Hello, so this talk is going to be about how to make the best of a bit of a messy
situation. So I'm Susie and I work at Wiki, media, Germany and I've been there for
a year and I haven't got that much experience with translation so I'm hoping to learn
stuff from you today but I'll show you the kinds of things that I've come across so far.
The team I own is called Wiki data for Wiki media projects which is a real mouthful so
I'll just explain a bit about what those things mean. So Wiki data is a structured data
thing where you can put in information and it can be used across many different places such
as the Wiki ideas, Wiki media system projects like Wiki quote as well as all of the different
language Wiki pages. So an example of the kind of thing you could have is Brad Pitt and
married to a property and another item and what that means is that if it's used in a lot of different
language Wiki ideas you can update it in one place and then it propagates to everywhere else.
So this helps because there's hundreds of language Wiki ideas which otherwise you would have
had to edit separately every time anything updates in the world. So this reduces the number of times
you have to edit a lot and it also particularly helps the smaller language Wiki
ideas because they may have less active contributors and so we really want to support them as much
as we can to have good knowledge. Wiki data supports multiple language because we have labels
and so you can add in labels for the items and properties and stuff. So this talk will be on a few
transition issue examples and the approaches we've taken so far and then I'll open it up for discussions
that can get advice from you. So to set the context of where the changes are happening we can
go to recent changes on Wikipedia so you can click recent changes and then you will see all of the
recent changes that have been happening on your Wikipedia. I'm looking at Wiki data ones specifically
so you can select the filter at the top for Wiki data edits and then you will see them and
they are marked with a D which you can see in the key here and here you can see things are happening
such as an image just being added or a language link is being added and the way it was I hope
it's being enough for you to see but yeah down here you can see it said change claim property 31
q whatever q is the item and this is very unclear what is happening and to know what's happening
you would have to click through and through the link to Wiki data so we wanted to add labels
to to make it more transparent what's happening so people would not need to make that extra click
so the old let like that and the new we wanted to inject in the label of language spoken and
Chinese and put the property and item ID in brackets also adding a roll over you know where you put
the mouse over and then it would give more information so here we'll have on the roll over a title
and a description the description can be quite long and it's separated by pipe separated and I mentioned
these a pipe separated and brackets because though become a relevant later in the ground pulse
so the way we do internationalization is we have these internationalization files they contain
translations of the text but also of things like punctuation and the structure of things
so one example file looks like this just has a translation for each different thing you might want to
have appearing I was reading some of these files and found some interesting things such as
in the Chinese language you got an extra space around both the brackets compared to the English
and also in French the pipe separated was a colon instead but this was just in some places not
in all places so yeah the languages have all their different personalizations which is really good
and here's just another slide that shows a little bit more about this so the pipe separated here
and this top one you have the one means the first argument which may for example be the title
and the second one the two represents the description and so you put them in and then it will be
the first and second and uses this method so the change we made was successful here it is we now
know that there's a change claim that is an instrument and then it has a synthesizer and here's
the roll over and how that looks with the title on the left and the description on the right
but we wanted to check that it works another languages too so to do that we looked a lot of examples
and we found some slightly strange stuff but first I'll show you the Arabic one so in the Arabic one
we have the title here and then the pipe separated here and then the description after
translated these to check the correct and the way that that works is for the right to left languages
we have the other orders so we've got two on the left one on the right
which is this language with Arabic yes yeah and by the way this is on the Arabic Wikipedia
is it
yeah I thought it was anyway
okay so that is how we are putting the order differently for the right to left languages
and in this example as you can see we've got a fallback happening so
all of the language Wikipedia has had fallback languages sometimes they're not English
are the majority of them it is English and in this case we've got a description that has not been
translated so instead it uses the English label because it is present so you would this is on the
Arabic Wikipedia you would start reading here and then you would have the left right English but I thought
this looks odd because it almost looks like the description which is meant to be the less
emphasised thing the thing you look not first at is sort of surrounding the title
so I thought this is not ideal so also when both things were not translated yet in the Arabic
Wikipedia we've got English here we've got the English title and then also the English description
it's definitely not very readable in English because it really looks like you should start reading
on the left and then you have the round title in the middle this is partly due to the
placement of the two things in the pipe separated but also due with the alignment because at the
bottom we've got it right aligned when you would normally expect left aligned yeah it is confusing
when there's left to right and right to left and left to right when you're not expecting it
I tried to put it into a diagram hopefully it will make sense to you so
the hours here are talking about where the where the title comes and then the description
so on the Arabic Wiki this is all about the Arabic Wiki we want to have it going right to left
