Language Coordinator Role

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The essentially full-time role of Official Coordinator encompasses a wide variety of tasks, all focused on making things easier for the members who volunteer to help with the transcription, proofreading and translation of the materials in our care.


Coordinator Development & Support

There are several notable resources & communication mediums available for Language Coordinators to use to find what's needed. Those shown in bold are expected to be used by all official Coordinators. The rest are suggestions that you may wish to consider.

  • The Language Coordinator's Resource Center, of which this page is just one part.
    • This section of Wiki is intended to provide something of a Coordinator's 'How-To Manual'.
    • More will be added as time permits.


  • Language Coordinators' forum section
    • A topic-specific forum for open sharing & communication between Administration Group, Language Coordinators, Linguistic Tech Team, Timestamp Adjusters, English Proofreading Team & all LTI members.
    • This is the place to bring nearly all Coordinator questions!


  • LTI Coordinator Skype group
    • By far, the fastest method we have for obtaining quick help, support &/or answers to quick coordination questions. It will also be used to keep all coordinators up to date on global level developments and events, allowing more of you and the teams within your care to be much more directly involved in them.
    • While it provides very fast support for many pressing topics, Skype (and other Instant Messenger programs) is unable to be made fully transparent. As a result, it is to be used for things such as issues that involve member's personal info (must be kept secure at all times), brainstorming & experience sharing on overall & team betterment approaches, etc.. Topics that do not fit this somewhat narrow list will be asked to be posted in the forum for a more publicly viewable discussion.


Team Member Support

These are just some of the notable resources available for members seeking individual teams, instruction, assistance and other support options. Again, the more important ones are shown in bold.

  • Individual forum Language sections
    • All officially supported Language Teams have their very own section within the LTI Forum that can be custom tailored for your team's use.
      • All Language Coordinators should already have the ability to administrate their Language Team sections. Contact Ray or Bruno for details.
      • Please note that Official support is provided for a given language the moment anyone volunteers to translate into that language.
    • Use the forum to communicate most team-specific topics with all Language Team members at once, while also enabling them to use it to communicate with you and to gain support from their teammates as well as other teams.
    • Tutorials are being prepared to provide complete information for getting the most out of the numerous forum features for both coordinators and members.


  • LTI Help Desk forum
    • A full-fledged Help Desk forum section serving the entire global LingTeam and all of its members. Please promote its availability to all of your team members as one of their primary expanded support options, as it connects them directly with the experience of all other teams and members.
    • This is the place for most members to bring issues to be resolved!
      • All coordinators should engage in helping to answer these questions, even if the person is not a member of your team. We're all in this together and it becomes much easier if we continually help each other. As a side bonus, you will likely learn some new tricks by reading what other coordinators & members have to share.


  • Linguistic Team International forum section for everyone's use
    • A much more open, general discussion forum serving the entire global LingTeam and all of its members. Promote its availability to all of your team members as one of their primary expanded support options, as it connects them directly with the experience of all other teams and members.
    • This is the place for most members to bring their non-team-specific discussions!
      • All coordinators should engage in helping to answer these questions, even if the person is not a member of your team. We're all in this together and it becomes much easier if we continually help each other. As a side bonus, you will likely learn some new tricks by reading what other coordinators & members have to share.


  • Linguistic Team International Teamspeak channels
    • Many teams have found it beneficial to hold occasional team meetings, brainstorming sessions, new member introductions &/or group proofreading sessions within Teamspeak.
    • Linguistic Team International master channels are available for use in both the TZM & TVP Teamspeak servers. Please share this info with all of your teammates.
      • TZM Teamspeak: ts3server://ts.zmdev.net?password=tzm (traditionally used for all global LTI & Coordinator Meetings)
      • TVP Teamspeak: ts3server://voice.thevenusproject.com?password=TVP&Itemid=135 (provides an additional voice chat location as needed)
    • If the main LTI channel is unoccupied and a global meeting is not scheduled to begin during that time, feel free to use it for anything you need. If it is occupied or you prefer to remain 'outside' of any normal traffic through the channel, Coordinators can create a temporary sub-room for your use. If you are a LTI coordinator and are not yet set up as a LTI Channel Moderator, contact Ray to get set up.
    • Tutorials are being prepared to provide complete information for getting the most out of the numerous forum features for both coordinators and members.


Team Development & Support

All translation & proofreading members need to know how to get the most out of the tools they have at their disposal. It's up to us to provide the kind of guidance that will allow them to maximize their ability to use them. Examples of this might include holding a short team meeting to discuss the editing controls within Pootle or to invite a new member into Teamspeak or Skype to explain how to get around within dotSUB. If specific tutorials are needed, please bring up the need in the Tech Dep't forum section so we can work together to create it and make it available to the members.

