Crowd Sourcing - Language Packs

[hibiskus]

Right now language packs are fragmented, i have to register to other sites expose knowledge about me because of login walls, before i can download the language i desire.
Everybody names their language packs different, as special for addons, some are double more inconsistency fragmentation, it is like i have to hunt for them.

Better would be just a simple table list, with all languages listed, linked to "empty" language packs, which will be filled by the crowed, and a disclaimer thats community sourced.

Every big player in the house is doing it, how do you think can Windows have 7000 Languages, no joke 7000 (You can read here)
Or facebook 100+ languages or Wikipedia 300+ languages, and FB and wiki have to even deal with real content.

You have only buttons to translate, we do already the work give us a more clean foundation to work with, for more consistence and no more language packs lost between addons, or hidden behind another registration wall.

Let me tell it also in words wich has more meaing for you, you lose a big big chunk of a lot of Money , because people want their software in their language...
Simple as that and you are providing a Community software out of the box only with one language. You have to think of your biggest competitor, Facebook they are killing Forum Communites and nearly absorbed them.
One of their weakness compared to yours is, FB has many A/B testing sites and rolls versions later out, they have to filter/moderate content, make sure to be conform to country laws, with ads and data collecting. They need even much more then just some buttons translated.

You on the other hand really only have buttons to translate, so you could easily get more then 100+ languages.. and overreach FB... i guess Windows language compatibility record you won't reach any near.

Believe me every features you plan to add, any bug you want to fix, nothing is more worth, and nothing else on earth will get you more customers, then a consistent Language library.

phpBB has 54 languages.. most of the core developers are germans or english speaking country, they don't have any cent neither like you, still they manage to have more solid languages out of the box.

Here an Article, the reason why I am trying it again, to help you to understand what you are missing.

Getting Started with Crowdsourcing
As larger, global companies like Waze and Trello are recognizing their communities for their help in translating digital content, more and more customers are asking about how they can leverage their own user communities to crowdsource translations. A majority of these customers are initially hesitant to give community translations a try, asking questions like:

• How much time does it take to start a community translation project?
• How do I reach and regularly engage my community?
• Who is responsible for managing the community as they complete translations?
• What happens when quality issues arise, and how do I even detect them?

While community translation programs can be difficult to start without the right foundation, they are incredibly gratifying. The ability to connect with your early users in a country is key if you want to win the market. As this TED Talk explains, you have to take care of your first followers if you want to start a movement.
Today, we’re going to share some tips on how to crowdsource effectively and efficiently, producing quality, translated content that engages your multilingual users from around the world.
Setting the record straight on crowdsourced translations
Before diving in, we want to debunk the most common misconceptions about crowdsourcing translations – things that we hear from both prospective and new clients.
Myth 1: You’re going to sacrifice quality if you crowdsource translations.
You may have heard the crowdsourcing horror stories. There’s a company that has a website that needs to be translated into three languages. Said company reaches out to their community to crowdsource translations. An immediate response is surprising and the company is able to crowdsource translations for all three target languages in just a couple weeks. Unfortunately, after the languages are published, complaints come pouring in, citing that the translated content doesn’t make sense and/or isn’t grammatically correct, all which can potentially result in bad press for the company and lost trust among global users.
We’re not saying this scenario never happens, but what’s often left out of the conversation is that most companies that experience early setbacks when crowdsourcing still end up using their community to translate to a certain extent, and some quite successfully. And, many times, these problems can be resolved with a crowdsourcing quality moderation program.
There are stories of language service providers (LSPs) providing poor quality translations too, and most of these stories share a common problem with the crowdsourcing model: throwing content over the fence to be translated with little collaboration doesn’t work. Translating anything – whether a website, help center, or mobile game – requires a dialog with the initial content creators to ensure its meaning is properly interpreted.

Myth 2: You can’t set deadlines when you use your community to translate.
Because your community volunteers to translate and they work on their own schedule, those new to managing a crowd assume that the crowdsourcing model prevents any kind of deadline to be set. In some respects, this is true, because the translations are completed organically. For instance, when Twitter reached out to their community for their initial crowdsourcing efforts, certain languages took closer to a month to be fully translated, whereas Traditional Chinese took only a week.
That said, it’s certainly possible to set a regular translation cadence that ensures projects, even large websites or complicated mobile apps, are translated within a set timeframe. Speed in community translation is a byproduct of a good moderation program. Openly communicating with and steering volunteers (we often call them collaborators) to high priority content is important when dealing with fast-approaching deadlines because it ensures that the most important components of your product are at the top of the list and are translated first.
Myth 3: Your budget is safe if you choose to crowdsource translations.
Community translation is often seen as free or, at the very least, a cheaper alternative to hiring professional translators. But after careful observation of the costs involved, this isn’t always the case. Between your moderation program, research, and software development – and associated time spent on these activities, salaries, server costs, etc – most successful community localization programs incur costs that are similar to, if not more than, contracting work out to a language service provider. The flipside, however, is that you get to engage your community in a way that will continually return benefits in terms of brand engagement and loyalty — difficult to quantify, but highly valuable.
In the translation world, monetary incentives are pretty much off the table, with Orit Yehezkel, Head of Localization at Waze, stating:
“If you give the community money, it’s not a community anymore. They become mercenaries.”
A better way to spend those extra localization dollars is to invest in community building efforts: organizing conferences and meetups for your community, creating programs to recognize them and providing other types of non-monetary incentives like access to beta features. While this may put a dent in your localization budget, it can create goodwill within your community and helps you set yourself up for long-term success.

