Pootle Language Administration

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The administration of a given language is best handled by that language's Linguistic Team Coordinator. It's much easier and more direct for the Coordinator of a given language to handle the assignment of translation & proofreading rights to members of their teams. This also removes any need for the coordinator to have to hunt down someone else (i.e. an admin) to enable members' access & abilities.

The following information is intended for use with Pootle 2.x and applies specifically to Linguistic Team Language Coordinators.


Pootle 2: (now hosted on the Linguistic Team server)

http://pootle.linguisticteam.org/

Setting yourself up

Regardless of whether you wish to work with a second language along with the one that you coordinate, select ALL translatable projects when making your selections. It is very important that you have direct access to all of the projects that will be occupied by the members of your team. If you only want to be set up for a select number in any other language(s), make any Pootle admin aware and you can limit yourself in those other languages (you will then receive View-only for the ones you don't wish to access).

Once your selections are received by the Pootle admin, you will be set up with View and Administrate for the entire language section. This will provide you access to the Permissions area for each of the projects within your language. Once these global language section permissions have been set up, you will then need to go into each project and provide yourself with whatever rights are appropriate for each project (View, Suggest & Translate for those yes to be completed; View & Suggest if it's in proofreading and you are not one of the proofreaders; View-only if the project is completed). Be sure to also give yourself the Administrate right in every project within your care, since the project rights overrule the global permissions. If you fail to do this, you will effectively lock yourself out of the admin page as it will no longer respond to anything you do there.

Finally, check out ALL tabs and links and ask as many questions as it takes to ensure that you fully understand all that you have at your disposal within Pootle (only use the Coordinator's email group for this so that everyone benefits). This installation contains a lot more support and overall team control compared to Pootle 1 and it doesn't make sense for any of you to not take advantage of these additional features we've enabled for you.


Pootle Projects

This is the full list of projects currently found within Pootle, as well as their descriptions. Please note that not all of them are translatable (e.g. English Proofreading, xx Chapter, etc.) and that at least one of them should never be assigned to anyone but the language coordinator (Terminology).

  • Activist Orientation Guide
    • The 83 page PDF guide for members of TZM.
  • Chapter Projects
    • All projects being shared across all languages by a TZM Chapter or TVP Activism group.
  • Designing the Future
    • The full contents of Jacque's free e-book
  • English Proofreading
    • English Proofreading Team only
  • French Chapter
    • To be translated from French into English. These will then be reviewed by the English Proofreading Team for clarity & context and then moved intot he Chapter Projects section for translation to all other languages. This is the same process that will be applied to any Chapter or Activism Group interested in haring something in their native language with the rest of the world.
  • Main Web Site
    • The main TZM website contents. This site is currently undergoing many adjustments, so the contents within Pootle will not be updated until things settle with that.
  • Terminology
    • For Internal Use Only. Only the Language Coordinators should include this in their selections.
  • Tutorial
    • A true Pootle tutorial that is available to everyone, even if they are not registered within Pootle. Coordinators will eventually (as soon as it's ready) be provided with a single click button to clear the 'translation' so the next person can learn from it.
  • TVP 2011 Calendar
    • The photo descriptions and more from TVP's yearly calendar, which is available as aa wall poster or a cardboard fold out display.
  • TZM Newsletter
    • The contents of all official PDFs released by the TZM Newsletter Team
  • Venus Project Site
    • The main TVP website contents. This site is currently undergoing some adjustments, but most of these are within new pages. As a result, the new pages (and some older ones with changes) will soon be reflected within Pootl.
  • ZMF Press Kit PDF
    • The original PDF designed by Peter to support the pre-screenings of Zeitgeist: Moving forward. It will likely be removed soon, although we would prefer to replace it with numerous press kits to support the public releases of all major TZM & TVP videos


Setting up the team

Checking for new additions and adding all new members that you find:

Method 1:

Each day, Pootle will poll the list of requests for translation permissions. If it finds anyone waiting for rights within your language section, it will automatically send you an email listing the member and their requested selections. If you are viewing the email as Rich-Text/HTML, you will find that the project titles (activist_orientation_guide, venus_project_site , etc.) are links that will take you directly to the correct admin page needed to set them up.

If you are not already logged into Pootle when clicking on one of these links, Pootle will immediately redirect you to the login page instead and, from there, send you to your My Account page. To avoid this, I always keep at least one tab open and logged into Pootle in my browser. When you are already logged in that way, clicking on one of the email links will simply open up the correct admin page and the entire process of adding or adjusting a member's permissions becomes very quick and easy. I suggest that you consider doing the same.

Method 2:

  1. Open Pootle and log in. The act of logging in will drop you off on your own Account page.
  2. Assuming you have already selected your language and ALL of the translatable projects (not including Pootle or any that do not apply to your language team) and have been set up as Language Manager for them, you should see a Permissions link next to each individual project listed. Clicking on that will take you to the admin page for that project.
  3. Once there, click on the drop down box and see if anyone other than Ivan (capiscuas or capiscuas2) or myself (Ray or Gman) is listed under the "Project Members" section (not the same as the Language Members section).
  4. If a member is listed in the Project Members section of the list, they have specifically requested to join that project. Provide them with the current default translation rights for that project (View, Suggest & Translate for projects that are still being translated, View and Suggest for those that are in translation proofreading and only View for projects that are completely finished). Do not set up anyone who is only in the Language Member's list and not in the Project Member's section. This means they did not request the project. Do not assign any of the top four rights to anyone. Also, do not assign Review rights to anyone until you and I have discussed exactly how Pootle handles things on the back-end.

