User:Contraexemplo/Outreachy/Daily notes/January 2018

Changing phases
We're finally reaching the initial outreach phase. Even though it was highly antecipated by me, it is still quite unsettling. As we approach the moment to put to practice everything I have learned and thought about, I begin to notice the weight of my responsability as an Outreachy intern and I am quite nervous about it. One of the questions going through my mind now is: how much room for failure do I have? Even better: how can I actually measure success or failure?

Anyway, let's talk about strategies.

Punctual, immediate, but effective: Translathon and Translation Rally
One month ago, as I asked about good initiatives made towards translation efforts and Benoît mentioned Translation marathons. Here are some tasks about them on Phabricator: T91108, T132468. Related pages on translatewiki: translatewiki:Project:VisualEditor/2015 Translathon.

The number of people that worked on them is remarkable and the progress they made, impressive.

Since one of the ways to promote values and good initiatives in Wikimedia projects is publishing a blog post, I decided to take a look into what was written about translations in the last seven years or so. One post caught my attention: A translation rally invites volunteers to localize technical messages for MediaWiki software. According to it, they had a financial incentive: they divided 450 EUR between those translators who met the goal, with a 50 EUR bonus for the person with more translations. As translatewiki:Project:Rally-2015-05 states, 27 people participated and the bounty was 21.74 EUR per person.

Of course, this is not a long-term fix to the translation problem. But it is a fine solution to accomplish short-term goals and brings the community together. For now, I am considering planning one, but this needs to be discussed with Johan and Benoît first.

Common reason
I began to interview some FLOSS translators and noticed their motives to contribute are more or less the same:
 * 1) They want to improve the translation. They spotted some mistakes and wanted to make it better.
 * 2) They believe knowledge and technology should be more accessible.

Motive #2 is especially good for Wikimedia Foundation since one of its core values is open knowledge. And here is how things need to be framed so people relate the benefit of translated user guides with open knowledge: when more people are able to understand the tools they are using, more people are able to contribute.

Call for translators
I mentioned yesterday I am interviewing translators but I did not state why and how. My bad.

I am trying to calibrate my expectations and plans for this phase with experiences from other people. I am making a call for volunteer translators on Twitter and on Mastodon to ask them about their motives, why they volunteered (or are still volunteering) and what they think are some of the greatest barriers for newcomers. After reading logs. documentation and knowing more about the history of Wikimedia Foundation and its projects, I, of course, have some hypothesis. But it's a good general practice to speak with others and see how closer I am to the truth.

I didn't make this last month because a lot of people were inactive due the holidays and I thought it was better to have my own opinions before asking for external insight. Therefore, I wanted to avoid being influenced, as Benoît warned me some people tend to be quite passionate about their point of view.

I considered making a survey (and I am still open to this option) but for now, it's been quite effective to have conversations with translators directly. People who work with translations are really diverse and talking to them is giving me the opportunity to understand some nuances. I also thought about using the Translators mailing list to make the same call since I noticed people work on other projects but I am not sure if it's a good idea.

First interview
Respondent: EN-NO translator.

Background: Had a small translation business. Today, translates FLOSS projects as a hobby.


 * Started translating some years ago. Their first contributions were made on a project that isn't open-source. Over time, as a FLOSS user, ended up contributing with other projects.
 * Encouragement for first steps: "So many open source projects have bad translations. I wanted to fix that."
 * Motivation: "Making FLOSS accessible to a wider spectrum of users."

Second interview
Respondent: EN-PT-BR translator.

Background: FOSS user first, started contributing translating softwares they use.


 * Encouragement for first steps: Again, fixing bad translations. "Because of this I am used to using everything in English, but I know it's a privilege. It's inaccessible for a lot of people [to use softwares in English] and their access gets compromised [because of bad translations] (I mean, when there are translations, right?). When I noticed I could contribute as a translator, I didn't hesitate".
 * Barriers for newcomers: They said using GitHub directly is complicated and praised solutions involving web-based applications.
 * Attribution and recognition is an important aspect for them.

Third interview
Respondent: Professional translator and reviewer.

Background: Voluntarily translated an article for an advisor one time but never thought about doing it again under other circumstances.


 * Why? "I think I thought it wouldn't make a difference for people".
 * This is one of my concerns. People need a reason that resonates with their values. I've been thinking about this for quite a while — why should people worry about translating user guides? Why people look for them in first place? Who uses them?
 * They were keen to contribute with Wikipedia but never actually did. I asked if they thought it was a hostile environment and if this played a role in never effectively contributing. They said no, what really affected them was their insecurities. They were afraid of writing something wrong and ending up being a disturbance.
 * This reminded me of Benoît's presentation and my own anxiety as I marked commons:Commons:Structured data/About for translation in my training. I feel like the fact that anyone is capable of editing wikis is often framed as downside when it can be a benefit. "It is a wiki". Errors can be fixed, bad content can be improved. There are not only two options (success or failure) and maybe we need to make a better work reassuring people about this — especially newcomers.
 * "I remember that, when I tried to understand how to begin contributing, I found the environment a bit confusing. It wasn't a intuitive plaftform".
 * This isn't new. When I did a preliminary survey last year as I applying for Outreachy, some respondents told me the same thing. This is also something both my mentors are aware since I mentioned it a couple of times in past meetings.
 * I asked: "What can be done to welcome better those who want to help?". They answered: "Creating tutorials, moreover with videos, showing step by step [of how to contribute]. (...) It's really tiring to read extensive documentation. We usually think it's going to be easier and more practical — get there, log in and just translate things or contribute with content in our mother tongue already."
 * Here is a really interesting question: are we producing user guides the right way — the way users want?

Fourth interview
Respondent: Senior lecturer.

Background: Volunteer translations for UN and NGOs (punctual contributions).


 * Involvement with translation: Was a kind of liaison for UN at a university in New York, met a person who assigned them to do a gig as a volunteer interpreter in an event. This person put them in contact with NGOs, for whom they provided translations for a while.
 * First motivations for doing this: Meeting new people, networking, having the opportunity to test their skills with foreign languages.
 * Later discovered UN has a site for volunteer translations and signed up. Worked in some punctual requests. Later, helped a student strike in Canada and now is assisting a educational project in Montreal.
 * Motivation now: "I think I do this for my ideals rather than networking" since they don't work professionally with translations.
 * Do you think that making this type of work had a positive impact in your professional life? "I think so. Not much for my resumé or for the perception of possible employers (I don't think they care in my case) but I think this experience changed the way I see the institutions I worked (...) it's also good to have experience in a field a little different from mine." If needed, they said, they can prove they have experience as a translator.
 * UN online volunteering has a system in which you sign up with a basic profile. You were rated and you can rated your experience as well. Their platform also issued certificates.
 * "The accessibility aspect [of translation] needs to be brought to light. I think this is a good argument to motivate people." Having the opportunity to make something important accessible in other language is important to them.