Hi! This is Jon from docs team. This post outlines our plan for localising HelpHub for Rosetta sites. HelpHub is currently live on English wordpress.org site and can be accessed from https://wordpress.org/support/ (e.g. https://wordpress.org/support/category/getting-started/ ).

We’d like Polyglots team’s input to make this translation as smoothly as possible.

Background

At  WordCamp Europe (Summit) we discussed the localisation of WordPress systems such as DevHub and HelpHub.

We recognised that GlotPress was not great for long-form translation and we evaluated the possibility of actually re-engineering GlotPress (or at least translate.wordpress.org) to work for it. But this is a huge undertaking and it may involve formalisation of the whole of WordPress.org’s translation.

So it was indicated it might be best for HelpHub to look at translation out of GlotPress.

Therefore HelpHub was designed as a stand-alone plugin that could be activated at numerous places such as Rosetta sites.

Plan Phases (Proposal)

Phase 1

Goals

• Test HelpHub localisation on one locale’s Rosetta site.
• Migrate existing English content, but update notification/diff will not be available yet.

Candidate Locales

• Japanese, since they maintain their own Codex site with a large number of docs
• French (France), since they want to set up a fr_FR Documentation team (~10 volunteers for the moment)

Process

1. Activate HelpHub plugin on Rosetta [Meta]
   1. Need Meta help as Rosetta sites are likely on a different network
2. Migrate English content over (without activating HelpHub’s home interface) [Locale Team]
   1. Explore automated process (but unlikely due to WordPress.org infra)
   2. At this phase, this may need to be a manual process
   3. If manual process, adapt and refine tracking system of migration designed by Docs Team
3. Translation by locale team based on English contents [Locale Team]
4. Possibly re-take related screenshots in locale language [Locale Team]
   1. Create a list of needed screenshots so other locale’s volunteers can contribute as needed
5. Development work to link English and localised content [Meta]
6. Define a syndication plan to track updates of the English version and trigger notifications to localisation team [Meta] [Docs]
7. Activate HelpHub’s home interface on the Rosetta (just this test locale) on /support [Meta]
8. Adjust the documentation links on the Rosetta site from Codex to HelpHub [Locale Team]
9. “Push” forums link back to /support/forums [Meta]
10. Redirect locale’s version of Codex or support materials to locale HelpHub (e.g. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Redirects) [Locale Team]
11. Establish communication channel between English HelpHub and locale teams [Docs] [Locale Team]
12. Write a blog post on the locale news page to announce the move of user support resources [Locale Team]
13. Do a retrospective and identify pain points [Docs] [Locale Team]
14. Refine Phase 1 Plan for other locales based on first candidate [Docs]

Phase 2

Goal

Roll out the localisation to more Rosetta sites.

Process

1. Enable HelpHub plugin on active Rosetta site (individual sign up) [Meta]
   1. What happens to teams without active volunteers? Maybe we’ll show English docs on their site
   2. Explore the possibility of showing machine-translated content
2. Allow main WordPress.org to reveal that there are other locales’ HelpHubs/Support [Meta]
3. (To be determined)

+make.wordpress.org/docs