History: Storyboard

Source of version: 31 (current)

__TODO: Label each "scene" with a scene number. That way, we can easily reference it later, for example, when discussion limitations in the Implementation sub-section__ In order to illustrate how CLWE supports unconstrained collaborative authoring and translation, we now provide a detailed usage storyboard. The story involves three people (John Doe, Marie Quidam and Carlo del Pueblo) who are collaboratively writing the Call for Participation (CFP) of a conference in 3 languages simultaneously (English, French and Spanish). John knows English and French, Marie knows French and English and Juan knows Spanish and French. Each of the participants has naturally assumed responsibility for the page in his or her native language. For the sake of readability, we assume that all three of them employ the English user interface of the software. Note that the above assumptions are not constraints imposed by the system. For example, John, Marie and Juan could just as easily be trilingual and share the responsibility for each and every of the three pages. Our story will follow John, Marie and Juan as they concurrently edit and translate parts of the page in those three languages and end up in a situation that looks like an unsalvageable mess. However, we will show how the system allows them to easily and naturally recover from this situation. So easily in fact, that one is left wondering if there was even a "mess" to recover from in the first place. __Scene 1__. Our story starts when John Doe writes basic information about the workshop on an English page. He does this in two consecutive edits. --- __SCREENSHOT 1: English page with parts of the text from the BabelWiki workshop Something like this. IMPORTANT: The last sentence about scholarships should be visible!__ CALL FOR PARTICIPATION Babel Wiki Workshop: Cross-Language Collaboration Workshop Goal The goal of this workshop is to explore how wikis and the wiki way might impact, and be influenced by, multilingual collaboration and language work. It aims to bring together people with an interest in multilingual collaboration, as well as specialists such as translators and terminologists, and authors who hope to find ways for their work to reach other language communities. Funding is being secured for scholarships to help participants who need help with travel costs. Translation State: en_v2 = {e1, e2}, fr = None, es = None --- __Scene 2__. At this point, Marie Quidam decides to start translating in French, eventhough she can see that this is only a very prelimniary draft. She clicks on the __Translate__ button, enters __French__ as the target language and specifies the name of the page in French. __TODO: Which assumptions does that lift?__ --- __SNAPSHOT 2 (COULD BE DROPPED, BUT CAPTURE IT ANYWAY): Screen shot of dialog for specifying the language and title of a new translation. The language should be set to French, and the Title to the French title of the actual CFP for our workshop.__ Translation State: en_v2 = {e1, e2}, fr = None, es = None --- Marie then hits the __Create Translation__ button. --- __SNAPSHOT 3: Screen shot initial translation dialog. The English content is pasted into the edit field and a Translation in Progress notice is inserted at the top. Red arrows call attention to this notice. Also, to the "Complete Translation" button. The first few sentences have been translated to French__ Translation State: en_v2 = {e1, e2}, fr = None, es = None --- Notice how the system automatically pasted the content of the English page into the edit box for this new French page, and that it also inserted a __Translation in progress__ notice at the top. Marie gradually overwrites the English text with its French translation, then deletes the __Translation in progress__ notice, and saves it by hitting the __Complete Translation__ button. --- __SCREENSHOT 4: FR page after complete translation. The page is listed as being 100% up to date, and we see En as an "equivalent" translation. Red arrows call reader's attention to those two things. The in progress notice has disappeared. __ Translation State: en_v2 = {e1, e2}, fr_v1 = {e1, e2}, es = None --- There is now a French page, which is deemed to incorporate the exact same edits as the English page. This is reflected by the presence of a link to the English page, and that this English page is listed as being an __equivalent translation__. Also, the French page is listed as being __100% up to date__. If an English reader was to go to the English page, he would see a very similar view, but with a link to the French page instead. __Scene 3__. At this point, Juan del Pueblo starts translating from the French page. Notice how the __Controlled language pairs__ assumption is lifted. Juan does not HAVE to translate from the more mainstream English language, and can use as a starting point, whichever language he feels most comfortable with (French in this case). Juan follows a process similar to Marie in __Scene 2__, except that the phone rings just as he is finishing translating the second sentence. To avoid loosing this work, he saves, but by clicking on the __Partial Translation__ button. --- __SNAPSHOT 5: Spanish page with only the first two sentences translated The "translation in progress" notice appears in a yellow box, and there is a red arrow that calls reader's attention to it. There is a "translation" box that lists EN and FR as better translations, and that indicates ES as being only partially up to date. There are red arrows that call the reader's attention to these two things___ Translation State: en_v2 = {e1, e2}, fr_v1 = {e1, e2}, es_v1 = {} --- At this point, a visitor coming to the Spanish page would see a very conspicuous "Translation in progress" notice and would know to treat its content with caution. He would also see a note on the right__???