User:Planemad/Work/log

16-20

 * Getting started on translation workflows. Familiarizing myself with the features of translatewiki and the mediawiki translate extension
 * Questions in my mind before I dive in: what do people refer to for technical vocabulary in their language? can a person fluent in only one language contribute?
 * like any wiki, as a newcomer I am lost. If only there was a shiny button that said 'start here' and gave a nice overview about what is where and how the wiki is organised.
 * and also a dictionary to lookup commonly used jargons - "The primary language doubles as your interface language on this wiki and as default target language for translations", "assistant language" . I want to translate from english to tamil, I have no clue how to set this up.
 * There is only 1 layer of message grouping, why not Projects>Message groups?
 * Finally! Help in the corner.
 * There lacks a priority metric for language and projects that would tempt me to make an effort to translate a very highly used and important message.
 * Translation starts from here. It only looks intimidating from here onwards
 * Unexplained tabs - what is proofread and translate? and when do I use it?
 * Verdict: There are just too many tables, action buttons, hidden interactions, cryptic messages and colors for me to make sense of it. This is a complex interface with a steep learning curve that would appeal more to technologists rather than linguists who should have been the focus.
 * Will need to observe an experienced translator using the interface to figure out quick fixes and improvements. It does feel like the mediawiki framework is a limitation to implementing a more optimized interface.