Members also need to know that they are an integral part of the team. Promote the use of the main forum section (or a separate one that you create for this) for your Language Team so they can support each other and to make it easy for you to share helpful tips with the entire group. It also provides you with an easy to use communication medium for times when you or the global LingTeam have important info to share with everyone.

There are many ways that the LTI administration group can help you with locating translators/proofreaders who may not even realize that the team exists. Please don't hesitate to ask for help on this aspect.


Promotions

There are currently three locations where translations are created; dotSUB (videos only), Wiki (audio-only media) and Pootle (everything else). lthough there is much yet to be automated, there are well-developed manual systems already in place for each of these areas that help all teams with control over their efforts. As an example, both dotSUB and Pootle allow you to place translation efforts into a type of protected mode so that your Proofreading Team can do their thing without concern over whether someone will come in behind them and mess up what they have already fixed. Also, when a project has been fully completed, they should then be locked down to protect all of that work from ANY further adjustment, unless a team-agreed upon repair need should arise later.

Due to normal human focus interruptions (moving, job situations, family matters, etc.), the person who takes on the role of Language Coordinator will need to continually promote the need for translation &/or proofreading volunteers who wish to help within one or more of these tools. It often takes several interested members to gain one who remains active beyond the introduction period. The rest either decide that it's more work than they expected or they try to do too much and burn themselves out (try to help them guard against this). Either way, members disappear over time. In addition, it's only natural to want to build up a strong team in order to move through all of the projects faster. We never want anyone to feel like they have to do more than they are able or willing with this kind of stress pushing them to do more.


Media Movers

Language Coordinators often choose to take on the glorious task of serving as the 'Final Viewer' just prior to announcing (on their translation & proofreading teams' behalf) that a carefully proofread item is truly 'as good as we can make it'. In other words, the teams create it and the Coordinator approves it. If a coordinator feels that another member of the team possess better proofreading skills and is responsible enough to handle the task, they may appoint the person to the role of 'final reviewer'.

Once a translation becomes team-approved, the Coordinator or an admin (depending on the storage medium) will need to upload, finalize or otherwise set (or have set by an admin) the content of the item as 'Official', make it available in the ZM Repository and make any necessary announcements regarding its availability. Please note that some items may require Export &/or conversion of format before this can be set. In addition, a forum ToDo needs to be created to alert the administration group that the item is redy for full global promotion and distribution. Only Language Coordinators are able to create ToDo items, so this step cannot be delegated.


Pootle Administration

Language Coordination includes the responsibility of administrating all of the projects for your team. The focus here is not on managing the members, but on managing the multimedia and protecting the efforts of your teammates. As such, it is a responsibility that should never be taken lightly.


Coordinator Pootle rights

After a full tour of the administration side of Pootle, each coordinator is provided with the Administrate right for all of the projects within their language section. The tour includes first-hand demonstrations of all other rights that the coordinator will use from time to time. It also includes much information about Pootle's inner-workings that are not widely known or understood. After completing this admin tour (about 3 - 4 hours in a Skype voice chat), each coordinator will be a Pootle expert.

  • Note from Ray: Please note that I will not hunt you down to force you into taking this tour, but you will not receive administrator permissions until you complete it. Contact me in Skype (Gmanzm) when you are ready for it.
  • Never unset your Administrate right. You will, of course, no longer be able to perform any project administration tasks until you can be re-added.
  • With the 'Administrate' permission set globally for the Language section of Pootle, there is no need for a coordinator to set themselves within each of the projects. Administrate allows the coordinator to perform all functions within all of that language team's projects without the need for additional rights. One exception may be to limit your permissions in order to see the page the same way as another member, but be sure to include the Administrate permissions when you add yourself to that project and then to remove yourself from the project when you are done helping the person.

Additional Pootle Info

As a default, the current recommendation is to set up new members with the following two translation permissions: View & Suggest. Once they show that they are adept at translating into the language, fully explain the Submit permission and then provide them with that. As a reminder, Submit is used when no previous translation exists within a string. Suggest is used when a translation already exists. This is the only way to preserve everyone's efforts so that the team's proofreaders can later choose from all provided translation attempts.

The following Permissions descriptions are based on the current Pootle installation. Additional Pootle rights not described below are not used by the community here and should not be assigned to anyone, including coordinators.

