History: Translation Need Identification

Source of version: 2 (current)

! Summary
Not all changes made to a wiki page need immediate translation. If the page is under heavy modification or content is not final, translating right away may be a waste of effort. Furthermore, some changes may only correct minor errors or improve syntax without affecting the content of the page itself. Indicating that a page is out of date for such a minor issue is not desired. This page lists the various possibilities

! Request Translation
The translation request mechanism is very similar to what can be seen in the translation industry. Once a master version is completed, it is sent to the translators who update the various other languages. Until a request is sent, no work is performed on translation.

In the wiki space, a translation request could mark the translations as out of date and notify potential translators.

The translation request is made directly by the contributors. Using the translation request, minor corrections never get pushed for translation.

! Draft Flag
Instead of asking for a document to be translated, the draft flag prevents the document from being translated at this time. The flag indicates that more changes are pending. Until the content is ready, translators can save their efforts for other tasks.

The draft flag does not cover the case where minor corrections are made. The primary advantage is that less experienced contributors do not have to worry about translation. Unless stated otherwise, the change requires a translation.

! Minor/Major Flag
Most wiki engines already have a flag indicating if the change is a major change or a minor change. The same flag could be used to indicate if a translation is required for a given change.

The primary advantage is that it requires very little changes to the way wiki engines work. The downside is that the minor checkbox is very rarely used (forgotten?) and its meaning is ambiguous.

! Manual Request Filtering
Instead of requesting the contributors if a change requires a modification, the first translator to attempt to translate a change could indicate that the change is irrelevant. The translation task would then be removed for all other affected languages.

Considering a volunteer translator base, every single change may not be translated right way. It is very possible that multiple edits occur on a source page before changes are translated back to other pages. From all changes, it's more likely that one of them will be worth translating.

! Automatic Request Filtering
Based on analysis of the change performed, it might be possible to determine if the change is major or minor. Like any automatic filtering technique, this could lead to false-positives and false-negatives.