After the Int’l Polyglots meeting of last Wednesday…

After the Int’l Polyglots meeting of last Wednesday, I had an interesting conversation with @Nao and @lasacco where we had the chance to illustrate our (the Italian Community) projects regarding Volunteer Mentoring and Glossary.

Now let me tell you how (the Italian Community) have organized our work.

First thing, we created Guidelines for the PTEs

Italian 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/.

On the Italian Slack we created four channels:

#Polyglots per general discussion
✓ #live-polyglots for real-time requests for assistance and for periodical collaborative translation live-sessions
✓ #gtepte for the weekly meetings and for specific discussions about PTEs and GTEs
✓ #live-glossario (a temporary channel) dedicated to the Glossary project, which was
kept open to the community for the initial, decision-making steps and is now closed as
it became a “service” channel for the volunteers that are active on the project.

The Volunteer Mentoring Project

@lasacco is the lead of this project, which aims at vetting, educating and mentoring the Contributors, to assist them when needed, to supervise (and revise) their translation, with the final mission to bring them to PTEProject Translation Editor A Project Translation Editor (often referred to as PTE) is a person, who has access to validate strings on a specific project (for example BuddyPress, WooCommerce or Twenty Fourteen) for one specific locale. A project translation editor can approve strings that are added by translation contributors. Per project translation, editors are appointed by a general translation editor after a request by the project author or by the contributors themselves. status in the shortest amount of time.

Within the Mentoring Project lies the “Adopt a theme/pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party” initiative, where we encourage Community members to choose a theme or a plugin of their choice (maybe something they use and are familiar with) and translate it. This way, they begin translating something they feel close to. A GTEGeneral Translation Editor A General Translation Editor (often referred to as GTE) is a person, who has global access to validate strings on all projects for a specific locale. – and, in the future, our SuperPTEs – follows them step by step and helps them correct/revise eventual mistakes.

The mentoring lasts the necessary time for the Contributor to absorb the guidelines and for the Mentor to verify congruity and consistency of translation quality. After that the Contributor becomes PTE for the adopted product.

A PTE can choose to adopt all the projects (s)he wants: the only limit is the time that (s)he’s willing to dedicate to the task.

The above motioned SuperPTEs are intermediary figures between GTEs and PTEs.

They have longer experience and more expertise, are willing to take on the bigger responsibility of larger projects (say, all plugins, etc.), and are also committed to recruit new contributors and propose them the Mentoring Project.

Basically we’re pulling a virtuous Ponzi scheme to Translate! ☺

All these operations are managed through an open gDoc accessible by the entire community.

Someone is always online on Slack and in the #live channel is always possible to get help to solve all doubts. Often the biggest obstacle is understanding correctly the translation’s context, as not always the same term is translated in the same way.

(This in fact opens the opportunity, for the future, to strengthen the collaboration between Devs and translators: a well prepared document, with references and tags, is a lot easier – and a lot faster – to translate. The goal of having these parts work synergistically is, in our opinion, a healthy ambition)

The Glossary Project

Lead of this project is @zetaraffix, who is working at streamlining the procedure that feeds and nourishes the Glossary – which is at the heart of quality and fluidity for any 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/ – as well as at the evolution of our 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. page into the best possible reference for all Italian translators, experts and newbies (adding, for now, style indications, grammar references, tips, links to different resources, and a general Quick Reference Guide, based on @casiepa’s project).

The decisional process was conducted openly on the dedicated channel, and now the team is working on implementing it.

The procedure agreed upon will allow a constant and quality-monitored feed to GlotPressGlotPress GlotPress is the translation management software that powers Translate.WordPress.org. More information is available at glotpress.org. through the submission (through a gForm) of proposed terms which will periodically be discussed openly with the community, approved and fed to the GlotPress master, to assist all translator and to further smooth out the process (and the required time).

Weekly meetings:

The Italian Polyglots meet every week (Tuesday, 1-2 PM), at the moment these two projects alternate. Often, also, there are extemporaneous meetings on slack to address specific terminology issues.

These open discussions benefit the entire community and facilitate the interaction with the Devs, who are often key to best understand a stringsString A string is a translatable part of the software. A translation consists of a multitude of localized strings.’ context.

With our story – at this time – we wish to initiate a mutually beneficial conversation for all 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/, to improve and help each other, to find common paths and to share knowledge and experience, and – ultimately – to enhance the process, the translator handbook and the tools available.

We look forward to your feedback and suggestions. For now, happy translating to all!

#gte, #pte