Ideas for Locales with Huge Review Queues

If you order the translation stats by the order of waiting stringsString A string is a translatable part of the software. A translation consists of a multitude of localized strings. in the plugins, you can see important languages like pt_BR (200 million speakers), de_DE (75 million speakers), fr_FR (63.5 million speakers),… with hundred of thousand of waiting strings.

It is unlikely that such large queues will ever be reviewed; it is also very discouraging:

• For translators to continue translating, since these chains will most likely never be reviewed.
• For the validators (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., 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., CLPTECross-locale Project Translation Editor A Cross-Locale Project Translation Editor is an account owned by a plugin or theme author (or the authoring organization), which uses professional translators to localize their product. The cross-locale project translation editor can import/validate strings on a specific project for more than one locale. This role has the same capabilities as a Project Translation Editor over multiple locales instead of one. Cross-Locale Project Translation Editors need to meet a set of criteria before being appointed by General Translation Editors.) to continue reviewing the pending strings, given their large number.

To try to improve this situation, I propose two actions, that I will explain below:

• Automatically validate the strings we have in the TM with a high number of occurrences.
• In the validation queue, don’t show a discouragingly big queue with hundreds of projects and hundreds of thousands of strings, but a reduced number of important projects instead.

I suggest to opt-out by default to these two actions, so the GTE for each 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/ should opt-in for this new functionality.

Automatic validation

I propose to create a new tool to automatically validate the waiting strings that appear a lot of times (maybe 10 or more times) in the TM with the same original stringString A string is a translatable part of the software. A translation consists of a multitude of localized strings. and with the same translation. Here, I propose to work always with a 100% of accuracy: if the original string from the TM is not full equal to the original string under review, the tool will not use it.

In the next example, we have 3 suggestions from the TM with 100% accuracy. In this example, we’d use the translation “off” since it has more than 10 usages (this is not displayed in the screenshot, but the number is available).

If none of the 100% translations is used more than 10 times, then it won’t be automatically validated.

Reduce the validation queue

The validation queue, only available for the validators, has a list with the projects having some waiting strings. It can be huge for some 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/ (Emoji locale in the next screenshot).

I propose to reduce this queue to a few projects (maybe 12 is a good number), so the validators won’t feel overwhelmed when they review the projects. I suggest sorting the projects by importance: the WordPress coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., 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., … Once the project is fully reviewed, another one will appear in this queue.

This new queue will not prevent a validatorValidator See translation editor. from directly accessing a project and validating it if they want to do so.

#ideas