if there's both Arabic and Arabic for the title in description and we don't want this however
what was happening for English is it was coming up as right to left just on our first attempt
and then we would ideally want it going left to right if they're both English for the ones in the
middle I wasn't really sure like what the best thing is and I'm still trying to figure that out
I was wondering if it's maybe not straightforward to do the idea thing in all cases and because it's
the Arabic Wikipedia we should focus on making it ideal for when it's awfully translated into Arabic
and possibly be pragmatic that while it's the waiting for translations it may not look completely
perfect although it would be best to have it making sense for everyone
so we want to another example this one is about brackets this is a change we made as I said
the language is spoken is added the Chinese is added and for Hebrew I wasn't sure whether it
would look better to have either of these two options because in this one if you're starting
out reading right to left you have the bracket second the title first then you have the title
second sorry the title first the bracket second so maybe that makes more sense the bottom option
but the middle one you have the starting from the right to left and this order but then when you're
reading the left to right section is in this order but I thought it looked a bit funny because of the
two brackets being in the middle when I don't know just doesn't look as consistent so I'm
very interested here what you think about that um this is an example of it it's a bit hard to read
so overall the approach is so far we have had a bin look at a lot of examples because I didn't
even really know to anticipate that any of these would be an issue with the start use diagrams to make
sure we've mapped out all the different combinations of things and know what we want them to be
ideally be pragmatic and make the best of what can be done in the given time and improve iteratively
so at least we can put something out there continue asking speakers of those languages
because for example the Hebrew one one of the Hebrew speakers I asked said both of them looked fine
so that's encouraging um consult the translations community yeah so do you have any questions or insights
yeah so my question actually about all of this you're trying to find ideal solutions
in general how tolerant are the Wikimedia site readers to all these problems
that oh can you repeat the question you have asked how tolerant of the Wikimedia readers to these
kinds of problems I actually don't know myself but when I look at say the Arabic Wikipedia I do see a
lot of English words here and there so I would say at least the current state of things is a lot
of things have been translated but I get the impression that they perhaps are used to some things
being in English but it's a very good question and there's probably different very different
depending on what language it is do you want to go?
so it's not really a question but you have this one line template of the thing and then description
made you a decision you have to log up to one separate line also the KELOLAND natural in by
zone I think that is a really great idea I think it wouldn't apply in every situation because sometimes
it's like swapping between multiple times but in this particular examples of really great idea that
if we anticipate the whole description not being translated we could just put it another line thank you
yes you said that most of the time when the translation is missing there is a full-back
language but not long ways yeah how we find not far away is there some full-back language that exists
some list of full-back languages or is it 100% provided by your community?
I believe it's sorry about not repeating the question so the question is where did the fall-back
language just come from? I don't know 100% but I think it's from the community and it is specified
so there's a list like if you're in a particular language I think perhaps Brazilian Portuguese
falls-backs related yes you can yeah go for it
it's a mediocre core there is the PhD file that defines the language and there is simply a list of
language codes that we decide for the fall-back and it is not time it is the English and the fall-back
decided on pragmatic the sea reasons like what's the likelihood that it's clear off let's say
in Italian dialect knows Italian it's very high so then Italian is the first quote back
we basically have on the Unicode C of the R language history rate
and then we have more questions yeah go for it
so when there is no translation it will backstrain itself if few months later there is the
translation that comes in French and arrived in one of the do you update order change work
to make sure to reuse the translation? The question is if the label is added will it be updated to
reuse the translation yes because we have changed propagation that when relevant things are added
and Wikidata it my great and until all the Wikidians that use it yes did anyone else have questions
I think I saw it yeah
how they want to see it it's some extent it doesn't really matter if it looks weird to your eyes
yes and it's everything and the Hebrew users they didn't deny they have to suffer from this
fight that issues all the time they have their own way of live it to them just like how you guys
allow French users to override the pipe to allow your fight that users beside their
fighting and also consistency is more important than how every single item looks natural
and the fundamentality on both Unicode and W3C have their own solid recommendation of how to
mark out by the intent because you guys actually have to structure the data and so it's not like
arbitrary either in Wikidata you have a syntax that's spoken starts
y'all not a by that expert but I'm a unicorn in terms of if you have that there are those questions
cool thank you yes I just want to add a Unicode technical report nine actually touch you how to do this
it's big it's big there's a recommendation on how yours so so if you found this standard then
in theory the user is able to choose what they want to see but basis solution is to step by
then not mixing yes that which is both the recommendation of the second hundred four
and you have to read that you have to read that you have to read that you have to read that
multi double CC phr closed you are much better high level so double crazy customer
whenever you can use Mark outs when you reached看一下 talk yes
only when you two in residence or they'd probably use
then you'll have to wait for the next nine.