Deciding what to translate
Once you’ve decided to crowdsource translations, you have to decide what exactly you want to translate. With so many different types of content, attempting to list all of them would be fruitless, but we’ve categorized them into four groups to better share our thoughts. Keep in mind that just because your content isn’t listed here, doesn’t mean crowdsourcing translations isn’t an option.
1. User interface
Translating your user interface into different languages is typically the first translation project attempted, and historically, the most successful because this is what drives most of your community to translate – they want to see your product in their own language.
There are variations on how you would approach the translation process depending on the type of software you’re translating (mobile app vs. website, responsive HTML5 vs. static content) but those variations also apply to how you’d handle this content with a traditional LSP. The specifics here are extensive, so we’ll be addressing them in another blog post.
2. Marketing material
You may have a large amount of marketing material including your website, blog, white papers, and case studies that need to be translated. While some of the content may be straightforward and easy to translate word for word, your community may find it difficult to identify, understand, and translate persuasive content or brand messages like slogans. Certain phrases also don’t have direct translations, and your community may try to translate such phrases anyway. This can result in inconsistent content that doesn’t deliver the intended marketing message. That’s not to say that your community can’t help you with translations, but we do recommend that marketing material is only tackled by experienced community translators!
Read how to increase translation quality for marketing material by creating a glossary for your localization project.
There are some instances when reaching out to your community may be beneficial in testing how your marketing messages will be received in new locales. Your community is likely made of natives who speak your target language, and thus, may be able to provide additional information about buying behaviors, preferences, and even alternative marketing messages that will better resonate with your new audience.

3. Static help centers and FAQs
Whether or not to open translations for your help center or FAQ to your community will heavily depend on the content’s level of complexity. Certain products require in-depth and intimate product knowledge for questions to be helpful to users of all levels. A dedicated community may have the bandwidth and experience to finish these types of translations, but know that it may require the professionalism and expertise of a language service provider.
The same goes for support notes which are often dry and must be delivered quickly within a set amount of time and translated correctly on the first pass. This makes it a tough sell for a community localization project.
4. Terms of Service
Translating terms of service content is best handled by a lawyer. Most of the time, the work required is not just for translations, but to adapt the content to fit the customs and rules of the local country. As a result, this type of content is a poor choice for community translation.
…..
Now you have some background about how to get started with crowdsourcing. If you have questions about crowdsourcing with a localization automation platform, request a Transifex demo. And don’t forget to read our follow-up post on moderation programs for crowdsourced translations and their importance in successful community management.

Source:

How to Get Started with Crowdsourced Translations | Transifex

How to Get Started with Crowdsourced Translations. For more information about translation, contact Transifex at 1-855-418-5000 or hi@transifex.com.

www.transifex.com

 

[btmgreg]

I've thought about this for a while myself. I'm not bilingual, but I'm conscious of my other users who don't speak English as a native language.

Years ago, I remember there was an addon/patch for msn messenger/wlm called 'Plus!' - it was ahead of its time in terms of management and innovation towards the end. They had a crowdsourced system then (perhaps In-house) for languages and thousands of people contributed.

Now, I'm probably going to look like a complete moron but surely all that's needed - is the following

A database holding all of the stock phrases per build versions.

If those phrases have the same content/value across builds, then they're essentially merged.

Anyone can sign up as an interpreter and contribute, but all new phrases in other languages have to be moderated and accepted. All accepted phrases appear in a phrase database for said language that can be downloaded as a language pack.

For an experienced coder - I bet this could be accomplished pretty quick. That, or maybe there are services out there already that can do the above and integrate with Xenforo?

 

[Finexes]

I also think that this would be a great idea and I would love to contribute. Why not implementing something like WordPress's translation system, e.g.: https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/akismet/

 

[hibiskus]

I also think that this would be a great idea and I would love to contribute. Why not implementing something like WordPress's translation system, e.g.: https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/akismet/

Amazing, exactly how i imagined it in a barely construct, it is even much better.
That is the way to go! If non Commercial products can archive that, i do not see any single little reason, for not doing something similar.

