Rule for Editor?

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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by cloudii »

I think we all agree that everyone has a different definition of a "major" change. Different translators also prefer different modes of communication (whether it be chapter talk pages or user talk).

Since that's the case, I think the most important step is that the a new editor contact a translator before doing anything. From there, the translator should specify how they prefer things (like remind them to read the project-specific guidelines, or direct questions to IRC/email or whatever the translator prefers).

There will be a phase that the editor has to learn what the translator considers is a "major" change.

Regardless if other people think it's major or not, editors have to work the the translators. If the translators say they want tense changes on their user-talk page, then editors should abide to it. I mean, I personally think it's overkill, but do whatever floats the translator's boat. It's a learning process. If you're an active editor, eventually you'll be spamming the translator with tense-change suggestions, but that's the translator's issue.

The whole point is to eventually develop trust. At some point, the translator will eventually tell you that "you don't need to inform me about [XXXX]-type of changes", or they'll say "don't bother asking about sound effects, because I want them the way to translated them".

You have to learn to work the translator. If they make a decision, respect their decision. If you don't agree, then you enter into discussion, but stay respectful.
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by Mosswind »

cloud wrote:I think we all agree that everyone has a different definition of a "major" change. Different translators also prefer different modes of communication (whether it be chapter talk pages or user talk).

Since that's the case, I think the most important step is that the a new editor contact a translator before doing anything. From there, the translator should specify how they prefer things (like remind them to read the project-specific guidelines, or direct questions to IRC/email or whatever the translator prefers).

There will be a phase that the editor has to learn what the translator considers is a "major" change.

Regardless if other people think it's major or not, editors have to work the the translators. If the translators say they want tense changes on their user-talk page, then editors should abide to it. I mean, I personally think it's overkill, but do whatever floats the translator's boat. It's a learning process. If you're an active editor, eventually you'll be spamming the translator with tense-change suggestions, but that's the translator's issue.

The whole point is to eventually develop trust. At some point, the translator will eventually tell you that "you don't need to inform me about [XXXX]-type of changes".
I agree with the fact that people think that different things are major changes. Would there be any way to standardize what constitutes major changes across that board that would make it easier on Editors to get started? I agree that people should talk to the resident TL'er first, since it seems that they are the ones that we have to deal with the most, however, having a standard to go to would be really helpful. Even if that standard is as simple as saying that anything that changes anything in a sentence (be it words or word placement or whatever) has to be TLC'ed first.
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by Lery »

@Mosswind : well, I don't see any problem with "cladding" as a present participle of "clad", is there one?

Concerning the major (or not) edits, as Cloud just said again : it totally depends on the concerned translator...

For example there are certain translators (mostly the external ones) which don't even want us to fix a blatant typo if we are to find one : they want us to report it to them and wait for approval :?
(Remark that from their point of view, it makes sense : they want to keep every online version of their translation up to date and identical.)

Given this fact, I guess you begin to understand why it's not really possible to standardize the definition of a major/minor change.

We also have translator which are really perky about style, I still remember the SAO problem :cry:
We even lost a few good translators because of style.

So since I didn't read LH nor read the Guidelines for LH, I can't say if it should be considered as a major edit. Only the translator or its regular editors could. :wink:
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by cloudii »

Mosswind wrote:I agree with the fact that people think that different things are major changes. Would there be any way to standardize what constitutes major changes across that board that would make it easier on Editors to get started? I agree that people should talk to the resident TL'er first, since it seems that they are the ones that we have to deal with the most, however, having a standard to go to would be really helpful. Even if that standard is as simple as saying that anything that changes anything in a sentence (be it words or word placement or whatever) has to be TLC'ed first.
What Lery said. xD There's just no way to come up with rules that will satisfy both liberal translators and literal. I mean, people are welcome to try, but I don't consider it realistic. It's so hard to reconcile opinions like that.
Kira0802 wrote: For major edits though, I do not agree with the procedure. I'd say you make the major changes in a separate revision that is easy to revert if it's not good enough. At this rate, some translators may very well end up with a talk page longer than a volume of Horizon if the editor is dedicated enough and has a low standard for major changes.
If the editor disagrees with a change being reverted, THEN a discussion on a talk page can be started.
I should clarify what I meant to say:

The actual text of your edit shouldn't go on talk pages. You should make your edit, and then go to the translator's talk page and write:
  • Hey! I changed XXXX on Chapter 3. Can you check if it's alright?
And then perhaps link the diff of the revision or something.

Talk pages would grow... immense if actual text was being put up there.

I still think it's necessary to codify it as a rule that translators should be informed upon major changes. How the translator is informed, however, is completely flexible.
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by Mosswind »

Lery wrote:@Mosswind : well, I don't see any problem with "cladding" as a present participle of "clad", is there one?

