Automatic translations for addons/apps descriptions

[Nukeador]

Hi,

It's been demonstrated over the years that it's impossible to maintain
all addons descriptions localized by mozilla contributors, and not all
authors are able to get updated translations. With the upcoming
marketplace and apps, it's going to be the same situation.

I suggest to offer automatic translations for descriptions to improve
user experience, maybe adding a small and nice link next to the
description "See in YourLanguage" or similar.

What do you thing?

Regards.

--
Nukeador
http://www.nukeador.com
http://twitter.com/nukeador
Clave PGP: http://www.nukeador.com/pgp

[Leszek Życzkowski]

Automatic translation isn't good idea.

Teo

2012/5/9 Nukeador <nuke...@gmail.com>

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[Axel Hecht]

On 09.05.12 00:48, Nukeador wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It's been demonstrated over the years that it's impossible to maintain
> all addons descriptions localized by mozilla contributors, and not all
> authors are able to get updated translations. With the upcoming
> marketplace and apps, it's going to be the same situation.
>
> I suggest to offer automatic translations for descriptions to improve
> user experience, maybe adding a small and nice link next to the
> description "See in YourLanguage" or similar.
>
> What do you thing?
>
> Regards.
>

Is there a gap between localizations of the addons themselves vs their
descriptions?

Axel

[Nukeador]

El 09/05/12 01:23, Axel Hecht escribió:

> Is there a gap between localizations of the addons themselves vs their
> descriptions?

If you want descriptions in your language, you have to email the author
and see if he updates the description.

I agree with the "Automatic translation isn't good idea" statement in
most situations, but here we are talking about thousands descriptions
with thousands authors, nobody can handle that. It's better to offer a
"machine translation" to users that want to understand the description
than not understanding it at all.

[Kohei Yoshino]

On 12/05/09 8:23, Axel Hecht wrote:
> Is there a gap between localizations of the addons themselves vs their
> descriptions?

As most localized add-ons don't have the localized descriptions on
AMO, we cannot even search those in our language, unfortunately.
Mozilla Japan and Mozilla China have run our own add-on libraries,
which have localized descriptions. Some local communities have done
the same thing.

Japan: https://addons.mozilla.jp/firefox/
(See https://wiki.mozilla.org/Japan/AMJ for details)

China: http://mozilla.com.cn/topic/1/

See also the dependency bugs of Bug 635826 "Globalize AMO"
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=635826&hide_resolved=0


--
Kohei Yoshino
Marketing & WebDev, Mozilla Japan
http://mozilla.jp/

[flod]

Il 09/05/12 00.48, Nukeador ha scritto:
> What do you thing?
Not a good idea. Take for example Google Play, the result is ridiculous:
most of the time I have to check the English description to understand
what they're saying.

Francesco

[Mad Maks]

Op 09-05-12 01:20, Leszek Życzkowski schreef:

> Automatic translation isn't good idea.
>
> Teo

This is not helping the discussion, why isn't a good idea?

I am in doubt, users who don't read english will be helped with a
translation. some translation is better then no translation. But i agree
in google play are the automatic translations some times really strange
and do you need the english version to understand what they mean.

automatic translation with a suggest button for users to suggest a
better translation????

Tim Maks

[Matjaz Horvat]

I like the original idea by Nukeador: English text + Translate link.
Suggest a better translation is a plus.

I think automatically translating text (without user interaction) would be
too dangerous.

-Matjaž

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[flod]

Il 09/05/12 10.48, Mad Maks ha scritto:

> automatic translation with a suggest button for users to suggest a
> better translation????

Dangerous, unless there's someone that approves that and we're back
again to the main problem (people & time).

Last time I saw a crowdsource translation, even with votes and scores to
choose the best translation, it ended up with funny obscenities ;-)

Francesco

[Peter Pin-Guang Chen]

Don't put auto translation +1,

For some languages, providing some translation is even worse than no
translation,
some machine-translated app names and descriptions are even
totally irrelevant to its original language in Android Market.

We tried to encourage local users to make the translation(descriptions at
least), then submit to the author of addons,
but yes, this way needs people and time.


Peter

2012/5/9 flod <fl...@lodolo.net>

> Il 09/05/12 10.48, Mad Maks ha scritto:
>

> automatic translation with a suggest button for users to suggest a better
>> translation????
>>

> Dangerous, unless there's someone that approves that and we're back again
> to the main problem (people & time).
>
> Last time I saw a crowdsource translation, even with votes and scores to
> choose the best translation, it ended up with funny obscenities ;-)
>
> Francesco
>
>

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>

[Axel Hecht]

On 09.05.12 00:48, Nukeador wrote:

> Hi,
>
> It's been demonstrated over the years that it's impossible to maintain
> all addons descriptions localized by mozilla contributors, and not all
> authors are able to get updated translations. With the upcoming
> marketplace and apps, it's going to be the same situation.
>
> I suggest to offer automatic translations for descriptions to improve
> user experience, maybe adding a small and nice link next to the
> description "See in YourLanguage" or similar.
>
> What do you thing?
>
> Regards.
>

CCing Jorge.

