I think translations are only necessary when we need to understand what the picture means, like in a gag, or a doujin. If the picture does only contain an "oniichan", or an "ah", it'd be nonsense, and completely optional.
Posted under General
I'd like to thank OP for bringing this up. I'm a bit late joining this discussion, but here are my two cents:
We can break the problem down into two parts - first, to provide a means for flagging up pics that desperately need to be translated, in a way that cannot be abused; and second, to be able to flag down trivial stuff that really shouldn't need to be translated.
For the first issue: a tag-based method will basically just degenerate to what translation_request is now; a button-based method will be subject to abuse. Imho, counting comments is at best only a heuristic and not an exact reflection of the need for translation, and it's also abusable.
I believe a vote-based system will also be unreliable -- considering how skewed existing voting scores are for explicit images, I can imagine how the translation vote counter might simply reflect a tug-of-war between those who don't know Japanese at all and those who do -- and we would have to make a conscious effort to downvote trivial stuff to keep it in low priority -- honestly, that's an additional burden I wouldn't want. I like the idea of a pool, but it would be pretty much like using tags if it were a public pool -- and the mod team probably doesn't need another thing requiring close monitoring.
Currently, afaik, pools are either public or private. What if group-based or user level-based access was made possible? It would help solve the problem quite easily -- a new user level "Translator" in between Contributor and Privileged status would probably be needed, since you can pay for privileged status, and translators shouldn't necessarily be able to bypass approval (and assuming that contributors should at least know what isn't worthy of translation). This is rather like making a distinction between paying-privileged and invited-privileged.
This would facilitate a "Translation Escalation" (for want of a better word) pool that is only accessible to Translator and above users. Casual or lower-proficiency translators (like me) could then put stuff that is too difficult or too wordy in it for the attention of others who are more experienced with the language. Some ground rules might be warranted, to define what should be added to this pool -- such as puns, gags, slang or colloquial usage, harder grammar.
Moving on to the second issue... well, we could just have a "Translation Denied" pool for that. The pool page and/or "post belongs to the Translation Denied pool" notice could link to a wiki page with list of simple translations for the sake of those who absolutely have to know what the picture says. A possible simple rule: you can only remove an image from "translation denied" if you provide the translation.
Interestingly, there is currently already a translation_denied tag, although it doesn't mean quite the same thing.
I notice the translation request link currently automatically includes -doujin and -manga, but it's ineffective since some pics slip by without the manga/doujin tag. I'm guessing we generally won't be allowing such posts in the "escalation" pool, but imho they shouldn't be automatically denied a translation. Perhaps a category/pool for "less urgent" posts as Soljashy suggested might be appropriate.
The existing user record mechanism can probably be used (or adapted for use) if is deemed necessary to moderate (rather than outright demotion) the use of these translation facilities.
While we're at it, here are a couple of things that would also be nice:
- A "Translation Check" pool for ...well, it's obvious, isn't it? Personally, part of the reason I translate is for my own education, so from time to time there are translations that I'm not 100% confident about -- flagging it for checking would be a nice feature to have.
- The ability to flag other languages for translation. There are a small number of posts containing other languages like French, Russian, etc. that are tagged with translation_request, but they basically get lost among everything else. I'm thinking of a new tag type for posts that aren't English or Japanese, say, lang:fr or lang:ru that can be used in conjunction with translation_request for this purpose. Although I wonder if anyone would actually bother with them?
r0d3n7z said: - The ability to flag other languages for translation. There are a small number of posts containing other languages like French, Russian, etc.
I've seen tags with the name of the language that are intended for just that, primarily korean. Not sure how consistently used they are though.
Thanks r0d3n7z for your extensive reply. I really liked your ideas about the translation problem and love to hear about the possibility from Albert.
This would facilitate a "Translation Escalation" (for want of a better word) pool that is only accessible to Translator and above users. Casual or lower-proficiency translators (like me) could then put stuff that is too difficult or too wordy in it for the attention of others who are more experienced with the language. Some ground rules might be warranted, to define what should be added to this pool -- such as puns, gags, slang or colloquial usage, harder grammar.
