Talk:Translation coordinators per language

Draft ver 1.1

Translation coordinators per language (TCPL) are people who coordinate Wikimedia Foundation related translations in one or some specific languages. They are translation team leaders and they are expected to orginize translation team that they are responsible for. They are not expected to translate but rather to keep the team active, informed and make translations process goes smoothly. TCPL are volunteers and they are not officially bounded to Wikimedia Foundation. TCPLs are also called local translation coordinators.

Although they are volunteers and are not official parts of the Foundation, they collaberate with translation subcommitee. They have 2 key responsibilities:

1. The information about Wikimedia Foundation is being translated into their language(s)
2. Important information in their language(s) is being translated into the working language(s) of the Foundation (usually English).

The way that Translation Coordinators work

Translation Coordinators oversee the entire process of translation. They keep track of what is being requested for translation, the status of each ongoing translation, the deadlines, who is working on the translations, and where/whom they can ask for further help, etc.

To maintain their role effective, Translation Coordinators will:

• Keep an eye on Translation requests pages and the translators-l mailing list
• Update request statuses on TR/WMF, TR/WMFnews and sometimes on TR/quick
• Maintain individual translation pages (the pages above and their subpages)
• Find people working on the meta pages and/or the mailing list
• Watch on-going translation pages and their progress
  • Seek further help, if necessary (more translators and/or copyeditor and proofreader)
  • Keep the deadline in mind, if one exists
• If possible and required, upload translation source and/or ready-to-upload pages to the appropriate location(s), especially if you are updating the Foundation website
• Keep an eye on released translations, and update them, if necessary

What Translation Coordinators aren't

It may happen that coordinators are translators at the same time, but this may not always be the case. In other words - Translation Coordinators are not necessarily translators. In some cases, they can even coordinate translations into languages they do not understand.

Of course they can involve into translations too, if they want to or if they planned it. Depending on the situation, if they cannot do something for a certain reason, they are expected to find another person who will be able to do the task instead. Good coordinators are those who know what kind of requests can be fulfilled by whom and can ensure that tasks are done by the appropriate deadline. What's important is whether or not the translation gets done, not who does it. TCPLs will ensure this by all cost.

Becoming a Translation Coordinator

Being a Translator Coordinator brings serious responsibilities. A good candidate should be able to let the translators work together comfortably and make them do the tasks properly and on time. Also s/he should be ready do help to translators if necessary.

For doing this work effectively, Translation Coordinators are expected to:

• Speak good English (the working language in Transcom; the members of Transcom are currently French, Italy-based German, and Japanese)
• Speak the language concerned at the highest level of competency (ideally as the mother tongue)

In addition, Coordinators must:

• Have a keen sense of responsibility - keep requests and their deadlines in mind
• Collaborate with other editors - work with both local translators and Transcom
• Be knowledgeable about the Foundation to some extent; help translators find appropriate terms if necessary
• Be knowledgeable about meta, the main workplace for translators

Although not mandatory, it would be helpful if they:

• Subscribe to foundation-l or at least read the summary (to know what's going on in the foundation)
• Have an account on the Foundation wiki
• Subscribe to Transcom's internal (closed) mailinglist and join Transcom discussions
• Visited #wikimedia-translation on IRC

The list of active TCPLs will be maintained by Transcom and the TCPLs themselves. Interested people may enroll themselves on the talk page. Recommendations are also encouraged. If a translation coordinator has been inactive for a month without notice in advance, their name will be moved to the "Inactive coordinators" list. They can move their names back and restart their activities whenever they are back online.

Please note': TCPL team is rather informal than official. TCPLs are no liable for Wikimedia Foundation activity, and vice versa, TCPLs cannot speak on behalf of the Foundation or in the name of the Foundation. All their statement should be thought on basis as individual. TCPL teams are being currently organized and in its experimental phase; this page may be altered abruptly.

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Comment

New draft proposal by Dbl2010. 

Most of the parts are the same with the original. I believe this looks more clear for a newbie. I added the term "Translation Team" which refers to the translators of a specific language. Feel free to change, reject, criticize and lets make it a good text. --Dbl2010 00:32, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for your revising. I love it. It become more clearer I feel. I add some slight modifications and hope it wouldn't harm your version. Hearing others' opinion, could we replace this with the current version? --Aphaia 10:23, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm ok with this version too :) jd ❂ 17:59, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Sabine seems not to oppose. Or others. So we are going to switch to the version above from the current one?--Aphaia 03:58, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Switched. Aphaia 02:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Interested

