2020 Polyglots Team Survey meeting #1

On Monday, Oct. 12th a small group of 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/. members met in response to our call for volunteers to create a team-wide survey. We’ve summarized the notes from our first chat below.

We’d love your input as well! What do you think of the goals 1-4? Can you think of any other information that’s more important in deciding our team’s direction? Any thoughts on the format? Please leave a comment and share your insight.

Attendees

@devinmaeztri, @evarlese, @nao, @psmits1567 (also, @nilovelez, @timhergty, and @chaion07 contributed asynchronously)

Background

• The idea for conducting a Polyglots contributor survey came up because: 
  • We have many things we want to improve within the process and tools but need to set priorities.
  • Setting those priorities based on our instinct or knowledge can be done, but it’s not enough to clearly decide the next steps.
  • We need a better understanding of the situation, but we don’t have enough data at hand – so let’s gather some 🙂
• Annual WordPress MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area. Organizer Survey
  • The survey we’re working on will be separate from this and, instead, will focus specifically on the Polyglots team.

Goals of the Survey

What do we hope to take away from the survey? (The questions are just examples for now, not final)

1. Figuring out the pain points for both editors, and new contributors.
   • Was it difficult to start translating WordPress?
   • Did you need help joining 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/.? Was it hard to get in touch with your 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/ team?
2. Understanding the contributors’ motivation.
   • How do people find out about translating WordPress?
   • What keeps them doing it, especially if translations/stringsString A string is a translatable part of the software. A translation consists of a multitude of localized strings. aren’t approved?
3. Understanding contributor satisfaction levels.
   • Why are there different levels of satisfaction between 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/?
   • Do people feel happy about contributing? If not, how can we make it better?
4. How do teams onboard and recruit?
   • How are new contributors onboarded? What tools do locales use to communicate?
   • Is there any training provided?
   • How are different locales structures (i.e. having a lead)? Are there regular meetings scheduled?

We have a large number of related questions we’ve brainstormed related to these goals and are continuing to collect more so we can use them to build the survey.

Survey Format

• Based on our goals, it’s most likely that we will want to have two separate surveys: one for editors and one for individual translators.
  • The survey for editors will likely be more in-depth/longer, but we will aim to keep the one for translators short.
• The survey should include general questions that apply to all locales, but we can add the option of asking if the respondent would be willing to do a follow-up interview.
• We also talked about asking if we could include a question about whether or not people are aware they can translate WordPress on the 2020 WordPress community-wide survey.

#survey