Transifex Maintainers and Governance

The governance of Transifex could be improved in some ways as suggested by the only current maintainer @maikel at Slack
(@maikel correct me if I’m wrong below)

Needs:

  • A Machine Translation API key from Google (recommended solution, available from Google APIs Console and/or Microsoft (from Microsoft Translator Text API. Please reply and get in touch if you have / or can get one.
  • A few more maintainers, just to help @maikel with some basic tasks.

Related to this topic:

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ping @sigmundpetersen thought this might be of interest to you :wink:

cc/ @sseerrggii :point_up_2:

Yes, it can be very useful especially to speed up the translation of single words.

Now the reviews are not used to validate a translation, right? I think it may be interesting to have a language manager who can do translation review.

The current team consists of

0 team managers
2 coordinators
1 reviewer
37 translators

@sseerrggii

Now the reviews are not used to validate a translation, right? I think
it may be interesting to have a language manager who can do translation
review.

Translations are pushed to Github when they reach 100% completeness. I’m not sure if that includes reviews. But it would be a good practice to review.

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@enricostn @sigmundpetersen - Who has/can get an Google Translate API key for @maikel ?

Yes @sseerrggii machine translation speeds up single words but also sentences which can be corrected. Google’s new translation is also AI so it is getting better faster.

@maikel I don’t think it includes reviews. But as I understand it is important to save and backup all progress from Transifex before pushing to Github or updating source file, otherwise progress disappears as it seems. Swedish was 100% now its like 60%.

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Swedish was 100% now its like 60%.

Between 1.7.1 and now, 776 lines of 1593 lines in en.yml changed. It looks like you have to translate most of these changes. The translation memory can only help if a saved string matches 100% of a new string found.

OK. Alright. I have no problem to get that translated as soon as Machine Translation is available. Who is on it? Do I need to get one? I’m just thinking it’s best if there is someone who is more connected to the core group of OFN.

ping @sigmundpetersen - are you able to get a Google Translate API?

As I understand it the Translate API is a payed service and should thus be covered by one of the core commons buckets? At least if one API key can be used on all languages in the project.

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When I check the link https://code.google.com/apis/console/?api=translate it does not seem to be any costs what so ever. I think it’s only if it exceeds some quota in usage.

I’m sure one API key can be used on all languages, there is one API key used per Transifex project i.e. for all current and future OFN languages in that project.

OK I created an API key. Seems there’s a 12 month free trial, don’t know what applies after that.

I need privileges on Transifex OFN though to add the key to the project.
@maikel do you want to elevate me? Or maybe you would prefer to create a key of your own and add it?

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If / when 12 month expires and you want us to see if we get some kind of freebie / better quota etc under our google non-profit account we could have a look. Or we could do now if someone can give @sstead some idea what to look for and where?

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Thanks Sigmund! :slight_smile: As I understand your key is sufficient and can be replaced later so @maikel don’t need to make one herself.

You have been invited as administrator. You should be able to add the key yourself. :slight_smile:

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I’ve now added my Google Translation API to Transifex so machine translation should now be enabled. (I did one test for Norwegian that it worked).

This is a 12 month free trial, after that we’ll have to consider payed options. Maybe there will be open source alternatives emerging :slight_smile:

@matt @maikel

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What does machine translation mean in this case @sigmundpetersen ? Does it mean we can turn it on for a language and it does the first cut by itself (wishful thinking!)?

Can anyone give me an estimate of how long it takes to do first run of a translation? and then roughly how long to keep it up to date?

Hey @Kirsten the way we have used it so far is clicking the lightning icon to machine translate (Google Translate) manually on every string and then checking the correctness. Every now and then I choose to edit the translated string to choose alternative wording or the auto-translation doesn’t have the right context etc.

It’s possible to select all strings and machine translate in bulk. It’s really up to the translator to trust Google Translate or review every string. Either way it saves time not needing that much manual key punching :smile:

I’ve also checked up on automatic translation project wide. Looks like this is available in a more expensive Transifex plan, with the possibility of machine translating whenever strings are added or updated. See more here. I would still review the strings and not trust our AI overlords completely.

On the estimated time for a first run on a fresh translation I wouldn’t know. But keeping it up to date is now really fast with auto-translate and is no burden or blocker for Norway any more. :+1: I have a free Google Translate API until June, then we would have to consider continuing with a paid one.

Thanks @sigmundpetersen! Is your free google translate API project wide or just for Norway? I’m gathering from above it’s project wide and should allow me to click a lightening icon in transifex? I will explore and see if I can find this . .

I hesitate asking this because I still don’t understand transifex at all. In Canada, once the multilingual feature is ready, I understand we’ll use transifex to translate the platform to french. I think that should be straightforward, given transifex supports french (maybe multiple versions of french - maybe Canadian french is a specific dialect supported.) BUT I have a different question -does anyone know how we go about adding a new language(s) to transifex that aren’t there already? There is a LOT of excitement beginning across Canada’s northern communities about OFN, and food distribution in the north is a big issue for funders. If we could launch OFN in Ojibiway (a relatively common native language) it would fare very well for OFN-Canada. (This is only one language of many, but I think we’d still be honouring indigenous people by doing this and that is a big step forward here.) Do I have to contact transifex? How do languages get ‘made’ in transifex? I’m sure I could find a translator to work with us on this - and likely some funding.