Set up coordinated localisation effort with the help of LocalisationLab

[freddy-m]

LocalisationLab makes "FLOSS technology accessible through collaboration with developers, organizations, end users, and communities in need. Our crowdsourced localization results in more accurate and timely translations and unlocks access to the internet for users all over the world".

One of our moderators, @Trai-Dep, suggested that we use this - and given the ammount of translation requests that we've been getting as of late, I think it can only be a good idea.

Would be interested to hear you thoughts @blacklight447 ?

[dngray]

Ultimately I think this will happen after we've moved away from any legacy content. It should make that easier.

[comradekingu]

Any news? Can you set up shop on Weblate?

[dngray]

Sorry to take so long to get back to you.

We're still migrating the pages from legacy content, as a result we're adding more text. Once the raw HTML, is all gone and replaced with markdown, we plan to move the site to a better platform (not Jekyll), discussion about that is taking place in privacyguides/privacyguides.org#802.

We think mkdocs would also work better with translation: https://www.mkdocs.org/dev-guide/translations/ also https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/setup/changing-the-language/#site-language

[Mikaela]

I don't think the site supports localisation in its current form, so this would be something for after it's supported and there is a proper translation backend present.

[abbluiz]

@freddy-m @dngray @Mikaela

Hello there. I am the maintainer of https://privacidade.digital which was the Brazillian Portuguese translation of privacytools before that stuff happened with the founder, etc... Now the website is not currently being updated. The team behind the pt-br translation is in favor of translating PrivacyGuides instead of the "new" privacytools approach. Thoughts?

[dngray]

So the plan is we're updating some of the content and at the same time moving from legacy_pages to a current template style, which should make the implementation of proper translations possible.

The new style uses YAML cards like _data, with _evergreen content.

As we're doing this we're also creating criteria for each page (some didn't have any), so the draft for that is in the wiki, after we're done with migrating the pages away from the legacy content we can mess with template code easier, (refactor out all the old template code), and it should be easier to integrate into a proper localization service. Then we can make sure each page has it's own criteria in the main evergreen content.

I'm hoping that then it should be easier to have a proper localized back end, that means translators can just focus on translating and not have to worry too much about content layout etc.

[abbluiz]

@dngray
Interesting, thanks for the reply. I will be following your progress and checkout the wiki to see if I can help with any of that. Also when this new system is ready I'll definetly be able to help with PT translations. On the meantime, I guess Privacidade.Digital will probably shift from being a static translation website to a privacy-related blog in Portuguese.

[Mikaela]

Hi, I left the team a couple of months ago and haven't been really following, so I cannot comment.

[comradekingu]

@Mikaela What project got fast-tracked past review?

[dngray]

@abbluiz @comradekingu

In the past translations were not coordinated at all, and were hosted on many different domains owned by different people. I don't believe this is particularly good for our branding, or the quality that we strive to present, so I'm thinking what we will do is have a "translation team", perhaps even on Github, and rooms in our Matrix space.

I would like to see the translated material coming back to the main repository, and perhaps then we would serve our site something like https://privacyguides.org/<language code>/...

The language translation team would only be open to native speakers as we need to maintain that information isn't lost in translation.

I will still need to talk to the rest of the team about this, and we still need to complete the migration for the content we have so far, I think after that point we'll announce our interest on our blog.

[abbluiz]

If you guys decide that's the way to go, I would support it. It really makes sense, let me know when this happens and I will also be waiting for the blog post announcement. I can speak with the old pt-br team about this, so they would join the new team and keep all pt-br translations up-to-date. If you need to find me in matrix, the handle is @labb:matrix.org.

[victorhck]

Hello
I'm the maintainer of https://victorhck.gitlab.io/privacytools-es/ the spanish translation of privacytools.io
I can help to translate to spanish this new project when needed
Greetings

[ceonia]

Hi,
I could also help with Chinese (Taiwan), Chinese (China) and Cantonese translation/localization. My matrix handle is @ceonia:matrix.org if you need to contact me. Thanks!

[flexagoon]

Hello, as I already mentioned somewhere, I can help with the Russian translation. My matrix is @flexagoon:matrix.org

[jonaharagon]

@abbluiz @ceonia @flexagoon I sent you all an invite on Matrix if you have a minute to spare helping me with #995 :)

[dngray]

Now that we've completed the migration and everything is in one format, we're likely going to review some of the remaining content and look at this issue.

[jonaharagon]

Support for localization has been added in #995 and translations are underway at https://crowdin.com/project/privacyguides. We'll post more about this shortly, but anyone interested in getting started with this should join our Matrix channel https://matrix.to/#/#pg-i18n:aragon.sh

[comradekingu]

Privacy guides hosted on Crowdin is like the girl scouts setting up shop at Epstein's island.

[TommyTran732]

PrivacyGuides is literally a public static page which processes no personal data. There is no sensible threat model that would justify moving to a different platform just because "Crowdin bad". I suggest that you actually think about what makes sense and what doesn't before making such vile comments.

[dngray]

its also worth noting only translators use crowdlin. The plan will be once translations are complete these will be merged back into the main repository and we will use the plugin https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/setup/changing-the-language/

That being said I would encourage translators to read the privacy policy, https://support.crowdin.com/privacy-policy/ and configure their browser if concerned.

[comradekingu]

One ostensibly could take the position that the privacy of translators does matter, and seeing as it caters to only translators. it is in that respect admittedly bad at all of what it does.
From an onset of nowhere short of the worst it could be, the talent of people ideally caring about this sort of thing is recruited.
A fundamental mismatch.
Replacing the skill, effort and initiative needed to put up a domain and do it all alone, substitute in its place a drive-by platform with neither the community or tools to prevent it. To top it all off, Crowdin isn't even a tool that the Localization Lab uses.

To posit there is no sensible threat model in which the accuracy of information matters, I don't understand.
That the further usability and functionality of Crowdin is bad I do understand, having used it extensively.
From the optics of a privacy guide opting for privacy violation to whatever end result it will bring, I don't foresee nor have ever seen good results with Crowdin.

@dngray Like Crowdin, that doesn't use correct locales, which means aliases are used where they shouldn't, leading to things like actual translations not being used.