Talk:Tech/News/2020/32

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Deployment train, toot toot[edit]

Blocked train

@Quiddity (WMF), Trizek (WMF), and Stryn: Oh god, not the same wording again. Also, it wasn't last week. Well it was last week now, but when the newsletter is delivered it will be two weeks ago. The previous newsletter was wrong. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 06:47, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I saw it. I think I know what deployment train means, but it's difficult to translate to other languages. So it should be avoided in tech news. Stryn (talk) 06:49, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Even in English it is a rather abstract concept. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 07:04, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Alexis Jazz: I agree the wording of "deployment train" is not ideal, but it is what the people who work on that complex system call it (cf. wikitech:Deployments/Train). I could not think of a clearer way to describe it during the time I was writing the entry yesterday, so I decided to use something that would have a close-match in the software-aided translation-memory. I agree we should come up with a standardized and clear method of explaining this type of problem for the future.
I understand that the wording of "this week" was also ambiguous in last week's issue, because it was a problem from the previous Thursday (which is when the entry was thus written, but it should have said "last week" based on when TechNews would be delivered).
However, the rewritten entry is even worse. There was a problem with the deployment/rollout schedule on July 23 and again on July 30 (yesterday). So your change has effectively removed the announcement about the current problem, in order to add a point about the grammatical problem. This grammatical problem was not important enough to deserve three sentences of translators' time or future readers' attention.
Instead of forcing everyone to retranslate it, and also risking having the old/incorrect/incomplete translations from that version go out, I have removed that item completely from this week's newsletter.
If you think of better ways to clearly and briefly describe the problem of "the software that was scheduled to arrive at [some wikis] last week, did not because of [varying reasons related to software]" then please add suggestions below, and we can use it in the future. Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:23, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Quiddity (WMF): I'm really sorry, I had completely missed that this entry was for a new deployment issue! I basically thought that the same error was made in this issue, which would mean "last week" would mean "two weeks ago", in which case it would be about the same delay as last week. But this time it actually was last (this) week!
As for alternatives, I would rely more on the actual affected version, so 1.36.0-wmf.2 for [1]. I think your suggestion is actually not bad. I think I'd say "MediaWiki 1.36.0-wmf.2 was scheduled to be deployed on {{{wikis|some wikis}}} {{{date|last week}}}. The deployment was delayed because of {{{reasons|unexpected problems}}}." For the sake of translations, the variations should probably be kept to a minimum. "last week" should generally always be right. (if it wasn't last week, it's hardly news) I think the actual reasons don't need to be in Tech News, so "unexpected problems" could also be static. — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 20:55, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Quiddity (WMF): Where are there standard sentences stored? — Alexis Jazz (talk or ping me) 21:51, 31 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Quiddity (WMF), Trizek (WMF), Stryn, and Alexis Jazz: When I translate and I fall on a word like this, I try to find related synonyms in the original language, then in the target language. Train is also used in French, but not in a case like this. We even find it in a ready-made expression: le train-train quotidien. My experience as an electronic technician and computer scientist reminds me to give terms understandable by boeotians, whether it is one language or another. Example, tampon or buffer can be replaced by memory. Train gives me the idea of a queue, so a sequence that I translate into a enchaînement. Cordially. —Eihel (talk) 08:24, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"Train" is a technical term here, a shortcut for "deployment train". Anyway, I understand that it may be unclear; maybe we should have a glossary for translators? Trizek (WMF) (talk) 12:52, 3 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Alexis Jazz: For "standard sentences", I have previously/usually just copied sentences from old issues, based on my memory and a quick search of the Archives. But that's a good idea. I have now saved a few examples that should be re-usable in the future. Cheers, Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 19:41, 4 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]