Removal of translator rights
I want to request a removal of translators' right of user User:Stanqo - what he's doing around is not a help, because his translations are bad, almost machine-based and far away from the other translations we do. We tried several times to point him to the guidelines, but without any success - his translations even become worse, causing us even more work to do - to patrol and reedit them, even messages that cannot (for now) be tested on the local test wikis we run to explore where and how the messages appear. Please, help us keep the safe Bulgarian translations and the good state of our job! Thank you,
Can you link to messages sent to him? I remember when I started I made horrible mistakes too. Nowdays I consider my work to be of very high quality, which only possible because I got lot of experience and training. If the user acts in a good faith, it is better to try to train him (for example doing pair work) and have more translators in the long run.
I hope you are filling the holes in our qqq-documentation when you explore things. Thanks!
On the users' talk page is a thread about that, where the 3 most active translators are pointing the mistakes, but without any change. We know this user from bg.wikipedia, where his edits are the same - but there is a big community and the bad edits are easily corrected or removed. We're assuming the good faith is Wikipedia, but here is a bit different, because the translations are spread not only in Wikipedia, but on all wikis.
I'd like to support the removal of rights of user Stanqo.
More than an year ago I also wrote on his talk page, explaining that his best support here would be refraining from further impulsive translations. I even attempted to help him understand some basic points in translating software system messages in personal communication, but... the problem is larger than it seems. It DOES require deeper knowledge of both languages, and software, and MediaWiki itself. It's not a matter of just giving a helping hand to a newbie.
Enthusiasm is far from enough here; the user has often grossly misunderstood the terminology (both in English and Bulgarian), has not cooperated and discussed in advance with other translators, and failed to follow the conventions for translation of system messages to Bulgarian. In the WMF websites he doesn't have any flags for advanced user groups, meaning that he can't see within the context many system messages, and understand their particular meaning. And far too often it DOES require you to have seen the message in the entirety of the surrounding context in order to judge how to translate it precisely.
Please, have in mind also that in Bulgarian we have genders not only in pronouns but also for all nouns, adjectives and verbs. This results in strict subordination between the different parts of speech, which is especially challenging when the system message contains only a bit of the sentence, and the rest is to be guessed or deduced. Very often user Stanqo has neglected that fact and the results were clear. (I am ready however to provide difflinks to vivid examples.) Moreover, in Bulgarian we don't have noun adjuncts, and quite often new words formation (IT terminology swarms with neologisms) in Bulgarian is a rather hard job for a non-specialist. In general, translation from the much more flexible English to the relatively more clumsy Bulgarian is not a job for everybody, I'm sorry to say.
I'd like to excuse that I take a stand on the case, having in mind that I have personally been rather inactive here in the last year. Recently I've been a much more active translator on Meta where there's an overwhelming need for translators, too.
Your description of errors compare pretty well to the mistakes I see in new Finnish translation here. So far I've managed to review all new changes and correct them into good enough level for my taste. It has also made me to request documentation for many messages. We are also tying to reduce the barrier to make translations here by providing good and exhaustive message documentation.
But you are correct big enthusiasm is not enough, the translator must also be willing to learn. Also, if he has reverted translations back to his versions without discussing, that's very bad.
It's different - you know where to look it the code to find the message and to see it in context. We're doing it the hard way - with test local wikis, experimenting and trying to find the best possible translation that fits in the guidelines. Most of the users' contributions are not reviewed/edited (yet), I've followed them just to make sure they sound okay, but without comparing them with the original message. I just found several big differences from the source messages and will take care they appear correct asap, without being a raw machine translation or bad translation. In that case, instead of doing new translations, I have to review and compare old ones, have to imagine where they appear and which extension to load. As the most active Bulgarian contributor around, I still believe that it's better to have no translation, instead of bad one.
I only know MediaWiki and perhaps FreeCol. Most projects are unknown to me as well.
Nike, I perfectly well understand your strive to good faith. But... it's. not. a. matter. of. good. faith. here. This user, this very user, is a notorious example why the translator rights have to be given __in return__ of provided references for linguistic competence and experience with the IT/software terminology and MediaWiki. Otherwise, the lateral damage on the product itself, on its Wikimedian and external users, as well as the rest contributors who are forced to do double work, are greater. I can't explain it in a clearer way.
I have temporarily revoked Stanqo's access to the translation tool and I have notified the translator of this fact and the reason why. I hope that DCLXVI and Spiritia are able and willing to help get Stanqo on the right track.
If I get a positive recommendation of any of you about Stanqo, I will re-establish access to the translation tool.
What is the best practice for now? Should I pass and mark with FUZZY the users' contributions that need other Bulgarian translators' attention for the time we are able to locate them and their use in the software and it's possible to update them to be adequate to the source messages?
When a dialogue is established, I am sure that we can help and guide Stanqo to evolve his contributions, but this can't happen if he continues to ignore us and our advices.
He hasn't made too many translations. Somewhere around 300 IIRC. Taking an hour or so to review and correct them is probably the best idea.
The point is that I'm doing something different - I want and try to see the message in his use and then translating it, instead of contributing a nonsense that need to be further reviewed or edited, when someone sees it in action.
You asked for my advice and got it ;). Feel free to choose a different way to deal with it.
Thank you, I appreciate your help :-)
Can I also add to Nike's request above for your assistance in documenting on the qqq pages the information that you find when researching the messages for translation. I know it slows your own translation work down, but any contributions to the documentation will be greatly appreciated by the rest of us (at least definitely by me!).
I know how helpful are these messages, but I am afraid that I've never tried to provide documentation. I should take (and will) some time to figure how to do this and will try to help.
Here's a quick guide: When you are in the edit mode of any message you should see the message documentation in the box with the heading "Information about the message (contribute)". Click on "(contribute)" and you will go to the /qqq page. Write your documentation on this page and save in the usual way. Hope this tip saves you time. When I have some time I hope to write a short summary of the usual terms for the different parts of the interface, etc which might be a useful reference to people like me who do not know much about software:-) Am not sure when I am going to have the time and energy for this though.