IT

Hello, my name is Francesco. I am a Professional Translator with a Bachelor's Degree in Interpreting and Translation (English, French). I would like to be a translation coordinator for Italian language. I have just created my new account. I hope to join your family!--F.foresta (talk) 16:25, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Grazie, per piacere prima fa' un po' d'esperienza traducendo in italiano. Basta aprire la pagina Special:Translate e cominciare! Nemo 20:24, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

BN

I am interested to become a translation coordinator for Bengali language. I have translated many pages (content pages) in Metawiki, Commons, Wikimedia, bn.wikipedia. Kindly visit Page to see some of my contributions. My best effort will go on to develop this project.Abdullah Harun Jewel 23:00, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Nl

I'm interested in becoming translation coordinator for the Dutch language, preferably starting January 2007. Right now I don't have enough time because it's hell at work, but starting January we get two new collegues so there will finally be time again for real significant things ;) Fruggo 09:53, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Fruggo. Have a good season for you and your team! --Aphaia 04:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Tr

I'm interested on this project. I have an account on foundation. I've translated a few things on meta and foundation's site also i translated many Translation of the week projects articles to Turkish.--Ugur Basak 01:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Since Dbl2010 said he welcomed you, with his approval we are happily welcoming you. --Aphaia 18:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Id

I'm interested on this project. I've been involved in translating system messages of [[MediaWiki for Indonesian language (I've been given access to MediaWiki SVN), some of translating requests here in meta and also in commons. I've also involved in initiating the Wikizine in Indonesian. Thanks. •• ivanlanin ♫ 06:53, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

ML

I'm interested. Have been doing translations and co-ordinating proofreading for Malayalam for the pages in wikimediafoundation.org. The summary of work by the team can be found at Translation teams/ml. --Jacob 22:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I must say that I have been impressed with Jacob's work on coordinating the ml translations and on getting them done and copyedited very quickly. I think he would make a good translation coordinator. Cbrown1023 talk 00:09, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Zh

Having been around for translation and relevant coordination since last Wikimania, I think it's better for us to have a team for translation into Chinese. I'm going to try to do that, with Copy-editing crops in the same time. -- ※D. G.※   JéRRy  ※ ~ ※  雨雨   ※Laissez-faire!! ※  20:45, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I would have no problems with this, but think you might need a team first, wouldn't you? (You're the only one on the team page.) Cbrown1023 talk 23:28, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I suppose that was why Jeromy put it in the "interested" section at first (no visibility of Chinese team at this moment). He has been acted as a de facto coordinator for Chinese (Mandarin) for months, and there seems to be sure they each interact in many ways, so I assume it wouldn't make any change for them Chinese translators. But for us non Chinese, it is welcome their team gets more visibility. I also recommend to have a list of established transcriptions or term translations maintained by the team as some other teams do (e.g. Russian or Japanese). --Aphaia 07:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Thx for Aphaia's remark. Some of the people helped us in last Wikimania had our invitation to the team...... they're expected to show up on the list in the coming few days :p -- ※D. G.※   JéRRy  ※ ~ ※  雨雨   ※Laissez-faire!! ※  18:52, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Ooh! It'll be happy to see the zh team populated! :-) Cbrown1023 talk 22:42, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

I'll throw my name into this hat too. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:14, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Swe

After a discussion among the team working with translating from English to Swedish, I have been nominated to be the new coordiantor after habj has resigned (see Översättningar). Please let me in on the relavnt maillist etc. Anders Wennersten 21:18, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Happy to see you guys being active again and welcome aboard. And full appreciation to Habj for her all works. Please mail me for the mailing list, we need your mail address to have you subscribe it :) Other public channels are guided at Translation. Cheers, --Aphaia 23:04, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

uk:/Ukrainian/Українська

I would like to volunteer as (presumably) the interim translation coordinator to Ukrainian language, combining coordination with translation. I mean interim (temporary) coordinating duties as I'm well loaded already being the admin in uk:WP and bureaucrat in two more uk: projects so as soon as some other person will became interested I might transfer the translation coordination duties to him/her. From other side I just have to step in to coordination of translation to Ukrainian as situation is far not OK here --pavlosh 17:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Update: I finished my first translation (besides translation of several other non-official things) and initiated "proof-edition" stage --pavlosh 18:28, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

have verified the translation --Ilya K 18:41, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I have verified the translation.--Ahonc 20:44, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

ko:PauloHelene

Dear sir;

I would like to volunteer as (presumably) the translation coordinator to Korean language, combining coordination with translation.

