded (by Nik Gkountas; author: Nik Gkountas):

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX view translation: Set target to "_blank" for cx links

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1128936

Change #1128855 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX: ViewTranslationPage: Link to AX for unadapted links

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1128855

Here's an update on what's happening now:

1. If the link is adapted, expand its href to include the full wiki article link, ensuring accessibility across different wikis. A relative link to the article is used if the target language is the same as the current wiki. This allows link previews to work.
2. If the link is not adapted, expand the URL to point to the automatic translation view.

We've also added target=_blank to the links so that they open in a new tab.

Change #1128936 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX view translation: Set target to "_blank" for cx links

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1128936

Change #1129174 had a related patch set uploaded (by Abijeet Patro; author: Abijeet Patro):

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX: ViewTranslationPage: Avoid adapting links without sourceTitle

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1129174

Change #1129174 merged by jenkins-bot:

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] AX: ViewTranslationPage: Avoid adapting links without sourceTitle

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1129174

In T376862#10650268, @abi_ wrote:

Here's an update on what's happening now:

1. If the link is adapted, expand its href to include the full wiki article link, ensuring accessibility across different wikis. A relative link to the article is used if the target language is the same as the current wiki. This allows link previews to work.
2. If the link is not adapted, expand the URL to point to the automatic translation view.

We've also added target=_blank to the links so that they open in a new tab.

This is deployed on https://language-cx.wmcloud.org/index.php/Special:AutomaticTranslation and can be tested there.

Tested and working as expected with this example English to Igbo

• Where an article exists in the target language-> Ngina Kenyatta link opens to the article in Igbo WP.
• Where an article is missing in the target language, the Mwai Kibaki link opens to the automatic translation view.

Exceptions:

• Link hover preview is no longer available -> TBC
• Links to references/ citations open to a page showing "There is currently no text on this page" -> T376860: MinT for Wikipedia Readers: All references are missing

In T376862#10672433, @PWaigi-WMF wrote:

Tested and working as expected with this example English to Igbo

• Where an article exists in the target language-> Ngina Kenyatta link opens to the article in Igbo WP.
• Where an article is missing in the target language, the Mwai Kibaki link opens to the automatic translation view.

Exceptions:

• Link hover preview is no longer available -> TBC
• Links to references/ citations open to a page showing "There is currently no text on this page" -> T376860: MinT for Wikipedia Readers: All references are missing

Thanks for testing this.

Link hover preview is no longer available -> TBC

This functionality is not available on the test instance since we don't have Page Previews enabled. Additionally it would be difficult to test it on this instance since it doesn't actually have the articles. For example if you are looking at the translation of the Moon article from en--> ig, the test instance actually doesn't have the Moon article at all.

If the link is adapted, expand its href to include the full wiki article link, ensuring accessibility across different wikis. A relative link to the article is used if the target language is the same as the current wiki. This allows link previews to work.

As per the above, the functionality should work if we are looking at the Moon article translation (en --> ig) on Igbo Wikipedia and the link was adapted. So we should be able to verify this functionality this Friday when this change is available on Production.

Links to references/ citations open to a page showing "There is currently no text on this page" -> T376860: MinT for Wikipedia Readers: All references are missing

Yea, that work was not part of this task.

Testing on: https://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:AutomaticTranslation?page=Moon&from=en&to=or&step=translation

Missing article on Odia Wikipedia links to Special:AutomaticTranslation

Article present on Odia Wikipedia shows previews