[wp-meta] [Making WordPress.org] #7121: More efficient translations in small communities

[Making WordPress.org]

#7121: More efficient translations in small communities
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 Reporter:  Marc4                     |       Owner:  (none)
     Type:  feature request           |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal                    |   Milestone:
Component:  Translate Site & Plugins  |  Resolution:
 Keywords:                            |
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Comment (by Marc4):

 @tobifjellner

 >The installation counts just based on calls to the update API, and many
 installations won't be seen there, if they use other ways of keeping the
 sites updated.

 This would prevent test installations from being counted. The problem is
 that some plugins/themes are updated once a year and others several times
 a month. So relying on that alone would be a problem. Another thing would
 be to expand the data sources.

 > What if a plugin owner asks its users to "go and vote", trying to play
 the system?

 Perhaps this could be a solution rather than a problem? This could be a
 valuable source of community feedback data, since if a plugin/theme has
 the ability to mobilize people to request a translation it is a perfect
 reflection that that plugin/theme is interesting for the people.

 Also, this is already allowed today by plugin/theme creators who ask for
 star ratings on their plugins/themes. You could encourage to do the same
 "Do you like this plugin/theme? Would you like to use it in your language?
 Then ask for the translation here".

 ---

 == Voting system

 * Implementation: medium/complex?
 * Gaming the system ("many" people decide).
 * Data accuracy: high.
 * Community opinion: high ("many" people decide).
 * Recursion/maintenance: low/medium

 == Roles

 * Implementation: simple
 * System gaming (few people decide).
 * Data accuracy: based on the experience of these roles.
 * Community opinion: medium/low (few people decide).
 * Recursion/maintenance: high

 It might be the easiest thing to implement. If there are doubts that
 certain roles can "game the system", as @psmits1567 said, or that it is a
 reflection of the community, perhaps the number of people who decide could
 be increased. GTE + PTE?

 In the end this would still be a small scale voting, maybe instead of
 wordpress.org on Slack, but it also requires personal resources to manage
 it and must be repeated over time.

 == Language packages

 * Implementation: medium/complex?
 * Gaming the system: less probabilities.
 * Data accuracy: depends on the amount of data points, currently low
 (updates).
 * Community opinion: depends, with enough data points it could be high.
 * Recursion/maintenance: low/medium

 Increasing the data points extracted from the language packs could be an
 intermediate option? Less complex than a voting system and more accurate
 than a few people's choice? The problem here is how to do the "curation".
 Example: do not prioritize technical plugins.

 ---

 How could we find a balance between these options?

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Ticket URL: <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/7121#comment:8>
Making WordPress.org <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/>
Making WordPress.org