                                           Sincerely Yours
                                           P.H.PauloHelene 06:31, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

gsw

I'm interested in becoming translation coordinator for the Alemannic language. Alemannic is my mother tongue. I've translated some pages on meta, now I want to have translations better coordinated. I'm also translator for Alemannic on translatewiki.net. Of course I know that Alemannic is not a high priority language but I think on a long term all WMF languages should have coodinated translations. Kind regards, --Holder 11:47, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

de

Some days ago I stumbled on the German Translation team and I was merely shocked to see that all of the listed translators have been inactive for up to two years! Since in my opinion German is one of the major languages - look at the size of the German Wikipedia for instance - translation of important documents and pages on meta should be granted. Therefore I am planning to revive the team and to build a working translation process. As to my competences:

• My mother language is German.
• I am fluent in English.
• I helped to translate Ubuntu for a little while so I have some experience with organized translation teams.
• I have some knowledge about both meta and the foundation and am willing to learn more if neccessary.
• Of course I will subscribe the given mail lists.

To make my idea of a German Translation team real it would be helpful to have direct contact to the Transcom subcommitee and to know the current jobs to do. As soon as I found some interested and active translators I am going to encourage one or two of them to also become Translation Coordinators. Best regards --Thirafydion 20:52, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

vi

I would like to become a Translation coordinator of Vietnamese (my native language). I am very active in the recent translation of the WMF as election, fundraising, WMF-pages, Wikimana-pages, Strategy and Outreach-wiki pages, and more on Meta. I am also a translator on translatewiki.net. Also, I'm an ambassador of some Vietnamese project, see Wikimedia Embassy. You can view the contributions of my translation: on meta, on translatewiki, on Strategy-wiki, etc. Best regards --minhhuy*= (talk) 02:37, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

pt-br

Hi, I actually already work as a translation coordinator (see WikiProject Pt-Br), but I would like to be part of this project as a coordinator so I can align my team with all of you. Thanks. --Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 12:02, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

And you?

You are invited to join us!

What about the smaller languages?

This section of the talk page about asking to be a coordinator, begins "Being a Translator Coordinator brings serious responsibilities" and the way it is described on the page - the translation coordinator "will ensure this [that translation gets done] by all cost" sure looks like it. Regarding the smaller languages, nobody will be able to promise that. These languages are not found on the top of Transcom's priority list, for natural reasons. However, each of these language-specific communities will have their own reasons to try and get stuff translated. Material for the elections to the board is an obvious case. Having a couple of basic pages about the Foundation, the board and the employees answers question about the Foundation that otherwise will be asked again and again. Having some basic material translated might also be a way of bringing knowledge about the Foundation and its goals to the local community - this knowledge is often pretty poor, really.

I have set up some kind of system for translating pages into Swedish - a language not even mentioned on Communications subcommittees/Trans, not so strange since we only have 9 milllion speakers. We will perform translations on svwiki, rather than here, since that is a much easier way of attracting more people. The most important job I think is the pages on future elections to the Board - and that is a huge job. Next time it will probably be at least two dozen pages. I did the last round largely myself, with a handful of people helping out on a couple of pages each. I will not be able to do that the next time. Getting a couple of people working already now, so the system works, will make it easier to have things going at the time of next election. Creating a system where people can list themselves as interested in sharing their knowledge of terminology in specific fields, such as business English, law, and financial matters, will probably be a help; most of us who translate well, in the sense of putting an English original into idiomaticly correct Swedish, do not have all this competence. For now, we'll do our thing - getting some stuff translated, but not as much as the big languages and sometimes with slightly different priorities.

I have tried to make it possible to find us here, at Meta, by listing us on Translation teams as an "unofficial team" - but really, I don't think we fit on that page at all. We don't have an official coordinator, for one thing. You may consider me some kind of contact, though.

To the bottom line, then. The current system looks to me like it was created with the bigger languages in mind, those in top priority. Maybe a parallell system should be created, in which people from smaller languages can get some kind of contact with the Transcom, and with translators from other small languages to exchange ideas? // habj 14:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your suggestions. From bottom to top:

"The current system seems to aim to bigger languages", yes, as well Transcom scope. We are now in limination of manpower, time etc. It is inevitable evil in my opinion. And if we are considering the diversity of communities and their cultures, it would not be a good idea we attempt to apply only one way of managiment to all language communities, though I believe the core thought of it will be appliable for all cases (like NPOV as principle).

I guess the focal point would be the size of community rather than the size of entire speakers of that language. We need a different strategy to involve such communities. One good example is Hindi ... this language has a quite large population of native speakers but their Wikimedia community are small. For another example; Japanese is a relatively small language (pop. 120 million) but its Wikpedia is one of bigger (with over 300,000 arts) and over ten people are involved into translation works on meta according Translation teams/ja, though not everyone of them are similarly active. But before the dawn ... sometimes I was only one translator there, while there was already over thousands editors on that project.

