BTlib - Testing the water

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draringi
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BTlib - Testing the water

Post by draringi »

Hi everyone,
I'm working on a potential new platform for Baka-Tsuki along with several other members of our community,
and we are looking into what features the members of Baka-Tsuki want.

It can be anything. Be it basic function, control options, design ideas or more.

Just say what's on your mind that you'd like to have, what you don't want to have.

Most of all we wish to hear the opinions of the Translators, as they are the very heart of Baka-Tsuki.
Nothing would exist without them, so we want something that suits their needs.

And one last thing, do you want a change or not.
Do you think a change of platform is worth the effort?
We believe it is, which is why we are working on it, but we want to find out what everyone thinks.

Note that nothing is guaranteed yet, as this all depends on TLG deciding that he wishes to have the new platform replace MediaWiki,
but we do plan on having something we will be proud to present before him.

Thank you.
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stellarroze
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by stellarroze »

Could you elaborate on what you think this new platform will be?
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NiMx1233
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by NiMx1233 »

It's better for Translators and Editors if the new BT has a cloud network implemented. It'll be easier to translate, upload via sync, edit etc. And, a document program like Microsoft Word or OpenOffice that can be used in collaboration with the cloud network(the way SkyDrive & Word Web App does). And a built-in Google Translate app, as I think that there are many that rely on this to translate. Also, a built-in messenger that allows us to communicate with others easier, rather than PM-ing and waiting hours for a reply.
I guess that be should it, for now. I'm pretty sure everyone would want a change. A new, better platform should increase our efficiency, so yeah, it's worth it.
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NanoDesu
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by NanoDesu »

Translate this statement to Japan, I use the translation back Google. Yes, you can use Google Translate to translate the novel is a great idea at all.
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Teh_ping
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by Teh_ping »

*Facepalms*

Guys, this isn't a Santa Claus wishlist here. It's like some of you want to advance from a nice wooden cottage in the countryside to a futuristic house in space...

@NimX: Just keep an open tab for google translate when you need to. There's no need for all the crazy stuff you proposed, and as for the messenger service, we do have IRC at #Campione!

@NanoDesu, it's about translating short phrases, not the full sentences. This is something I told NimX to do if he/she's unsure.

Technically, the most appropriate person to host this thread would be Big Boss himself, but this thread can remain for now. As for me, no personal feedback with regards to interface and such.

And Draringi, though this might be an idea, you have to make sure the changes proposed are realistic, as in, are they cost-efficient, are they really useful/necessary and such? Let's put it this way, there's a reason why Ford sold his cars black when the mass-production line was introduced about 100 years ago. Is it really worth the effort to implement the changes when most of our readers have not given any feedback regarding issues for the past 7 years or so? (I did mention that I would like a darker color theme somewhere to keep a more 'romantic mood' for certain novels like how wordpress does it, but I wonder how it will work for Mediawiki) I suspect there will be many conflicting opinions when it comes to this, so I'm a little wary of giving too much say to the public in regards to this.
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by Simon »

Teh_ping wrote:Technically, the most appropriate person to host this thread would be Big Boss himself
If we could reach him...
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by NanoDesu »

Teh_ping wrote: @NanoDesu, it's about translating short phrases, not the full sentences. This is something I told NimX to do if he/she's unsure.
I figured, but I still don't agree with that. There are some phrases that certainly are difficult to translate, but it's much better to Google search them and see how they're used in context amongst native Japanese (or whatever language you're translating from). That's a really nice way to learn the language - seeing real people speaking it in real situations. On the other hand, if a human being who has spent a substantial amount of time studying a language cannot figure out a phrase, then an algorithm has a snowball's chance in hell of doing better, and no-one is going to end up learning anything from the experience (especially not the translator, who 9 times out of 10 is going to be fed bad info from the TL algorithm). So I'm against using Google Translate for TL work in any and all circumstances.

But I should probably stop, since this isn't a topic about the pros and cons of using Google Translate, and I'm throwing things way off topic. But I just wanted to get that out there, and I'll leave it at that.
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Teh_ping
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by Teh_ping »

NanoDesu wrote:
Teh_ping wrote: @NanoDesu, it's about translating short phrases, not the full sentences. This is something I told NimX to do if he/she's unsure.
I figured, but I still don't agree with that. There are some phrases that certainly are difficult to translate, but it's much better to Google search them and see how they're used in context amongst native Japanese (or whatever language you're translating from). That's a really nice way to learn the language - seeing real people speaking it in real situations. On the other hand, if a human being who has spent a substantial amount of time studying a language cannot figure out a phrase, then an algorithm has a snowball's chance in hell of doing better, and no-one is going to end up learning anything from the experience (especially not the translator, who 9 times out of 10 is going to be fed bad info from the TL algorithm). So I'm against using Google Translate for TL work in any and all circumstances.

But I should probably stop, since this isn't a topic about the pros and cons of using Google Translate, and I'm throwing things way off topic. But I just wanted to get that out there, and I'll leave it at that.
Nah, NimX's a Chinese translator, so I'm not talking about idioms and such, but some nouns that we don't know of. (But yeah, this is getting out of topic.)

