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posted by NCommander on Tuesday May 19 2015, @10:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the translators-will-be-wanted dept.

As the dev cycle for the first release of rehash winds down (one remaining bug before we're ready to deploy), I've turned my attention another large site-related project, specifically the possibility of internationalizing and localizing the site. Internationalizing a very large legacy codebase is a lot of work, and I want to gauge interest. For clarification, this work would translate the UI, and the site interface itself, and not the articles. Historically, I'm aware of two successful translation project, BarraPunto, and Slashdot.JP. However, both of those projects did so by simply rewriting the templates in their native language instead of using a more flexible system that would allow for dynamic processing.

After a few hours of cursing, I was successful in modifying rehash to use Locale::Maketext::Lexicon, and load translations dynamically from gettext when a template is loaded. The practical upshot is that if I continue with this effort, we will be able to import all the static strings in rehash, and translate them through any service that can handle standard gettext POT files (such as Launchpad Rosetta), then have rehash load the specific language on the fly depending on a user's settings, or their browsers preferences. This also has the benefit that translators would only require a minimal amount of HTML knowledge would be required to successfully translate rehash.

What I want to know is the following:

  • Is there significant interest to prioritize this project?
  • Are there enough people who are willing to engage in translating rehash to their native language?
  • Assuming there is a successful translation committed and launched, would people be interested in running a version of SN in their own native language?

As long as the first two answers are yes, I'll push to get a localized codebase in place for the next rehash development cycle (likely landing in July or August). Please note there is a *lot* of strings to be translated, I'm expecting upwards of a couple thousand once I've finished scrubbing through all the templates and libraries. If you are interested in this, please note your native language below, and I'll get in contact with you once we're ready to start doing translation work.

Just to show that this is indeed possible, here's the output of the generate-pot-files script, with the few templates I've gone through:

slashlithium~/src/rehash-ncommander$ bin/generate-pot-files
 * themes/default/templates/about;about;default
   - Total strings extracted : 21
 * themes/default/templates/admin;menu;default
   - Total strings extracted : 7
 * themes/default/templates/articlemoved;misc;default
   - Total strings extracted : 3
 * themes/default/templates/bannedtext_ipid;misc;default
   - Total strings extracted : 2
 * themes/default/templates/bannedtext_palm;misc;default
   - Total strings extracted : 2
 * themes/default/templates/main;404;default
   - Total strings extracted : 11
READING PO FILE : i18n/rehash.pot
WRITING PO FILE : ./i18n/rehash.pot
DONE
 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Tuesday May 19 2015, @09:24PM

    by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2015, @09:24PM (#185219) Journal

    I didn't realise that anyone was suggesting that each page that needs to be translated on the fly is going to be submitted to Google for translation.

    But the problem remains that where in English there are only usually two visually different forms of a word - singular and plural - there exist many different combinations in other languages. Providing a one-to-one translation is not always simple. A practical example; the front page shows how many messages are waiting for you to read. In English it is either (1) message or (more than 1) messages. In Slavonic languages it is not uncommon for 1,2-4,5+ to require different forms (cases) of the word 'message(s)'. In English you can also correctly say 'with 5 messages' , but in Slavonic languages the word 'with' requires the instrumental case - and the word 'messages' is written differently than previously stated. There are many such characteristics that further complicate the translation.

    The task is do-able, but one mustn't underestimate the size of the task that NCommander is proposing. It would be a significant effort for what appears to be, from my particular viewpoint, very little gain. FatPhil's suggestion of reducing the costs of running the site is more important than translating the front page into numerous languages - especially as you have demonstrated that Google could do the job reasonably well for those that want it. But I realise that it is not as interesting a challenge than writing a clever bit of software, unless there are some other benefits of doing the translation that are not immediately apparent to us all?

    Do we need a front page in different languages? No. Could we use an internal messaging system (e.g. to provide feedback on submissions, to let people know when their subs expire etc.)? Yes. Could we use an improved editor for changing a submission to something suitable for the front page? Yes. Could we benefit from more automatic processing of submissions to check links, carry out routine formatting, correcting spelling etc? Yes. Could we have secure VNC-type connections to the dev system so that both trainer and trainee can see the same page when new editors have to learn how to do the job? And that is only with my Editor's hat on. Can we have a way of entering a comment and then returning to the thread at the point where the comment was inserted? Can we have different ACs indicated by the addition of a number so that we can follow who is saying what to whom in a thread? Now some of these are in the pipeline but we haven't got them yet. When we have done all these, and also the things that others have been asking for, then that is the time to start looking for 'I-wonder-if-we-could...' tasks to keep people busy.

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:27AM

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday May 20 2015, @12:27AM (#185254) Journal

    I didn't realise that anyone was suggesting that each page that needs to be translated on the fly is going to be submitted to Google for translation.

    No, that wasn't what I was suggesting either. All I mentioned it for was to point out that the site is accessible in many languages, some with bettr translations than others, but most of the translations are good enough to get by, and all of them less work for out much overworked staff.

    I too think there is too little gain to waste our commander's time on this.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday May 20 2015, @08:34AM

      by janrinok (52) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 20 2015, @08:34AM (#185352) Journal
      Sorry, perhaps I misunderstood. However, we seem to be agreed that the task doesn't justify the effort at present.