Polyglots achievements in 2015 and goals for 2016

Dear Polyglots,

I was asked to fill a survey about our team’s work in 2015, so I’m sharing what I said in this post. As always, please add your comments and anything important you feel we need to add to our goals for 2016 below this post.

Did the team set any specific goals for 2015?

We did. A lot of those don’t depend on the translation teams but more on the MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. team as it’s tools to help translators. Here are the goals as mentioned in this post.

• Aim to have 70 very active, very updated localesLocale Locale = language version, often a combination of a language code and a region code, for instance es_MX denotes Spanish as it’s used in Mexico. A list of all locales supported by WordPress in https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/ by the end of 2015.
• Focus on bringing in and mentoring new validators. Everyone’s help here will be invaluable – talk to people about your Polyglots work, find and inspire new translators to join.
• Get Involved page linked from your local site’s primary menu.
• Speaking and encouraging people to join the team at meetups
• Translation sprints! Amazing idea, read more in @nao‘s post and please share your thoughts!

Last year at the community summit, a lot of people didn’t know what Polyglots did. We should try and do something about it this year. Suggestions include talking about it at local meetups and WordCamps.

• Aim to have 50% locales up to date, currently, it’s just ~35% – this would mean cleaning inactive locales or trying to find validators for them
• RosettaRosetta The code name of the theme for the local WordPress sites (eg. bg.wordpress.org is a “Rosetta” site). All locale specific WordPress sites are referred to as “Rosetta sites.” The name was inspired from the ancient Rosetta Stone, which contained more or less the same text in three different languages. sites to be integrated with local communities and to start getting fresh content about meetups and WordCamps
• Finish the Handbook.
• Team P2s
• An update on the Rosetta theme and a new bbPressbbPress Free, open source software built on top of WordPress for easily creating forums on sites. https://bbpress.org. theme (hopefully)
• Polyglots badges.

What were the major accomplishments of the team in 2015?

• We have 69 active running locales, 57 are released for 4.4
• There are 79 locales translated 80% and more, 54 of those are translated 100%
• We added 20 new locales and localizationLocalization Localization (sometimes shortened to "l10n") is the process of adapting a product or service to a particular language, culture, and desired local "look-and-feel." teams to the project in 2015, WordPress now has 158 locales
• WordPress is now 100% translated in Hindi, one of the top 10 world languages that we were missing before – there are many locales who started at 0 and were completely translated in 2015.
• We automated Polyglots badges
• We improved the team documentation and streamlined the processes for requesting a new localeLocale Locale = language version, often a combination of a language code and a region code, for instance es_MX denotes Spanish as it’s used in Mexico. A list of all locales supported by WordPress in https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/, requesting to join a team, and requesting translation editorsTranslation Editor Translation editors can approve translations for projects. The GTE (General Translation Editor) and LM (Locale Manager) roles can add new users with the "Project Translation Editor" role that can approve translations for specific projects. There are two different Translation Editor roles: General Translation Editor and Project Translation Editor for specific plugins
• We have a team. There are several people dedicated to the Polyglots teamPolyglots Team Polyglots Team is a group of multilingual translators who work on translating plugins, themes, documentation, and front-facing marketing copy. https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/. and we’re growing the base of contributors involved with helping other contributors (some small equivalent of the WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. deputy program)
• We have regular meetings and communication going in and out of the team
• We have an active SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel where people get help almost 24/7

Were there any particular challenges to the team achieving its goals?

• Lack of tools and improvements of the translation management system (GlotPressGlotPress GlotPress is the translation management software that powers Translate.WordPress.org. More information is available at glotpress.org.). The tools the team needs are still in development and we’ve been waiting for some of them for a long time. The meta team is helping us as much as they can, but they have a very long list of tasks. With the increased demand for translations (of the 30k plugins in the repositoryWordPress Localization Repository The WordPress Localization Repository at https://i18n.svn.wordpress.org/ is a Subversion repository where official WordPress translations are maintained. See Working with the Translation Repository for details.), the demand for better tools from members of the translation teams increases too.
• Lack of team P2s which were supposed to be in a year ago makes it hard for translation teams to communicate internally – it’s next to impossible to get in touch with the active translators unless they’re not all in w.org slack (most aren’t), so we’ve been looking for workarounds to help Translation editors talk to their contributors.

There are three particular GlotPress features we’re waiting for:

• Reject strings with feedback for the contributor (https://glotpress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/335)
• Notification center for translation editors and translation contributors on waiting strings, new strings and overall activity in the projects they’re involved with (https://glotpress.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/100)
• Global glossaries across projects – a feature that would help translation teams keep just one glossary up to date and all projects for the specific locale inherit that glossary.

Has the team set any goals for 2016?

• Work with local teams to improve local getting started guides for new contributors
• 100 released locales for the last WordPress release for 2016
• Top 100 plugins and themes in the repository translated at more than 50% for the 50 most active locales
• Improve translation management and communication tools (P2s, the three GlotPress features mentioned)
• Improve the visibility of the Polyglots team across the WordPress ecosystem and get team recognition for releases
• Increase the number of active translation editors per locale to meet the demand for translations of plugins and teams and keep the quality of the translations high
• Expand the leadership team to the Asia/Pacific region and have a functioning operation to support contributors in non-European timezones.

Is there anything that would make your work on this team easier in 2016?

• More development time focused on translation tools
• Better tools to communicate with translation editors and translation contributors (right now to notify them about an upcoming release we use posts where we @mention them to get their attention – that’s a manual process that takes a lot of time)
• Rethinking of the processes of freezing stringsString A string is a translatable part of the software. A translation consists of a multitude of localized strings. before a release with the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. team so that translators have enough time to properly prepare the locales before the release date. I’m already working on this with Drew and the core team.
• Recognition for translators. If someone can get props for a release for fixing a typo, translation editors who spend hours working to bring that release to more people, should get a mention in the release post. A general mention of the translation efforts would be enough – just let the world know that that release is available in more than 50 languages thanks to the efforts of the translation teams.

Looking forward to your comments and working with all of you in 2016.

Have a wonderful 2016, polyglots!

Cheers,

Petya

#glotpress, #rosetta