On March 2nd and 3rd, 2016, Localization Lab held a series of events at Internet Freedom Festival (IFF) including a festival session, a Localization Summit, and a Localization Sprint. These events focused on three primary goals: improving localization processes, relationship building between developers and translators, and finishing up as much translations as a group, taking advantage of working with developers and trainers directly.
A big THANK YOU to all of the key community members and allies who came out to both events, sacrificing many an interesting IFF session, in order to strengthen community ties and tackle issues affecting language, technology and information access world-wide.
For those who were not able to attend the events at IFF, and for those attendees who need a refresher, read through the following summary of events to learn what we discussed and worked on over the 2-day event. We would love to keep the conversations started at the events going, so let us know your thoughts and if you would like to contribute to any of the discussions or "next steps" listed below!
Read the full Localization Summit and Sprint Report here.
The Localization Summit*
The second annual Localization Summit was a day of brainstorming and discussion amongst a group of roughly 30 translation contributors and end users, trainers, developers and designers. Before and during the summit, attendees openly brainstormed ideas for discussion in pre-summit community meetings. These were narrowed down to 8 specific working groups for the day:
Project Lifecycle and Localization: How can localization be better integrated into the research, design and development of projects?
Life After Localization: Once tools are localized how can they be better marketed to and adopted within the communities they are made available to serve?
How to Provide Feedback to Developers: How can translators and contributors provide effective feedback about tools and translation resources to developers?
Need Bank: What would a Localization Lab platform - or "need bank" - connecting end users, organizations, translators and developers based on localization and technology needs and skills look like?
Training and Helpdesk Support: What training, resources and references are available for translators and end users of the tools localized within the Localization Lab Hub? What kinds of training opportunities can the community support to ensure a solid understanding of these projects?
Managing Language Teams: How can language teams be better organized and managed to increase contributor participation and investment in the community?
Localization Platform Alternatives: As a result of the morning session’s discussions, the need to explore Transifex alternatives was identified by both translators and developers. What are the community's needs and preferences in a translation platform and what alternatives exist that might address those needs?
Quality Control: Where are the challenges to translation quality and how can they be addressed within the Localization Lab community through guidelines and workflow management?
*Complete summaries of the discussions based on contributor notes are available in the full Localization Summit and Sprint Report.
Next Steps
As a result of the various discussions that took place at the Summit and that continued through the Localization Sprint, the following were identified as concrete steps to address community needs:
Creation of a Localization Lab wiki.
Identifying and testing Transifex alternatives.
Finding an adequate communication platform for all Localization Lab contributors.
Creation of a standard translator screening process and dedication to identifying language coordinators and reviewers for language groups and projects.
Updating and implementation of the Roles & Guidelines for Localization Lab contributors.
Research into creation of a cross-project relational glossary.
The Localization Sprint**
Unlike last year's Localization Sprint, this year's event highlighted several different tools in a "speed dating"-like morning session in which small groups of translation contributors were able to demo tools, ask questions of developers, and determine which of the demoed tools they would work on for the rest of the day.
The tools represented at the event included: FreeBrowser, GlobaLeaks, LevelUp, NetAidKit, NewPipe, PanicButton, Ripple, Signal and Tails.
Throughout the course of the day 12,398 words were translated and 2,117 words were reviewed into the following languages: Arabic, Farsi, Spanish, French, Shona, Kinyarwanda (Ganda), Russian, Georgian, Ukrainian, Norwegian Bokmål, Finnish, Serbo-Croatian and Portuguese. To give some context, 12,000 words is the equivalent of 15 typed pages and/or between 25 and 40 web pages.
**The complete Sprint and participating project summaries are available in the full Localization Summit and Sprint Report.