Translation tools workshop, 2012

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

In fall 2011, Meta was set up with translation tools that facilitate ongoing translation efforts on evolving wiki pages. Siebrand, currently under contract for the Wikimedia Foundation, is the expert in using these tools, and has proposed a workshop for Meta admins in early 2012, via Skype or WebEx.

Logistics[edit]

Workshop leader
Siebrand
Date and time
2012-01-28 20:00 UTC. For other time zones, see: http://hexm.de/dn.

Signup[edit]

Note: At the present time, some of the Meta Wiki pages where the translation tools are deployed are fully protected (Terms of use). At those pages, only administrators will be able to use the tools. Everyone can edit pages for translation and mark them up, only "translation administrators can mark pages for translation and update the translatable revision.

Maximum number of participants
10-15 if we're using WebEx.

Questions and answers[edit]

Got some documentation for me?
What pages are currently using the translation tools?
  • See Special:PageTranslation. Mind you that translating is mainly for people speaking other languages than English :). For some idea of what usually happens, if you only speak English, set your user language to "en-gb" in Special:Preferences.
How/when/where were the translation tools developed?
Are there other translation systems that are superseded by the translation tools?
  • Not necessarily, although the aim of the Page Translation feature has always been to replace the tedious template based system of statuses used within the Wikimedia community and manual tracking for source page changes.

Workshop notes[edit]

These are the notes for the Translation tools workshop on 2011-01-28 20:00 UTC -- Translation_tools_workshop,_2012.

List of topics[edit]

Questions and Answers during the workshop[edit]

How does one become a translation administrator?
  • We need to decide what the requirements will be. As it's only one group right, this could simply be added to meta admins. - THO
  • Short answer: depends on the configuration and agreed process ;)
  • On Meta: Bureaucrats can add but cannot remove the right (?)
  • I will propose at Meta that it just be bundled with "admin" -- any objections?
    • nope, inactive admins are removed so there is not a problem with that.
    • better to require them to add themselves to group, as with abusefilter on en.wiki
Is there a process/noticeboard for making requests of translation administrators? (specifically on Meta, but a general answer would be helpful too.)
What is the best way to deal with templates (e.g. headers) that already have other approaches to translation implemented? For instance, see Banned user membership on lists of Wikimedians -- notice that the "Essays" template at the top has a different translation system implemented [LanguageSelect]. What is a recommended path forward here?
  • Heavily templating is discouraged because it's a little awkward to use
  • no migration strategy yet. (Not yet clear whether there is consensus that migration is the thing to do.)
  • For templates like {{draft}} and {{essay}} [?], it is possible to include a language code within the translate-extension system that calls up the appropriate language version of the template as a sub-page (like {{draft/nl}}).
    • Or: we can put some code based on {{SUBPAGENAME}} magic word in the template itself, so viewed lang version would depend on it.
The translation reviewers group is obsolete I believe on meta (I think normal users can review translations) - so can this be removed?
  • It comes by default configuration of Translate, but can be disabled by changing the configuration for meta. -Niklas
Plans/possibilities to integrate topic dictionaries (example
User_talk:Bdk/pp )?
  • yes, and yes, but nothing clear yet.
  • we have some link at twn, too. (this one? [1] )
Is there a translation memory feature?
  • No, not yet. We're currently working on it. In next sprint we are going to build testing environment for it, and hopefully in the sprint after that it will get deployed. (Sprints are two weeks)
Is there any known issues about RTL languages? and if there are some tips for translating RTL languages I would like to hear about them.
  • No known issues with Page Translation. Please report them at Bugzilla
Deleting translated pages, at present who is able to do this - meta admins or translation admins, I can't tell as I am both. By translated pages I mean for example Donor policy/es that Siebrand translated earlier. So those pages that have already been translated.
  • translation administrators. Might be a good reason why to give translation administrator right to sysops.

Feature requests[edit]

I can imagine that you can think of hundreds of feature requests. I would ask you to formulate your feature requests as a sentence that looks like this (aka en:User story ):

As a <role name> I can <action description> so that <your gain>.

Feel free to add them below. There is of course no guarantee they will be implemented, but we would love to hear from you!

Bugs[edit]