Jorge, in this thread, there's a concern about the lack of localized
add-on descriptions. I'd like to take a step back from the proposed
solution, and poke your input on:

- do we have numbers of how much of a problem this is? Notably, how many
addons are localized into a language X without a corresponding add-on
description in X? Maybe both in numbers and popularity.

- do you have any "oh right, we loose those at Y, let's get a bug on
file" moment for this?

And also "now you know", fyi.

Thanks

Axel

[Nukeador]

El 09/05/12 10:48, Mad Maks escribió:

> automatic translation with a suggest button for users to suggest a
> better translation????

That's a good idea, maybe having a automatic translation link (need user
interaction) and the suggest a better translation button.

[Jesper Kristensen]

Last time I checked (which is quite some time ago) it was a lot more
difficult for addon authors to accept localizations of addon
descriptions compared to accepting localizations of the addons
themselves. addon localization can be handled by a system like
Babelzilla, but for AMO metadata localization the developer had to
manually extract the localized content and type it into AMO. We should
ensure that this gap is closed before looking at machine translation.

[Jorge Villalobos]

On 5/9/12 6:50 AM, Axel Hecht wrote:
> On 09.05.12 00:48, Nukeador wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> It's been demonstrated over the years that it's impossible to maintain
>> all addons descriptions localized by mozilla contributors, and not all
>> authors are able to get updated translations. With the upcoming
>> marketplace and apps, it's going to be the same situation.
>>
>> I suggest to offer automatic translations for descriptions to improve
>> user experience, maybe adding a small and nice link next to the
>> description "See in YourLanguage" or similar.
>>
>> What do you thing?
>>
>> Regards.
>>
>
>
> CCing Jorge.
>
> Jorge, in this thread, there's a concern about the lack of localized
> add-on descriptions. I'd like to take a step back from the proposed
> solution, and poke your input on:
>
> - do we have numbers of how much of a problem this is? Notably, how
> many addons are localized into a language X without a corresponding
> add-on description in X? Maybe both in numbers and popularity.

Many add-on developers either localize their add-ons themselves or use
Babelzilla for that purpose. Almost every popular add-on out there is
localized to at least a couple other languages. I can come up with
concrete stats if necessary.

Almost nobody bothers localizing descriptions. There's a way to request
description translations on Babelzilla, but it is awkward and very few
localizers do them. It's also very awkward to move those translated
texts and set them up on the AMO Developer Hub. So, there's very little
incentive for developers to translate their descriptions.

>
> - do you have any "oh right, we loose those at Y, let's get a bug on
> file" moment for this?

Having automatic translations sounds like a reasonable short-term
solution. These translations are often poor and even ridiculous, but
it's better than nothing for the non-English speakers who don't know how
to get the text translated themselves. I can file a bug if nobody else
has done this. I don't know if the AMO devs will think it's a good idea,
and I am almost certain that this won't make it to the first release
versions since there are other higher priorities they're working on.

Ideally I would prefer a system where people can register as localizers
and contribute description translations on the site itself, but that's
more ambitious and something that has been talked about for ages.

>
> And also "now you know", fyi.
>
> Thanks
>
> Axel

Thank you for the heads up.

Jorge

[Inma Barrios]

2012/5/9 Jorge Villalobos <jo...@mozilla.com>

Maybe I am a bit late for this discussion, but another option for addons
description l10n might be implementing a crowdsourced method similar to the
ones Twitter o Facebook use. Localizers access to a panel divided into two
columns: on the right-hand side is the English strings, and on the
left-hand side are the different translation suggestions for that specific
string. The best rated option is the one that applies.

I don't know if this is possible or doable at all. But I think it might be
a good way to leverage the creation of a addon localizers community and
motivate users to get involved in the l10n of products they use.

Best,
--

Inma Barrios [@inma_610<http://www.mozilla-hispano.org/documentacion/Usuario:Inma_610>
]

http://mozilla-hispano.org
http://twitter.com/mozilla_hispano
http://facebook.com/mozillahispano

[smo]

One more late comment

Correct me, if I am wrong, but are there any add-on authors involved in this discussion? I guess not.

Re machine translation: I am adding my vote against it, not out of fear for my role in the process. I just happen to know the quality of machine translations.

Re crowd sourcing: dto

Hint for add-on owners (lets talk some incentives) why not let localizers share the spoils? For instance on a click-to-download basis? If I can judge from my limited point of view (Slovenian), the biggies have been localized already in a decent fashion.

Regards

Vito

[smo]