Concerning the major (or not) edits, as Cloud just said again : it totally depends on the concerned translator...

For example there are certain translators (mostly the external ones) which don't even want us to fix a blatant typo if we are to find one : they want us to report it to them and wait for approval :?
(Remark that from their point of view, it makes sense : they want to keep every online version of their translation up to date and identical.)

Given this fact, I guess you begin to understand why it's not really possible to standardize the definition of a major/minor change.

We also have translator which are really perky about style, I still remember the SAO problem :cry:
We even lost a few good translators because of style.

So since I didn't read LH nor read the Guidelines for LH, I can't say if it should be considered as a major edit. Only the translator or its regular editors could. :wink:
I think clad doesn't conjugate that way. Lol. http://conjugator.reverso.net/conjugati ... -clad.html It would be the present-participle and since we are supposed to write in past tense as long at is is not actual conversation...it would have to be cladded and that is just clunky...no pun intended...
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by Lery »

Well, in this case, I don't think it is wrong to use "cladding", not matter how you look at it, is isn't grammatically wrong, that's it. But maybe it sounds awkward to you... For me, it's okay. :?
About your present/past assertion, it isn't actually related to the tense, I think : from what I learned, present participle can be used in such case.
Example : He whistled to himself. He walked down the road.
--> Whistling to himself, he walked down the road.
That's in the past, yet the present participle is fine, isn't it?

But I guess we're going off topic with this. :oops:

@cloud : concerning what you just said about the way you though the Talk page's use, I must say that I disagree... It should be that way :
Editor writes on the talk page BEFORE editing
I intend to do some (possibly major) changes to XXX, if you disagree with some, please come and let me know about them.
Because translators actually sees the changes made on their translation through the watch-list, I guess. :wink:
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by Drowzycow »

cloud wrote:
Kira0802 wrote: For major edits though, I do not agree with the procedure. I'd say you make the major changes in a separate revision that is easy to revert if it's not good enough. At this rate, some translators may very well end up with a talk page longer than a volume of Horizon if the editor is dedicated enough and has a low standard for major changes.
If the editor disagrees with a change being reverted, THEN a discussion on a talk page can be started.
I should clarify what I meant to say:

The actual text of your edit shouldn't go on talk pages. You should make your edit, and then go to the translator's talk page and write:
  • Hey! I changed XXXX on Chapter 3. Can you check if it's alright?
And then perhaps link the diff of the revision or something.

Talk pages would grow... immense if actual text was being put up there.

I still think it's necessary to codify it as a rule that translators should be informed upon major changes. How the translator is informed, however, is completely flexible.
I agree with others in seeing this as an unnecessary step for standard projects(the notifying of translator's of a "major" change), since they will be scanning over there own projects/recent changes themselves.

If this step needs formalising tho, I think it should lumped in with the locking of pages from anon-editors procedure (translator's with special requirements/hosted projects maybe?).

On the issue of talk page/discussion usage. For very minor questions I think some possible guidance/allowance for the use of hidden comments within the texts themselves should be allowed. If it gets gets very wordy, it can be simply be cut and pasted into the discussion page for further discussion.
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by Lery »

Drowzycow wrote:On the issue of talk page/discussion usage. For very minor questions I think some possible guidance/allowance for the use of hidden comments within the texts themselves should be allowed. If it gets gets very wordy, it can be simply be cut and pasted into the discussion page for further discussion.
It's true! I almost forgot about comments within the text, even if I'm doing tons of them as a translator, in order to justify my translation. :lol:

As an editor, it can be very useful to use those comments to explain the reason of the edit, especially when you do more than one edit in one go.

Then, as a translator, when an editor is putting comments, you can read them, consider them and then do something about it, sometimes deleting them after having decided the edit was fine, sometimes putting it back to what was there before and adding an hidden comment about why you did so, and so on.
Translator can use those hidden comments to help future editors as-well on certain parts... Like explaining that *this* is an idiomatic sentence which doesn't render good in English, or that *those* are wordplays in Jap, or whatever.

Hidden comments are very useful and should definitively be used when an editor is doing in-depth changes to any text, in order to justify the changes. :)
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by EusthEnoptEron »

cloud wrote:I think we all agree that everyone has a different definition of a "major" change. Different translators also prefer different modes of communication (whether it be chapter talk pages or user talk).

Since that's the case, I think the most important step is that the a new editor contact a translator before doing anything. From there, the translator should specify how they prefer things (like remind them to read the project-specific guidelines, or direct questions to IRC/email or whatever the translator prefers).

There will be a phase that the editor has to learn what the translator considers is a "major" change.

Regardless if other people think it's major or not, editors have to work the the translators. If the translators say they want tense changes on their user-talk page, then editors should abide to it. I mean, I personally think it's overkill, but do whatever floats the translator's boat. It's a learning process. If you're an active editor, eventually you'll be spamming the translator with tense-change suggestions, but that's the translator's issue.