__ telling him that in contrast, the French and English pages are up to date, so that he might go read the page there if he knows one of those languages. Notice how those simple features contribute to lifting the __Enforceable timely translation__ assumption, by providing means to publish partially translated content without fear of misleading visitors. __Scene 4__. At this point, Marie Quidam decides to modify the budding CFP, and she does it in French. Note how both the __Master language__ and the __Edit freeze__ assumptions have been lifted. Although the CFP originally started life as an English page, Marie is allowed to make original new contributions to it in any language (French in this case). Also, eventhough the current revision of the French page is still being translated to Spanish, Marie is still allowed to modify the French page without having to wait for Spanish translation to be done. Marie adds a list of themes for the workshop, and deletes the sentence about scholarships, because she feels it's not appropriate to announce this until funding has actually been secured. Because she feels the last point to be really important, she checks the __Send urgent translation request__ box before saving her edit. --- __SCREENSHOT 6: French page with new content added to it. Both English and Es are now listed as needing improvements, and red arrows call reader attention to that. The page is scrolled down to show that the sentence about scholarships has been deleted, and that the themes have been added:__ !Thèmes abordés Les thèmes qui pourront être abordés dans l'atelier comprennent, sans s'y limiter: * Méthodes de traduction collaborative * Projets de traduction collaborative * Élaboration collaborative de ressources de traduction * Wikis multilingues et traduction de contenu wiki Translation State: en_v2 = {e1, e2}, fr_v2 = {e1, e2, e3*}, es_v1 = {} --- The French page is now considered to be the only one to be completely up to date, and this is reflected by the fact both the English and Spanish pages are now listed as needing improvement, while the French page is considered to be __100% up to date__. Also, the French page includes a "critical" edit (as flagged by the asterisk in e3*) which needs translation ASAP.__ __Scene 5__. At this point, John decides to enter the deadline information for paper submissions. When he goes to the English page, he sees that there is an __urgent translation request__ (notice again how this contributes to lifting the __Enforceable timely translation__ assumption). --- __SCREENSHOT 7: English page as it appears after Marie's urgent translation request. Red arrow draw reader's attention to the urgent translation notice. A red arrow points to the update from icon__ Translation State: en_v2 = {e1, e2}, fr_v2 = {e1, e2, e3*}, es_v1 = {} --- John decides not to translate the urgent request just yet, because his own edit will only take a few seconds and he doesn't want to forget to do it. So he edits the English page, adds the deadline information and saves. --- __SCREENSHOT 8: English page as it appears after John's addition of deadline informatin. The page is STILL listed as needing an urgent request. But, FR also listed as needing updating. Arrows point out these two things. Content of the page is:__ !Important dates Submission deadline for Extended papers (short or full): May 3rd, 2008 Translation State: en_v2 = {e1, e2, e4}, fr_v2 = {e1, e2, e3*}, es_v1 = {} --- __Scene 6__. At this point, both English and French include edits that the other page has not yet incorporated. In particular, English still hasn't incorporated the urgent edit from French. As for Spanish, it is still in the midst of incorporating the very first two edits. In short, it looks like John, Marie and Juan have buried themselves waist deep in a mud pit. There does not seem to be any stable point from which translation could easily and safely be propagated to all languages. No "pivot" langauge, no "solid stone" hidden underneath the "mud". However, this is only an apparent "mess" and the system allows them to easily and effortlessly fall back on their feet. Let's see how this happens. __Scene 7__. First, John updates the English page by translating changes from the French version. He does this by clicking on the __update from__ icon ([left|righ__???__] pointing arrow in __Fig X__). --- __SNAPSHOT 9: English translation screen showing the themes information, and the scholarship deletion highlighted in French are highlighted. __ Translation State: en_v2 = {e1, e2, e4}, fr_v2 = {e1, e2, e3*}, es_v1 = {} --- --- __SNAPSHO 10: English page after saving the translation. Text is scrolled to show that the themes are now here, and the scholarship line has been deleted.