Hi u - yes, this is definitely a concern - making sure the translators themselves understand the project they are translating.
Transifex has a bunch of tools that when used properly and actively managed (it's only as good as the effort we put into it), mitigate your concerns.
I completely relate to the types of problems you are talking about as I have had to work through and mitigate them before - including very technical items that the average person isn't going to understand. It's part of the job helping translators understand complex topics. It's part of spreading awareness and learning about UX experience with the platform as well. It should always be a concern making sure that the translators understood what was being translated so that the translation itself made sense to the newcomer perceiving the product correctly for the first time in that native language - no matter what platform is being used to manage translations.
If everyone is completely against the idea of using Transifex then it's a mute point to discuss this further, I understand and I guess we'll need to stay at the current status/pace until a better solution can be found or coded.
If you and others are open to it, however - I know in my heart there is a better way and I've walked the path - this is the way I have run it in the past (in a nutshell) which has had great success:
I. Setup Project in Transifex, Import Primary String File (e.g. English), Other Translations are Based from
II. Add Project Coordinators (This would be the equivalent of whoever is the de facto leader(s) of the current translation initiative, exercising the most executive authority).
III. Create Teams (Teams are the individual languages, e.g. English, German, French, etc.).
IV. Add Team Managers (These are the current language leaders that are using Translation environments to edit the strings manually and push via Git.
V. Add Reviewers to Teams (Due to the size of our current project this would most likely also be a manager, however languages w/ lots of contributing translators could also have Reviewers that work under the Manager)
VI. Invite Translators. This is where Transifex really starts to shine, because we don't have to worry about these people knowing how to use Git, we just have to communicate with them to onboard them properly, and regularly check with them to answer their questions to make sure they are translating topics properly.
Now let me talk a little bit about workflow. It all starts with effective communication and organization. First, u, you mentioned some concerns about quality control. In a Transifex project, we do not have to allow all languages. For example, if we setup English, German and French as the initial languages, then those are the only ones that can be actively translated. If we want to expand into another language, Russian, we can set up a team and then ensure that the Team Manager (who ever the candidate is going to be) is part of this mailing list.
Let's also take a moment to clarify - Transifex will not replace this mailing list nor the leaders in it, it will simply help it to scale efforts faster so that Tails can spread around the world faster and more efficiently. It is a catalyst. It allows us to work smarter, not just harder.
We should encourage individuals to join the Transifex team. We can also scout other Transifex projects and invite those users to ours. When a new user joins, we send them a standard email welcoming them to our project. I am also happy to reach out to every new person and schedule 5-10 minutes to onboard them with best practices. This tier of translation management is kind of like the bottom tier in a Git Repo. Any person can submit translations, just like any person can submit a pull request. We are encouraging contributions and correcting people if we observe something being done incorrectly. The beauty of Transifex is that there is a gigantic community of people we can draw from to help spread awareness internationally about Tails to early-adopters that otherwise wouldn't perceive what we are doing efficiently.
Next, let's talk about Reviewers, these are kind of like the people on a repo that have push access. These are the people that are going to be the most active on this mailing list, talking about the things that are already getting talked about here each week. This people approve or edit (or seek feedback here first) about the translations that the contributors below them are putting into Transifex.
Nothing officially goes into the Tails website or becomes part of the strings file if a reviewer with review access hasn't approved or corrected it.
Now, onto the Team Managers. These are the people here on this mailing list that already have translation environments setup that are completely in the loop about Tails and are coordinating their native languages. They will double-check what the reviewers under them (in most cases these people will also be the reviewer) and once correct, submit the pull request to add the updated strings from Transifex into the website repo.
Lastly, Project Coordinators. These people have the ability to approve new Teams (languages) to the Website translation project. These are usually the most experienced Team managers. They will continue to be involved in this mailing list, just like now, but with the added benefit of an exponentially more scalable and growth-primed translation tool catalysing their efforts. This last statement couldn't be more true for the Team managers as well.
Here are the types of regular maintenance tasks that I would be happy to assist on in Transifex:
-recruiting new translators
-following up with translators
-helping review translations
-following up with managers to double-check reviews
-sending regular status updates to mailing list in cooperation with current translation leaders
-setting up all of transifex for what has been described above
-prescreening potential new languages to add, precruitment of translators, reviewers/managers
-walking anyone interested through the setup (it's waaaaaaay easier than the current setup)
-anything else that would be helpful so that this is only helping save time and multiply effort as opposed to negatively effecting it.
We shouldn't have to have all people setting up Git repos to be able to have a highly efficient translation project that scales.
In closing, the issues that u (the person) mentioned in his/her email are part of the job that have to be paid attention to. Unfortunately, those problems are still a concern the bigger Tails gets whether Transifex is in the picture or not. How does this translation project scale?
The question is, do we want to build new roads to new countries and languages take Tails further down the path it is on and hope the world adapts to our translation management user experience, or can we use existing infrastructures and best practices on a platform that thousands of people are already on to stick together and move toward our visions of the future more faster and efficiently?
I believe in order to open up the world we have to open up our process.
--
Ok Google
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Tails-l10n] Improving Translation Infrastructure
Time (GMT): May 30 2015 20:32:21
From: u@???
To: tails-l10n@???
Hi,
okgoogle:
> u, thanks for the feedback and guidance. Just wanted to respond here
> to one of the points you made:
> "The problem with using Transifex for our website translation is
> that all translateable strings would be displayed completely out of
> context there."
>
> I completely agree this is definitely a concern. In projects in the
> past where I have coordinated Transifex efforts, this is resolved by
> having coordinators and reviewers double-checking the underlying
> translators. Also, part of the onboarding for any new translator is
> first to review the entire website (or software in other
> environments). I have worked on translating very technical projects
> in the past, which especially rely on context of the website (or
> software package), and making sure the strings are being translated
> in context with the rest of the platform is part of QA.
Well, the problem is that we as a project do not speak all the languages
which Transifex proposes. So we cannot check after the translators, we
need to trust peer review within Transifex. We also cannot make sure
that translators visit the website before or know how to use Tails or
any other tools we document.
I myself did some reviews and translations in Transifex and I can assure
you that some translators never used the tools for which they translate
the documentation and have absolutely no idea what they translate*. If
one does not have at least a basic idea of GPG for example, how can one
translate how it works?
So, until now, our idea here was to form translation teams. This ensures
peer-review and a possibility to discuss things here on this
mailinglist. Transifex does not really provide such a thing, except for
comments on translateable strings.
> With Transifex, I can make sure that is not an issue with the Tails
> website. There are several checks and balances to avert out of
> context, poor translations.
Ah? What are these checks?
Cheers
u.
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