  • View
    • Provides the ability to enter each project in any language and view the current translations contained within that project's PO file. Pootle is globally set with the View permission.
    • No editing ability is enabled and the person does not need to be activated within Pootle in order to take advantage of this ability.
  • Suggest
    • Allows activated members to suggest translations for individual strings in a given project by using the Suggest button.
    • These suggestions are stored in a separate .pending file that can contain multiple suggestions for later consideration.
  • Translate
    • Allows activated members to write translations directly to the project's .PO file for individual strings by using the Submit button.
    • Note that the use of the Submit button overwrites any previously submitted translation.
      • There is no recovery mechanism to recall the previous translation. As a result, the Submit button should only be use if there is not an already existing translation in place for that string. If a translation already exists, use the Suggest button instead. This will preserve everyone's efforts and allow the proofreaders to select from all translations provided by the team members.
  • Review
    • Allows activated members to remove, select or merge translation submissions & suggestions to ensure the accuracy of what ends up within the .PO file just prior to making the translation available to the entire community.
    • Members provided with the Review right are ultimately responsible for declaring the finished translation to be the best that it can be. As a result, it is imperative that there be a high level of communication surrounding this task, both between all members provided this right, as well as with the main translation team, to make sure they all understand the reason for any possible controversial decisions. Following this advice will allow for much accelerated learning throughout the team.
  • More detailed Pootle info can be found here.


dotSUB Administration

Language Coordination includes the responsibility of administrating all of the projects for your team. The focus here is not on managing the members, but on managing the multimedia and protecting the efforts of your teammates. As such, it is a responsibility that should never be taken lightly.

Coordinator dotSUB rights

After a full tour of the administration side of dotSUB, each coordinator will be added to a special Language Coordinator group within the TZMOfficial dotSUB account (the account that hosts the Linguistic Team Dashboard, which is used to help manage all of the workflows through all of the videos throughout dotSUB). These dotSUB groups make it very easy to provide editing access to a group of dotSUB members at once. The Language Coordinator group is provided with the ability to Administrate each of the projects the moment they reach the Translation stage.

The tour includes much information about dotSUB's inner-workings that are not widely known or understood. After completing this admin tour, each coordinator will feel like a dotSUB expert.

  • Please note that I will not hunt you down to force you into taking this tour. Contact me in Skype when you are ready for it.
  • Never remove yourself (or anyone else) from the Language Coordinator group. You will, of course, no longer be able to perform any project administration tasks until you are re-added.
  • You will need to create your team's Proofreading Team group within your own dotSUB account. You should also ensure that an exact mirror of this group exists within the TZMOfficial account and that both are kept up-to-date with any changes to the group's members. The mirror group allows TZMO account admins to provide you with additional support as needed.

Additional dotSUB Info

The global Linguistic Team's current approach within dotSUB is:

  • Set up new videos to be transcribed by anyone interested in helping with that task.
    • Please note that the ability to translate the video is intentionally turned off in order to prevent any translations until the item has been fully proofread for errors and proper timestamps.
  • Once the English transcript is complete, it is then placed in protected mode to allow the English Proofreading Team a fully closed environment with which to perform their tasks. This Protected Mode prevents anyone else from going in and changing anything that the proofreading team has already fixed. It also ensures that the members of the proofreading Team are the last humans to touch the transcription before it is added to the Repository as the official ZM Transcription & used for subtitling within the eventual Linguistic Team Theater.
  • Once the transcription has been declared to be the best that we can get it, the transcription is fully locked down, Imported over to the Repository and then the video is opened for translation by all dotSUB members who choose to help translate it into various languages.
    • At this point, the Language Coordinator group is provided Full Access to the video.
  • Once each language reaches the completion of their translation, Their Language Coordinator should go into the project's Permissions area and set it up so that only their Proofreading Team group members can access that language's translation. Each language can have their own groups assigned to them without affecting any other language translations.
  • When a language's Proofreading Team declares that the translation is the best that it can be, the Language Coordinator will then remove the Proofreading Team, add her/himself as the only person who can modify the translation and Import the final result to the Repository location of the video. This effectively locks up all of the hard work of the team while providing unfettered access to the SRT by the entire ZM community and beyond.
    • Members of all Proofreading Teams are ultimately responsible for declaring the finished translation to be the best that it can be. As a result, it is imperative that there be a high level of communication surrounding this task, both between all members provided this privilege, as well as with the main translation team, to make sure they all understand the reason for any possible controversial decisions. Following this advice will allow for much accelerated learning throughout the team.
  • Please note that much of the above will likely drastically change following the upcoming migration to the Linguistic Team Dashboard (LTD) installed within the TZMOfficial dotSUB account and presented to the RBE Community on the upcoming Linguistic Team International web portal.


Additional details can be found [Linguistic_Team_Projects/dotSUB | here] -Ray / Gman


LTI WikiLanguage Team Contacts | FirstTimers-General Guidelines | LTI Guidelines | Transcription Team | Proofreading Team | Translation Teams | Translation Proofreading Teams | Linguistic Tech Team | Media Center | Project Teams | LingTeam Development | Meetings (edit)