Global-Participation-Management/translation

Background

• Angel proposed the translation strategy version 1 to W3M on March 1 2017. W3M discussed it and decided that it need further refine work.
• Angel proposed the translation strategy version 2 to W3M on May 31 2017. W3M approved the general idea and suggested a few starting steps which include the translation database solution finding, system requirements, etc]. Angel will follow up with systeam and Marcomm team on these steps.

Purpose

Translation Strategy Proposal Version 2 is designed for

• Reduce the team efforts needed for translation improving and maintaining
• Leverage the resources and enthusiasm of Web community
• Improve the quantity and quality of the volunteer translations
• Make W3C documents translation database a powerful tool for non-English Web community to participate in W3C activities

W3C Documents Translation Management

Currently, there are Authorized Translations and Volunteer Translations for W3C documents. This Translation Management Proposal is primarily designed for the Volunteer Translations but it can be applied to Authorized Translations under certain circumstances as well. The management of W3C document translations mainly focuses on quality and quality improvement.

Quantity Improvement

To encourage more translations for W3C documents, it is important to make it clear what documents worth translation effort and where people can find the existing translations.

Call for Translation

At least W3C should let the public know that we warmly welcome document translation when they are visiting W3C website. To provide an overview of the documents needs translation, a Call for Translation Page to be set up on W3C Website with the To-Be-Translated Documents listed. The list should contain the documents that have important information helping global Web community, especially non-English Web community to understand and participate in W3C activities. Two categories of documents to be added to this list: the rule-based documents will be added automatically by the system once published while other documents will be added by the team manually if they think certain document that is not on the rule-based list worth to be translated.

• Ruled-based documents:
  • Completed Recommendations, but need to remove the outdated ones
  • Process Document and Patent Policy
  • Press Releases: A mature current practice: PR translations done by the Offices
  • highlight reports? Suggested by Angel: Translating highlight reports is current practice in Chinese since 2013. Positive feedback from Chinese members as an important document for them to get an overview of W3C activities;

• Manuel-added documents:
  • Spec drafts and group notes, to be selected by team
  • Other documents such as workshop reports and blogs
    • workshop reports: Good recruiting materials for new topics in W3C；selected workshop reports have been translated into Chinese, e.g. Web&VR Workshop Report

Add Translation Status to the Document Page

Add the Translation Status to all the To-Be-Translated Document pages. This is not something NEW. Some of the Completed Recommendations and other documents already have this info, e.g. ATAG2.0 [2] and 2017 April Highlight Report [3]. But these efforts are more spontaneous, not systematically organized in a unified way. Also a couple of sentences on the translations page to encourage translation efforts would be nice, e.g. W3C encourages translations of this document so as to enable a broader global community to understand and implement this Recommendation.

Translator Acknowledgement

• Annual Thank-You Letter to translators who submitted translations to W3C
• Host dependent incentive efforts
• Make the Translations page translator indexable, if possible

Quality Improvement

The quality improvement of the translations should and should be able to leverage the participation of the Web community, especially the users’ peer review of the translations. To bridge the users and the translations, a few interactive functions should be added to the translations page, e.g. WAI-ARIA translations, including:

• Rating: Like and Dislike Button, or 1 Star to 5 Star rating, or other rating methods; display the rating next to the translation URL;
• Report: users should be able to report if the URL to the translation is misused or no longer valid so that W3C team can remove the URL from the translations page, W3C account login should be required for this function;
• Comment (if possible): users should be able to comment and exchange ideas on the translations, this usually helps the original translator to improve the translation, W3C account login should be required for this function;

If we can make the functions mentioned above happen on the translations pages, they might be the start of an open and interactive forum of W3C translations.

System Support Required

• Generate a Call for Translation Page and link it to the TR publication system so that the newly published completed Recommendations can be added to this page automatically;
• Develop a UI for the team to maintain the list and add documents manually to this Call for Translation Page;
• Add the Translations Status to all the documents on the Call for Translation Page, and add the translation encourage sentences to that page;
• Add the interactive functions to the translations page for the public to input and contribute; display the ratings and comments next to the translation URL;
• Make the Translations page translator indexable, if possible
• Other tech support if needed;

☞ Echidna issue #445: “RECs: add entry to proposed ‘Call for Translations’ page upon publication?”.

Cost Analysis

• Human resource
  • Call for Translation Page maintaining: Marcomm team, Participation team, bloggers, and team members who want to contribute;
  • System Support: need the evaluation from system team;
  • Annual Thank-You Letter sending: Participation team happy to send it
• System server resource : need the evaluation from system team; probably very limited requirement;