Anyway, I really can't think of anything about this other than color schemes...
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by NiMx1233 »

I know that I sound greedy. xD But, if there's going to be a new platform, wouldn't it be better to do a one-time job and stuff every useful function in a go?
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by Erakk »

I don't know about the translators/editors, but, enforcing/applying a proper format would be good, like a template for the translator/editor to work with and the API would take care of it it

Also (on my behalf), enable extracting parts of the wiki as a set file (like xml) because, currently, we app parses from the entire webpage, which is not a little bit efficient.

@Teh_Ping Although, on any other day, i would agree with you, (and i am not an editor so disregard my opinion at will) but i dont think this change is for the bad... i fail to see any advantage this current API gives us/you guys.
In theory, practice and theory are the same.
but, practically, they arent.
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by EusthEnoptEron »

I think that we should keep the translation workflow outside of B-T. Everyone has their own tools and their own workflow. For specific things, we can make little tools if necessary.

Features that have to be kept:
  1. History, diff, conflict handling
  2. Templates and the like
  3. Certain liberties, e.g. I don't want that the cover of the first volume automatically appears on the project page, and I don't want that the B/W pictures automatically appear in the gallery.
And a few possible pipe-dreamy features:
  1. Maybe support for Markdown syntax
  2. Option to define CSS styles, maybe on a project-wide basis and only allowed for the supervisor or something. I hate it to use the style attribute.
  3. Make it as easy as possible for readers to edit stuff. Maybe by making inline-editing of lines possible.
  4. This is a tricky one: Ability to comment lines to allow for easy discussions between translators / editors, kinda like a mini-thread.
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by Simon »

EusthEnoptEron wrote:Templates and the like
It's just me... could you make an example for the usage of the templates ?

4. It's true, it's pretty tricky. I have an idea how it can be done without affecting the original text. I think it'll be interesting to write that function.
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by EusthEnoptEron »

Simon wrote:
EusthEnoptEron wrote:Templates and the like
It's just me... could you make an example for the usage of the templates ?
Depending on the other functionality (e.g. classes), templates wouldn't be THAT important, but here's an example.
4. It's true, it's pretty tricky. I have an idea how it can be done without affecting the original text. I think it'll be interesting to write that function.
It would be hard to make it stable, though (I once made a small PoC). The best approach would probably be putting a special comment mark into the source text.
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by draringi »

EusthEnoptEron wrote:
  1. History, diff, conflict handling
We are currently discussing how to implement this, and what is the best way, but it is something wee do plan on having.
EusthEnoptEron wrote:
  1. Maybe support for Markdown syntax
Actually the preferred markup language, as it is easier to our hands on than MediaWiki's markup language.
EusthEnoptEron wrote:
  1. Option to define CSS styles, maybe on a project-wide basis and only allowed for the supervisor or something. I hate it to use the style attribute.
Very easy to do. I'll add it to the list.
EusthEnoptEron wrote:
4. It's true, it's pretty tricky. I have an idea how it can be done without affecting the original text. I think it'll be interesting to write that function.
It would be hard to make it stable, though (I once made a small PoC). The best approach would probably be putting a special comment mark into the source text.
An alternate would be the same way we are looking to implement Translator Notes, through an extra model that records the comment and text, and is referred to by a number.
Anything in line will be a bit tricky... but should be possible...
Teh_ping wrote: Is it really worth the effort to implement the changes when most of our readers have not given any feedback regarding issues for the past 7 years or so?
One of the questions this thread asks is this. We are mainly interested in what the Translators and Editors are interested in, as the readers are fairly compliment, though we are looking into one or two features the readers want.
Errak wrote:I don't know about the translators/editors, but, enforcing/applying a proper format would be good, like a template for the translator/editor to work with and the API would take care of it it

Also (on my behalf), enable extracting parts of the wiki as a set file (like xml) because, currently, we app parses from the entire webpage, which is not a little bit efficient.

@Teh_Ping Although, on any other day, i would agree with you, (and i am not an editor so disregard my opinion at will) but i dont think this change is for the bad... i fail to see any advantage this current API gives us/you guys.
The API issues is actually what made me start work on this project. The way MediaWiki stores the information and then presents it to us in the API is a nightmare...
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Re: BTlib - Testing the water

Post by Mystes »

NiMx1233 wrote:I know that I sound greedy. xD But, if there's going to be a new platform, wouldn't it be better to do a one-time job and stuff every useful function in a go?
I find this more useful than GT: http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php
And this for Japanese: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi- ... dic.cgi?1C

Here is my BT post-Christmas wishlist:

1. Fix those conflicting edits
2. Have a built-in auto-corrector. That way, simple typos can be more easily fixed
3. Traceable updates
4. Language separation
5. Auto-save
6. Adapted for mobile safari/chrome/other browsers
7. Generated list of editors sorted by edits, with the option to add some manually
8. Stats page
9. A stalled section for projects, so the sidebar gets shorter
10. Built-in IRC.
Kira0802

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