And they're a story.
And they can't problems come to life if you are happy.
So the question is, who is the same?
Unicorn source.
Unicorn intake.
So you'll battle with electricity.
Yeah, we're all volunteers, but I'm a coordinator
and I'll ask them to give me a single standard.
I do not work on steel, we'll be able to directly find it.
I'm here because I know the community
depends on me, but the steel, we are a lot.
So if you also, you won't close their communication
with steel, they are going to not know how come to me.
I'm here to wear their hat for you.
Oh, for me.
I'm here to wear the hat for you.
Great.
And this is the question.
We only have one microphone.
Would you mind if we took that microphone?
And you repeated the offer.
It's just a joke.
So does your steel, dear, I don't have to do it.
Do you want to come out and use the mic?
Yes, please.
It's a microphone.
And really, the offer and the microphone.
And repeat your offer.
The offer.
Yeah, yeah.
Still the offer, I'll leave it to him.
But I, I, I, oh, oh.
You want to be on top of that?
On top of that?
Yeah.
Come on.
This is how you guess.
This is how you get to have a...
I thought we were running on time.
And wait, we also should clap for Suzanne
because we...
Yes.
Thank you.
I'm from time.
OK.
Unical consortium.
We are NGO.
So half of us, including me, is a volunteer.
And but we, we're, very small group people.
We work on both very low-level encoding problems too.
So they are.
And I see you guys know very much about that.
Sorry.
I didn't know you were there.
So, but about by that, particularly UX9 by that algorithm mentioned,
it's the low-level spec about how by that works.
It's very, very complicated.
It's one of our most complicated insanely obscure algorithm.
And if you have to implement it, try not to implement it.
Use existing solutions because it's way to our problem.
And there are very solid solutions.
And then, so that's why in terms of usage from localization point of view,
I personally consider W3Cs on articles and tutorials are very useful.
So they come from a web point of view.
And whenever it's possible, even for this use case,
I think it's possible to use HTML markup instead.
It's far more maintainable.
And when you really have to do plain text,
W3Cs tutorial also tells you when you have to use
Unical control characters, how to do them.
Yeah, the offer is yes.
And here, this time, no one from the team I'm familiar with are here.
Sorry.
I don't work with CLDR guys stat closely.
But yes, if you have Unical questions,
I personally work on complex language support, complex scripts,
like Indian, Middle Eastern script support.
They are rendering, phones, things.
So it's between the level of encoding proper and localization.
So if you have that kind of problem also come to me.
Or any other problem, if you do not know how to reach out to us,
we know Unical Consortium works in a way that we try to be very open
by our website is ancient and people do not know how to reach out to us.
And if you think we are really fucking something up,
let me know.
I'll make sure you can contribute to us directly.
Yeah, usually it's because it's hard to find the place to contribute,
we're quite open.
How do we find you?
Me personally, a Unical Consortium at Unical.org,
but that website is shitty.
My contact?
Any contact we can reach about?
Yeah, I can, you can find my name actually,
even it's all right down my email right here.
I mean, yeah, we have our official feedback form and rating,
but sometimes sometimes,
sometimes in person,
I do recognize sometimes person-to-person communication
can make it much easier.
And I can direct you guys to the,
and your chat is here.
Yeah.
Now, hi, H-A-I.
I'll be next for it.
And the,
Gmail.com.
So now is there, I'm gonna get spams.
And, and from you guys, hope to hear from you.
And we are a very small team,
but we have the top expert in every single few,
below you guys.