__ Translation State after Saving: en_v3 = {e1, e2, e3*, e4}, fr_v2 = {e1, e2, e3*}, es_v1 = {} --- Notice how the __urgent translation__ notice has disappeared. English is now listed as being 100% up to date. __Scene 8__. Next, Marie updates French to incorporate the English edit about submission deadlines, and saves using the __Complete Translation__ button, at which point the French page is also listed as being 100% up to date. --- __SNAPSHOT 11: French translation screen. Diff is scrolled to show that both the deadline and the themes information are highlighted in green. A red arrow points that out.__ Translation State before save: en_v3 = {e1, e2, e3*, e4}, fr_v2 = {e1, e2, e3*}, es_v1 = {} Translation State after save: en_v3 = {e1, e2, e3*, e4}, fr_v3 = {e1, e2, e3*, e4}, es_v1 = {} --- Here, we notice something odd. Indeed, in showing parts of the English text that need to be incorporated into the French page, the system highlights not only the deadline information which was originally created in English, but also the list of themes which was originally created in French and later translated to English. In other words, the French page __sees its own original edits__ as needing to be translated. This is a particular limitation of the diffing approach we use and we will talk about later. But for now, suffice it to say that this does not bother Marie. She can quickly tell that this is a part that does NOT need to be translated, and just focuses on translating the deadline information. __Scene 8__. Finally, comes back from his phone conversation and picks up his translation from French from where he left off. He sees highlighted in green, not only the edits that he had seen when he first started translating from French, but also all other edits which have been done or replicated in French since them. He finishes translating all of those, deletes the __Translation in progress__ notice, and saves as a __Complete Translation__. __SCREENSHOT 12: Spanish translation page, with all of the French text highlighted in green. In particular, we see the first two French sentences highlighted in Green, eventhough they have already been translated __ Translation State: en_v3 = {e1, e2, e3*, e4}, fr_v3 = {e1, e2, e3*, e4}, es_v1 = {} --- Here, we notice something else that's a bit odd. The system highlights all of the French content highlighted in Green, indicating that all of it needs to be translated. But Juan had had already translated the first two English sentences. This too is a limitation of the diffing approach and will be discussed later. For now, suffice it to say that this does not bother Juan, and can can easily tell that the first two sentences have already been translated and focuses on the rest of the text instead.. --- __SNAPSHOT 13 (COULD BE SKIPEED, BUT CAPTURE IT ANYWAY): Spanish translation showing as being up to date and French and English as being also up to date. Translation State after save: en_v3 = {e1, e2, e3*, e4}, fr_v3 = {e1, e2, e3*, e4}, es_v2 = {e1, e2, e3*, e4} --- Et voilà! All three pages now incorporate the exact same edits, and all are displayed as being 100% up to date. Note that the particular order in which John, Marie and Juan pulled themselves from the "mud", is not prescribe by the tool in any way. They could have done it in any number of other ways. __TODO: Need to talk a bit about which assumptions are COMPLETELY lifted versus which are PARTIALLY lifted__ In this storyboard, we saw how the system helps lifting the following assumptions of traditional authoring and translation environments: __Master language__, __Edit freeze__, __Enforceable timely translation__ and __Controlled language pairs__. Let us talk about the remaining three assumptions listed in the Introduction. Throughout the storyboard, we can see how the __Strong coordination__ assumption is lifted, because at no point in the process did the three actors need to communicate with each other, nor with any "supervising" authority. Coordination is achieved implicitly through intuitive notices that act as invitations (but not a command) to take a particular action. Regarding the __Trained translators__ assumpation, we can see that the users do not need to be trained to follow a rigid authoring or translation process, and that the tools are intuitive enough be used without extensive training. Finally, regarding __Separation of Authoring and Translation__, we can see how the system supports easy transition from authoring to editing, and vice versa. But integration of the translation process and tools does not complicate the editing operations. Authors can still edit content largely without having to worry about where and when translation will occur. __TODO: Talk about the how the translation naturally organized itself in a somewhat "linear" EN <-> FR -> ES fashion. But that was not imposed. It just grew that way. Community could also have nautrally migrated to a pivot language structure, or a clique structure. Use figures to display those three types of structures. This is a major advantage of the approach.__ __TODO: Mention somewhere that the system does not impose a strict parallel structure on the pages. If a change in say, English is not relevant for the French community, user can leave it untranslated, and still press the Complete Translation button. Not sure where the best place to say this is. Maybe in the Storyboard, maybe in the Implementation sub-section.__ __TODO: Talk about minor edits.__