The whole point is to eventually develop trust. At some point, the translator will eventually tell you that "you don't need to inform me about [XXXX]-type of changes", or they'll say "don't bother asking about sound effects, because I want them the way to translated them".

You have to learn to work the translator. If they make a decision, respect their decision. If you don't agree, then you enter into discussion, but stay respectful.
As a translator, I 100% agree with this.

Personally, I belong to the faction that's very easygoing about edits. I think it's very restricting for an editor if he has to think every edit through twice and thrice in fear of upsetting the translator. In fact, often when I proofread something someone else has translated, I find myself wanting to change something but refraining from it because I don't know if I'm allowed to. I always encourage my editor(s) to fiddle with my translations to their hearts' content -- if they say something should be changed, then so be it. I don't know shit about English, but they do.

But not everyone's like this, which is completely fine. Those rules are a good basis, but in the end it boils down to the editor finding common ground with the translator -- and that's where they decide how, when and where the translator has to be notified.

By the way, I think MediaWiki is not always satisfactory when it comes to discussing these things. To disclose how Grrarr and I usually work: we use a lot of inline comments and IRC. When he edits my translations, he often leaves "libedit"-marks where he feels that he made a liberal change. Later, when I go over his changes, I check those libedits with special care and step in if needed. But apart from that, he also marks passages that require some explanation, which we then discuss and solve one after another in our IRC channel. And there's one thing I noticed: there's a LOT of them. :D

Well, in this case, I don't think it is wrong to use "cladding", not matter how you look at it, is isn't grammatically wrong, that's it. But maybe it sounds awkward to you... For me, it's okay.
I think it's less of a grammatical problem than it is one of style/usage. That's IMO a typical problem for the editor (a native/proficient speaker) to decide because he should ideally be more accustomed to what sounds natural and what doesn't.
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by cloudii »

Lery wrote:@cloud : concerning what you just said about the way you though the Talk page's use, I must say that I disagree... It should be that way :
Editor writes on the talk page BEFORE editing
I intend to do some (possibly major) changes to XXX, if you disagree with some, please come and let me know about them.

Because translators actually sees the changes made on their translation through the watch-list, I guess. :wink:
Well, thinking from the perspective of rules, do we actually need to be that specific? I think some people prefer before and some people prefer after. Evidently, Kira prefers the after...(?) I also prefer the "After" because my editors are generally pretty good, and it's an extra step if they need to contact me beforehand. It's an unnecessary hassle, basically, when I could easily just revert the edit afterwords if I didn't like it. Currently, I have written:
You MUST contact the translator each time you do this so they can re-check your sentence.
Should we just not specify before or after, and leave that up to interpretation? XD

Let me ask a few key questions:

1). Should translators be contacted for every "major" edit (defined as a meaning-changing edit)?
  • First of all, I didn't make up this rule myself. q____q It's part of the format guideline (...of course, like everything else it's rather dated...):
    Editors are required to open discussion for any major edits on the associated Talk page and allow sufficient time for other editors and translators to review the proposed edit.
    I know that Drowzycow pointed out that translators have their watchlists. However, that's making an assumption that all translators actively check their watchlists. I don't think all do. There's also the situation when you have an inactive or translator who's on a break. They'll miss the watchlist entry if they're away for long enough.

    I think it's safer to make the rule like this. If the translator says they don't need to be informed, that's fine too. However, I think it's better to have a starting rule like this.
2). What about using talk pages or user pages or inline comments?
  • I personally think these are all items of personal preference.

    It's not worth making rules for these. They're useful tips that will probably go in the Editor Guide/FAQ Help Page, but I don't think we need to be that specific in the rules. Sure, maybe we can come up with suggestions. However, the rules aren't the place for those kinds of things. People can use their brain and decide what they like and works best for them.
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by Guest »

cloud wrote:
Lery wrote:@cloud : concerning what you just said about the way you though the Talk page's use, I must say that I disagree... It should be that way :
Editor writes on the talk page BEFORE editing
I intend to do some (possibly major) changes to XXX, if you disagree with some, please come and let me know about them.

Because translators actually sees the changes made on their translation through the watch-list, I guess. :wink:
Well, thinking from the perspective of rules, do we actually need to be that specific? I think some people prefer before and some people prefer after. Evidently, Kira prefers the after...(?) I also prefer the "After" because my editors are generally pretty good, and it's an extra step if they need to contact me beforehand. It's an unnecessary hassle, basically, when I could easily just revert the edit afterwords if I didn't like it. Currently, I have written:
You MUST contact the translator each time you do this so they can re-check your sentence.
Should we just not specify before or after, and leave that up to interpretation? XD

Let me ask a few key questions:

1). Should translators be contacted for every "major" edit (defined as a meaning-changing edit)?
  • I know that Drowzycow pointed out that translators have their watchlists. However, that's making an assumption that all translators actively check their watchlists. I don't think all do. There's also the situation when you have an inactive or translator who's on a break. They'll miss the watchlist entry if they're away for long enough.