I would actually merge this one with your "Translation Check" pool idea. Some of the images contain more than a few blocks to translate, sometimes I just can't figure out some parts, but can tl the other ones without any problems. We should therefore include possible mistranslations as well as incomplete translations.
Otherwise I completely agree with your points. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts!
LaC said:
Could anybody summarize the suggestions that have been advanced so far?
Allright, since I brought this all up, I try my best and collect the essence of the posts as well as their main disadvantages:
Main Question: How to better recognize pics (as a translator) which needs a translation?
Idea 1: A metatag "comment" to sort by comments-count.
Problem: A high comment count isn't a reliable indicator for people requesting translations. A more technical view (still not confirmed): The table "posts" doesn't have a "number of comments" row. The number can only be filtered out by indirect method(s). See page 2 for details. Alfred already declined doing this.
Idea 2: A voting counter "translation request"
Problem: Major change to code as well to database structure. Not feasible. (Slightly) abuseable.
Idea 3: Another tag, e.g. "translation_highly_requested"
Problem: Highly abusable, would be the same problem like before.
Idea 4: A "translation request pool"
Problem: Must be non-public, otherwise abusable. More or less the same problems we face now.
Idea 5: A user level based hierachy of handling translation (short summary: new user level "translator" in between "contributor" and "privileged" who can access a protected pool of translation-worthy pics)
Problem: Only few people can directly help translating. Change of code and db (for user levels) needed.
I think I wrote down most of the ideas mentioned. Please refer to the specific posts for further information. If there are any ideas missing, please add them to the list.
Personally, the most promising idea would be number 5 with some "tweaks" (two posts above) to it.
What is your opinion?
>Frevel
Nice, I too think it would be neat to have a "translator" user level with useful tweaks.
If it will be done, I would like to suggest to add additional variable for the posts, visible only for the translators that would represent some kind of "translation level", let's say from "contain only sounds" and "two easy words" to "full page of complex text", or "translation incomplete" could also be here. So the sorting work could be shared and people with minimum knowledge of japanese could just mark pages they cannot translate for more experienced translators to look at it later. If it is not so hard on database of course.
Sun-Wukong said: Nice, I too think it would be neat to have a "translator" user level with useful tweaks.
This was one of the ideas between separating privileged and contributor - have the higher access level but keep uploading restrictions.
What are the restrictions on the current "privileged" level that would need to be removed for a theoretical "translator" level? Just the locked notes/protected pools already mentioned?
Frevel said:
Idea 5: A user level based hierachy of handling translation (short summary: new user level "translator" in between "contributor" and "privileged" who can access a protected pool of translation-worthy pics)Problem: Only few people can directly help translating. Change of code and db (for user levels) needed.
Clarification: Anyone can still make translations (as is the situation now). But only those who have demonstrated that they can at least do a decent job of it may earn the translator user level, which is required to add/remove posts for the protected translation-related pools (translation escalation, translation denied, etc).
It is important to maintain some standard of translation proficiency for translators to prevent abuse of these facilities.
Sun-Wukong said:
I would like to suggest to add additional variable for the posts, visible only for the translators that would represent some kind of "translation level", let's say from "contain only sounds" and "two easy words" to "full page of complex text", or "translation incomplete" could also be here.
Imho, such a fine distinction probably isn't required. When you encounter a post, it is simply one of the following:
- pointless to translate; toss it into "translation denied".
- within your ability; translate it.
- beyond your ability, but you can tell there's some kind of gag or colloquial usage in there that you don't understand; escalate.
- beyond your ability, but nothing special about it; just leave it for someone else.
Sun-Wukong said:
So the sorting work could be shared and people with minimum knowledge of japanese could just mark pages they cannot translate
I should stress that the "translation escalation" pool that I have in mind is *NOT* meant to be a "pass-it-on" queue where you toss any old post that you are not able to translate -- it is intended for puns, gags, slang, colloquial usage that are necessary to understand the post -- so users given translator user level need to be at least able to make this distinction.
jxh2154 said:
I've seen tags with the name of the language that are intended for just that, primarily korean. Not sure how consistently used they are though.
LaC said:
I always add "korean", "chinese" etc. if I see a post with text in those languages.
Come think of it, I've seen the chinese tag. Would it be worthwhile to formalize this to get translators working on other languages as well?