Notes:

  • For projects that are still 'In Translation', we normally provide View, Suggest and Translate
  • If the project is fully proofread & completed, provide only the View right to everyone.
  • The only members who should be added to a project are the ones that you find inside the Project Members section of the drop down list. When they are in that section, it means they specifically asked for that project when they set up their selections.
  • From your Language page, in the permissions tab, you can set up a person's (a co-coordinator) permissions for all projects of that language at once.

Pootle's Language Admin Interface

To be added

Definition of Rights

  • View
    • May view the current translations of the individual strings
    • Does not have access to the controls to save any suggestions or comments, nor can they turn the translation Fuzzy
  • Suggest
    • May Suggest alternate translations to what is currently there. If no translation already exists, it will still be saved by Pootle "as a suggestion (.po.pending file)" and will not be displayed to others within the main translation area.
    • Does not have the ability to save Comments or to mark a translation or suggestion as Fuzzy
  • Translate
    • May Submit a translation for the string.
      • Note that all submissions replace the previous submission with no way to recover the previous translation. For this reason, Submit should only be used if the main translation area did not already contain a translation. If something is already there, use Suggest instead.
    • Submit also Saves any comments or Fuzzy markers.
      • To add a comment or to mark/un-mark a translation as Fuzzy when there is already a translation in place, type out the comment &/or check the Fuzzy box and 'Submit' without any alteration to the translation in the main translation area. This will effectively overwrite the previous translation with itself, while also recording the comment &/or Fuzzy marker. You can then adjust the translation and use Suggest to enter an alternative.
  • Review
    • Also known as Proofreading, this provides the person access to controls for accepting or rejecting the suggested translations of team members.
      • When a suggested translation is removed, only that translation disappears, leaving all others intact.
      • When a suggestion is accepted, it replaces whatever is in the main translation area and ALL other suggestions are removed, permanently.
      • As with Translate, the removal of any or all translations is permanent and there is no way to recover from accidental removal.
    • Due to the dangers inherent with these controls, this right should only be provided to team members who exhibit a high amount of patience and full understanding of the system.
  • Overwrite
    • Disabled
  • Commit
    • By default, Pootle saves all activity to memory to keep the program running at sufficient speed for many, many users at once. While some activities automatically force a saving of the data into their respective PO and Pending files, the use of Commit tells Pootle to not wait for these before saving. This command is used prior to any pulling of files from Pootle for use in the outside world, such as exporting PO files for offline examination, uploading PO files with adjustments or exporting completed, fully proofread translations to their respective repositories. Some of these activities are restricted to Pootle's administration.
  • Download
    • Disabled
  • Administrate
    • Provides the member with the ability to serve as the administration manager for the project &/or language
    • Our use of this is restricted to language, where the individual Language Coordinators bear the responsibility of handling the translation rights provided to the members of their language team.



Related Combinations

Translator (limited)

A limited translator is generally someone new to the team or one who has shown a lack of carefulness when working with projects.

  • Project is In Translation
    • View + Suggest
  • Project is In Proofreading
    • View
  • Project is Completed
    • View

Translator (full)

A full translator is one who has shown full contextual comprehension for the materials and respect for the need for careful, accurate translations.

  • Project is In Translation
    • View + Suggest + Translate
  • Project is In Proofreading
    • View + Suggest
  • Project is Completed
    • View

Proofreader

A proofreader is someone who bears the responsibility of reviewing all translations and suggests and selecting the best ones for inclusion in the official version of the media translation. This role demands an exceptional amount of patience and respect for the work of their translation teammates.

  • Project is In Translation
    • View + Suggest + Translate
  • Project is In Proofreading
    • View + Suggest + Translate + Review
  • Project is Completed
    • View


Future Extras

The abilities described below are not yet functional, but serve to show just some of the additional things that we are working to add to Pootle's already extensive LingTeam-specific support.

Downloading Completed Translations

This is a one-way transfer and any changes to the downloaded PO files will not be reflected within Pootle's version of the translation, so use this only after you are completely certain that the translation and proofreading have been completed to the best of the team's abilities (e.g. no Fuzzy areas, all proofreading done, etc.). At this point, please also let the Linguistic Team Administrator know of the project's status so that the video translation may be transferred to the Video Repository for distribution, website translation can be sent back to the originating server, PDF translation can be uploaded to the PDF Repository, etc..

Getting to the Download Link

TBA

Converting the PO file to something more useful

PO files are great, if all you need is a copy of the PO file. But most uses will require that the translation be in a format other than .PO. The following will help you convert these files to other formats that can then serve a variety of uses.

PO to HTML

TBA

PO to Text

TBA

PO to CSV

TBA

PO to PDF

There is no method that I'm aware of that will take you directly from a PO file to a PDF format. Instead, the easiest and most flexible current method appears to be an initial conversion to HTML, followed by format editing of the HTML file(s) to both reinsert any missing images and combine multiple HTML files into a single file, followed by a conversion from HTML to PDF using any of a variety of methods.

A method of full or near automation using TeX (LaTeX, specifically) is currently being developed. If you are a developer, understand this technology and want to get involved in this dev project, please contact Ray &/or Ivan.



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)