    I think it's safer to make the rule like this. If the translator says they don't need to be informed, that's fine too. However, I think it's better to have a starting rule like this.
2). What about using talk pages or user pages or inline comments?
  • I personally think these are all items of personal preference.

    It's not worth making rules for these. They're useful tips that will probably go in the Editor Guide/FAQ Help Page, but I don't think we need to be that specific in the rules. Sure, maybe we can come up with suggestions. However, the rules aren't the place for those kinds of things. People can use their brain and decide what they like and works best for them.
Anyone have any clue who user Simon is on the wiki itself? He keeps undoing every edit I make and he's not affiliated with any of the pages im editing. What should I do?

But I like the idea of doing Inline text reasoning for each and every major change and letting the translators figure out which they like. A system like that would allow editors to edit and then subsequently learn what a translator likes and doesn't like by trial and error.
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by Mosswind »

Anyone have any clue who user Simon is on the wiki itself? He keeps undoing every edit I make and he's not affiliated with any of the pages im editing. What should I do?

But I like the idea of doing Inline text reasoning for each and every major change and letting the translators figure out which they like. A system like that would allow editors to edit and then subsequently learn what a translator likes and doesn't like by trial and error.
^ Was me btw. Wasn't logged in.
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by cloudii »

Anyone have any clue who user Simon is on the wiki itself? He keeps undoing every edit I make and he's not affiliated with any of the pages im editing. What should I do?

But I like the idea of doing Inline text reasoning for each and every major change and letting the translators figure out which they like. A system like that would allow editors to edit and then subsequently learn what a translator likes and doesn't like by trial and error.
Uh, Simon is a Wiki Supervisor. XD

Look here for the list: http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index ... isclaimers

Also, Mosswind, please check your PMs.
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by Mosswind »

cloud wrote:
Anyone have any clue who user Simon is on the wiki itself? He keeps undoing every edit I make and he's not affiliated with any of the pages im editing. What should I do?

But I like the idea of doing Inline text reasoning for each and every major change and letting the translators figure out which they like. A system like that would allow editors to edit and then subsequently learn what a translator likes and doesn't like by trial and error.
Uh, Simon is a Wiki Supervisor. XD

Look here for the list: http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index ... isclaimers

Also, Mosswind, please check your PMs.
Any reason he's undoing my edits? Not a single one of the PM's say anything that I can't edit on LH.
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Re: Rule for Editor?

Post by Hiyono »

The entire process of converting one language into another is translation; let's not confuse ourselves into thinking that the boundary between translation and editing is clean - any such separation is artificial. Indeed, as others have alluded to, the problem here has been a difference of definition regarding what constitutes a "major" change. With that said, might I offer the following suggestion on how to define a cleaner boundary? Separate syntactic modifications, i.e. corrections to spelling and grammar, which have a verifiably correct form, versus semantic changes, including wording, phrasing, and styling, which are more subjective. The former should not need prior approval, whereas the latter should be left to the discretion of the translator, with a need to obtain permission being the default policy.

I should probably also add that editors need to be careful when it comes to rephrasing text that might seem awkward. Both as a native English speaker and as someone who has translated before, I can attest to the quandary a translator faces when attempting to reconcile the two languages. Do you add something for clarification when its foreign counterpart simply has no equivalent in English? Do you change the way the author has described a scene using imagery that is more common in English? To do so would undoubtedly change the feel of the original text, but is it for the better? Without the ability to consult with the original author, such questions have no definite answer. Why do I mention this? Well, at the risk of sounding trite, I'd describe the work of a dedicated editor as verging on an English-English translation: you're faced with the same problems but with one difference - you do have access to the original author, i.e the translator. It's for these reasons that it's so necessary to communicate openly and freely with the translator. If this truly is a collaborative effort, then isn't collaboration the name of the game?

I'll end my wall of text with a suggestion regarding pride & defensiveness taken from personal experience. As a researcher, one will devote months of effort, occasionally years, to a particular work. It can be easy to take criticism of one's work as attacks on oneself; similarly, as a reviewer, it can be all too easy to attribute mistakes made in the work to the character of the person in question. Distance yourselves from your work. As much as it represents your time, effort, and dedication, "threats" to your work need not and ought not be construed as an attack on your person. Don't make it such. There are no winners, only losers, when what should have been a mutual effort striving toward improvement and perfection is instead derailed by bitter feelings.
"There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible and wrong." H.L. Mencken (1971)
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