 

[alv4]

I agree with this.
And It may stop some people from buying xenforo. It's not cool to find that a lot of other languagues have free downloads and Spanish does not. I'd help when I can and I'm sure that other people will do it too...

 

[Alpha1]

I still think that CrowdIn is a good solution for this. Just last week I was translating a WordPress addon and naturally it had CrowdIn support.
I used the translation software Poedit to translate the language file and POedit also has CrowdIn support.
CrowdIn has become the standard for translating language packs.

Crowd language pack translations by CrowdIn

XenForo translations are dependent upon someone who translates all UI phrases and releases this here. Often translations are lacking and do not get updates / corrections. Considering that xenforo end users are many millions this is a weakness that can be resolved. CrowdIn allows unlimited users...

xenforo.com

 

[btmgreg]

Do you think it's something that should have been done years ago / at the beginning rather than now? Then again, with a lot of translations already done - perhaps it would be good to have an interactive repo for languages

 

[hibiskus]

Do you think it's something that should have been done years ago / at the beginning rather than now? Then again, with a lot of translations already done - perhaps it would be good to have an interactive repo for languages

It is never to late... facebook was closed „privat“ only for students of one specific English university and now they have 100+ languages.
What i mean is that today is everything scalable and like described they have to just take a existing platform for translating as a central place.
And they can keep their language pack upload system, in XF backend, in future they can add a selection even in backend.
But for now a single place as central, where every language can be maintained by crowed.
Rather then 2 similar language packs maintained by different single presons. (Also locked away by another registration wall, whom I have to trust)

If you want this to be heard by more people, you can put this in to your signature, at least for a week or longer

[URL='https://xenforo.com/community/threads/crowd-sourcing-language-packs.180609/'][B]🇪🇸🇫🇮🇮🇹🇵🇷 Vote for:☀️Crowd Sourced language pack, and make XenForo available in all Languages!🌈🇹🇷🇸🇪🇰🇷[/B][/URL]
[URL='https://xenforo.com/community/threads/language-selector-flag-icons-at-the-top-of-the-page.144991/'][B]🇫🇷🇩🇪🇮🇳🇨🇭 Vote for:☀️ Language Selector Flag Icons at the top of the page.🌈🇭🇷🇨🇿🇺🇾[/B][/URL]
[URL='https://xenforo.com/community/threads/language-nodes.107053/'][B]🇧🇷🇯🇵🇲🇱🇨🇳 Vote for:☀️ Language Nodes🌈🇪🇪🇿🇦🇦🇹[/B][/URL]

 

[trapped_soul]

I once tried to fight for a native English (UK grammar and spelling) pack and that went down like a lead balloon.
Good luck.

 

[Faust]

I’m voting for this as well. That’s something I would like to have on my forum.

 

[hibiskus]

Here is a new version of my Signature Basically every user which uses a language besides english would be happy to have that. So they have to notice it only, to vote

[URL='https://xenforo.com/community/threads/crowd-sourcing-language-packs.180609/'][B]🇪🇸🇫🇮🇮🇹🇵🇷 Vote for:☀️Language Pack Crowd Sourced, and make XenForo available in all Languages!🌈🇹🇷🇸🇪🇰🇷[/B][/URL]
[URL='https://xenforo.com/community/threads/language-selector-flag-icons-at-the-top-of-the-page.144991/'][B]🇫🇷🇩🇪🇮🇳🇨🇭 Vote for:☀️ Language Selector Flag Icons at the top of the page.🌈🇭🇷🇨🇿🇺🇾[/B][/URL]
[URL='https://xenforo.com/community/threads/language-nodes.107053/'][B]🇧🇷🇯🇵🇲🇱🇨🇳 Vote for:☀️ Language Nodes🌈🇪🇪🇿🇦🇦🇹[/B][/URL]

 

[Forsaken]

I still think that CrowdIn is a good solution for this. Just last week I was translating a WordPress addon and naturally it had CrowdIn support.
I used the translation software Poedit to translate the language file and POedit also has CrowdIn support.
CrowdIn has become the standard for translating language packs.

Crowd language pack translations by CrowdIn

XenForo translations are dependent upon someone who translates all UI phrases and releases this here. Often translations are lacking and do not get updates / corrections. Considering that xenforo end users are many millions this is a weakness that can be resolved. CrowdIn allows unlimited users...

xenforo.com

CrowdIn probably will not consider XF or XF mods to be open source, as they are generally for profit products and only the translation is open source. A group I was helping to translate some stuff got turned down for a similar situation.

https://traduora.com - this is a product I have been looking at, however there are some limitations as it is early on in development. It's self-hosted, so that is a big plus for me. New strings can be added via API or by CLI tool, which is why we're considering it.

https://weblate.org - I used this (self-hosted) but because it's Python it's honestly not worth the time or effort. We also ran into complications due to DB locking and also the hassle it is to add new strings.