Frevel said:
Main Question: How to better recognize pics (as a translator) which needs a translation?Idea 1: A metatag "comment" to sort by comments-count.
Might be useful in its own right, but it doesn't do much for translations.
Idea 2: A voting counter "translation request"
Problem: Major change to code as well to database structure. Not feasible. (Slightly) abuseable.
Yeah, definitely not on all posts.
Idea 3: Another tag, e.g. "translation_highly_requested"
Problem: Highly abusable, would be the same problem like before.
Yep. If people really want to ask for something to be translated with urgency, they should just post a comment (NOT anonymously). That way they take responsibility for their request.
Idea 4: A "translation request pool"
Problem: Must be non-public, otherwise abusable. More or less the same problems we face now.
I think building on pools is a better approach, because messing with the pool tables is nowhere nearly as troublesome as messing with the main posts table. We could start with a "queue-type" pool where posts are automatically appended to the head of the list (so you see more recent requests first).
Idea 5: A user level based hierachy of handling translation (short summary: new user level "translator" in between "contributor" and "privileged" who can access a protected pool of translation-worthy pics)
Problem: Only few people can directly help translating. Change of code and db (for user levels) needed.
The main problem is that translators need higher privileges than contributors when editing translations, and contributors need higher privileges than translators when uploading pictures. It's no longer purely a matter of levels.
The main problem is that translators need higher privileges than contributors when editing translations, and contributors need higher privileges than translators when uploading pictures. It's no longer purely a matter of levels.
I wanted to take a look at the source (to see how difficult it is to code some more userlevels/privileges), but it's really a pita to view it in browse mode (http://trac.donmai.us/browser). Is there any way to download the whole package in one simple .zip?
memegui said:
You shouldn't be translating anything, Sun-Wukong, your English is not very good.Well, sorry for English not being my native language. And sorry for doing translations for free. It seems they were uncalled for.
Well, I got a neg record after my 3rd or 4th note. Well, that wasn't too motivating (since I sacrifice my free time), but hey, at least that was the only neg record till now. I pretty much understand/feel your point (memegui is banned at the moment btw). Remarks like that from a mod/random guy aren't exactly helping. There are more settled ways to say this. Not to mention people get scared translating stuff when they see they get only negative reactions.
And yes, I'm (obviously) not a native speaker as well.
LaC said:
The main problem is that translators need higher privileges than contributors when editing translations, and contributors need higher privileges than translators when uploading pictures. It's no longer purely a matter of levels.
What about people that both upload and translate? Are there going to be seperate parallel ranks? Do we make them mutually exclusive? Do we have every combination as a different rank? I see this getting unnecessarily messy fast.
LaC said:
The main problem is that translators need higher privileges than contributors when editing translations, and contributors need higher privileges than translators when uploading pictures. It's no longer purely a matter of levels.
I've been under the impression that knowing and following the rules well is a requirement to becoming a contributor, so they should know better than to mess with translation-related things if they didn't have the prerequisite Japanese language proficiency.
If we insist on controlling access privileges for translating (notes) and uploading (posts) separate, then yes, a move from the current incremental levels to a role-permissions system would be necessary. It would be a hassle, but would lead to more flexible permissions handling overall.
Any progress on this matter?
It seems that "translation denied" tool is needed after all. I've stumbled on many pics that does not worth translating or where translation wouldn't make any sence. Like, when there is a walls of text with the worthless artist's idle talk "I've tried hard pencil when drawing this and the new brand of ink blah-blah-blah" or there is nothing besides sounds on the page. Wish people wouldn't tag these pics for translation request...
Actually I am also interested in the progress. Especially the idea from r0d3n7z to make the level/permission system more flexible for different user classes sounds quite interesting.
If there aren't any source changes already done we can openly discuss the new user db structure here.
@Sun-Wukong: There is already a discussion going on forum #10799 . Basically it sums up like this:
a) If you don't like walls of stupid texts --> Ignore it or translate it.
b) If you find some pics with the t_r tag and it only contains sounds --> Ignore it or translate it.
c) If you find people tagging stupid pics for translation --> Ignore it or translate it. Since those people cannot read Japanese it would be wrong to judge them.
Perhaps just read the forum posts, it was quite a impulsive discussion :)