So we may find three cases where the current scheme may be overwhelmed: 1) for small languages - whose population is naturally limited 2) for bigger languages but their community is still small (and perhaps their audience too) and 3) for bigger languages with a large number of editors but a small number of translation (Japanese in the past ... and we could add German to the third group. We would like to find ways to reach those three groups. And voices from those communities are worthwhile listened to. Since such editors would be the best people who know what are going on and what are needed.

The necessity of translation from the view of target languages may not be greatly different from language to language. Perhaps from these sides, it doesn't depend at all on sizes but their competency for other languages or their degree of involvement into the Project. The priorities assigned by Transcom were determined by several reasons and not only from the necessity on that project. And as you noted, habj, we are better to define priorities and necessities of translations - regarding with their importance and urgentness. I expect Sandy Ordonez helps us to sort those from the Foundation view. We also need the community view - what the Community would like to know, and I expect community voices.

I must confess I cannot tell you what kind of materials are coming soon or later ... partly because of confidenciality (it matters only urgent issues though) but mainly lack of my knowledge what will happen in the exact time. I don't know if we switch to the SUL system. I don't know either when the Board Election schedule will be announced. I don't know what will be planned in this year ... except some conference and meetings. I hope the Board offline meeting is mentioned on the website, but it didn't happened. I hope only I am so unknowledgeable but we find confusions here and there. I know some unreleased press release in the last year. Apparently because of poor coordinations of involved parties. As Anthere and some other editors suggested recently on foundaiton-, situations around communications both internal and external are in confusion and we are struggling to sort that.

Translation coordinators are one of attempts to challenge that mess. We finished first three months. I invited recently to coordinators to input their thought after that period and there has been no responce. We could say no one complaint but we couldn't say everyone is happy at the same time. Some coordinators have done brillant words and some were rather inactive. I don't know why exactly. It could be due to their real life stuff. It could be due to their local translators' private reasons. I have no precise calucuration how the current system make effects to the result, since I have no exact data what has been inputed. And as you pointed out, the overwhelmed system could be a reason - specially if we examine relatively small language team (note not all TCPLs come from bigger languages).

Now you proposed for modification or creation of "pallarel" plan. And I love to see it. Please post your planning modification! :Honestly saying I haven't however fully understand what are your obstacles. Perhaps you take things more seriouesly than I ... like "official" character, "responsibility" in some points. At the beginning we have not been so bold as to say "everyone is welcome" - since we couldn't welcome everyone and deadly need trusted people. So I don't remouse to take a strict attitude. But even from my eyes, habj, you seem to take it serious. At any rate we cannot stop a coordinator to take an abrupt wikibreak how long we don't know it continues. But that is the life. My slight wish is to be informed before you are entering a wikibreak, but until now no one dropped us such a note. We may discuss those points later to pursue more appropriate wording, including other possible implovements?

--Aphaia 16:21, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Request to launch Hindi (hi) translation team

I am interested in a translation team to be launched to translate Wiki contents to Hindi and from Hindi to other languages.

I have made some humble contributions in the following pages and are doing remaining translations and further processing in these and other pages as I come across:

• Translation_teams (type hi in the box and press select to see in hindi) (needs proofreading)
• Translation_teams/hi (being done)
• Translation requests/WMF/Board of Trustees — Translation requests/WMF/Board of Trustees/hi (needs proofreading)
• Translation requests/WMF/Current staff — Translation requests/WMF/Current staff/hi (To be updated)
• Translation requests/WMF/About Wikimedia — Translation requests/WMF/About Wikimedia/hi (needs proofreading)
• Fundraising 2008/core messages/en — Fundraising 2008/core messages/hi (needs proofreading)

I have also registered at translatewiki and have done some translations there.

Apart from this I have done main contributions in hi.wikisource. I am an engineer by qualification and a professional translator of Hindi <> English.

Please check whether I qualify to be made a translation coordinator for Hindi language. I will also like to be relieved from this designation as soon as any other member joins the Hindi translation team and is willing to take up this responsibility, I would continue to contribute as normal member of the translation team.

Thanks.
-- Rawat 19:18, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Hi Rawat, thanks for helping out with the hindi translations! There are no real qualifications, per se. All you really need is a group of people that are willing to work together and translate pages. :-) --Az1568 (talk) 19:56, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

UR

i would like to volunteer to become the translation coordinator for the language urdu as no such translation comittee exists i would like to do the honours of starting 1 for my fellow country men.

UR

i would like to volunteer to become the translation coordinator for the language urdu as no such translation comittee exists i would like to do the honours of starting 1 for my fellow country men.

Translation coordinator

Hi, I actually already work as a translation coordinator (see WikiProject Pt-Br), but I would like to be part of this project as a coordinator so I can align my team with all of you. Thanks. --Felipe da Fonseca (talk) 11:55, 3 July 2021 (UTC)