Thread:User talk:Mormegil/Please see the opportunity, not the thread/reply

That specific edit was quite fine (fixing such a tiny typo would, indeed, be just a triviality, and explaining the correct usage to a newbie would be simple). But see for instance this “I don’t know what ‘wiki set’ means, so I’ll ignore one word and use just ‘wiki’ instead”. How do you explain that to a newbie? “Don’t translate what you don’t understand and don’t just wildly guess”? Is it really necessary to explain such obvious rules? Huge red warning “This message uses technical terminology. Do not translate it, if you are unsure of the meaning this message has in context.” does not suffice, I guess?

My main problem with translation rallies are the completely wrong incentives it generates. They are focused on bulk quantity. Some languages might need a big push in raw quantity of newly translated messages, I guess. But newcomers leaping to mass-translate API messages as quickly as they can, what good is that? If translation rallies would be more focused (e.g. “we need to translate this new extension”, “this language needs more translators” etc.), more quality-minded (e.g. only proofread translations count), that could help, I believe. Or, at least, exclude API translation from the rally (IMHO, it would be better to somehow separate API in Translate completely, I believe). (Currently, the translation rally even guides newbies to translate API messages.)

I admit enlarging the translator pool is a good motive, but I doubt translation rallies work in that regard. Do we have statistics on past rally winners and their work here after a rally ended? How large percentage stayed to do (unpaid) translations?