We, our job is to,
it's not even, we're not,
half of us are not paid,
but our ambition or career is to make sure
we support localization internationalization.
And so, if you are suffering,
that means we're not doing the internationalization very nicely,
and we really want to make it better.
And we try to help our end users,
but we need to support you guys first.
Can I actually ask you a question?
So that means you have to stay here.
I'll put this up in a minute.
So, I was just doing a bit of reading about these,
so you were mentioning the BIDI algorithm.
I know that we can media,
we're trying to migrate to using BDI tags.
Do you have any thoughts on that?
Yeah, that, I think that's the,
the HTML level of markup of talking about the exact things.
I don't want to pretend I'm not by the expert here.
The more I say,
I'm going to make a mistake.
But I'm going to point you guys to,
and the,
we can media foundation is part of the,
it's one of the members.
So, we're actually ever just sad that every time
UTC meets that media foundation is not there,
but ensure,
we need to make sure we guys actually talk to each other.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Thanks.
Thank you.
I think we still got a bit more time, have we?
Do you want to say something more?
We can also end.
Yeah.
If you want to end,
that's when your talk ends,
you still have time.
Yes, go for it.
We have about five minutes,
but I have another question.
Comment question.
Yeah.
When you made the change to show what the name of the properties
that were being changed,
is there a way to see what they were changed from
so you can see a history of changes?
Yes, there is.
So, we document everything at Wikipedia,
and at least this is the project Wiki data.
So, there is a complete history.
If you click through through the Wiki data item,
you'll be able to see all the changes that have happened
to that particular label.
Yeah.
Cool.
I wonder if anyone else has more questions?
I just had a couple of questions for you.
I just wondered if anyone had an opinion on this particular example,
whether the bottom one seems acceptable?
Yes.
Also fine.
If you don't.
Is it, I don't know Hebrew.
Is it normal for the colon to have a space on each side?
Hmm.
That is a very good question.
And I have a feeling, maybe,
just because I typed out in the slides.
So, I think not.
Yeah.
Exactly.
It could have been.
Yeah.
Good question.
This felt kind of the parentheses after that.
Yeah.
Probably to the right.
Yes.
So, it should be closer to the other bracket to make it more clear
that you're meant to read right to left.
Okay.
Thank you.
Just in case anyone has come across.
Any different conventions between the languages.
I'd be really interested to hear about that.
Okay.
And then I was also wondering if there's any unknown unknowns
that I should look out for when going into these things.
Yes.
From my experience figuring out how do you make the editor properly
in the nested, nested, nested, right to left, left to right by direction.
That was absolutely horrible.
And if you can solve that, that would be great.
Okay.
I won't repeat that, which is the...
Actually, I don't think I can repeat it.
The nested, the nested experience when there's a lot of right to left
and left to right in the editor is a hard book experience.
Cool.
Yeah.
We'll bear that in mind.
Okay.
Thanks everyone.
That's it.
Thank you very much.
Any editor placement?
No.
It's not an editor placement.
So, following up on the previous Unicode pitch there,
I thought I'd say hi.
If you feel inclined to go against the instructions
that Benjamin gave at the very beginning of this whole session,
where he said that if you are intending to invent
your own thing, don't do it.
If you do want to invent your own thing, come talk to me
and we'll figure it out.
I'm the chair of the Unicodes,
CLDR committees, subcommittee, the message format working group
and the editor of the message format section of the LDML
spec from Unicode.
So, I'm the guy who's figured out that I need to invent the new things
and have been helping with that,
but my sense is that if you do need to do this sort of thing,
do it in a way that is not just your own thing,
but you're solving it for everyone,
so that it's not your custom thing.
It's everybody's shared custom thing.
So, this was Emily.
Emily is working on many things in localization,
and he also invented or worked on two new localization formats,
and he's not very happy that he had to do it.
So, yeah.
But, as you can see, translations are very diverse
and interesting topic.
And I think we are looking at somebody who will send some proposals
for next year's edition of hopefully,
translation development for them.
We still have 45 seconds to the end of the talk.
Yeah.
So, we still have time,
and we will, in five minutes,
begin with our latest talk from Zugi.
That's not here.
Oh, yeah, he's taking a fresh air.
About Luonti, about localization of a game
that actually doesn't want to steal and sell your data.