We translators were asked to translate messages at translatewiki.net for the Donate interface and Payflowpro gateway extensions, which I have largely done for Welsh, despite being handicapped with no screenshots or message documentation. But the appeal letter doesn't feed through to a PayPal screen with these messages on, which makes me think that the extension possibly won't be ready to use during this Fundraiser. Is this right? If so, then I can relax about these extensions and just wait for documentation and screenshots to appear before completing the translations.
The latest version of the appeal banner links to the appeal letter, with donation messages which are on the Fundraising 2010/core messages for translation at meta, rather than the Donate interface extension messages at translatewiki.net. I completed the translation of the new core messages (including the text of the latest site notice) 3 days ago, since it seemed urgent to translate something which has already been put to use in the Fundraiser. Presumably the volunteers who are able to publish these are just snowed under, but I want to request publication anyway. It is really annoying to have the site message appear in English.
When site notices were posted for all foundation wikis together, it used to be that a link to the translation pages on meta was provided on the site notice. The site banner this year has no such link. Is this deliberate? Would you consider putting a link up just for a few days, to encourage more translations?
That's all for now I think. Regards, Eleri James
Hi Eleri,
Answers inline. Thanks for your work translating!
_______________________ Philippe Beaudette Head of Reader Relations Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
On Nov 19, 2010, at 3:54 PM, Eleri James wrote:
We translators were asked to translate messages at translatewiki.net for the Donate interface and Payflowpro gateway extensions, which I have largely done for Welsh, despite being handicapped with no screenshots or message documentation. But the appeal letter doesn't feed through to a PayPal screen with these messages on, which makes me think that the extension possibly won't be ready to use during this Fundraiser. Is this right? If so, then I can relax about these extensions and just wait for documentation and screenshots to appear before completing the translations.
-- Those extensions are in use now. Can you clarify what you mean about the appeal letter flowing to a PayPal screen? It shouldn't, unless you specifically choose the Paypal option. It should flow instead to our credit card screen, where your translations should be in use.
The latest version of the appeal banner links to the appeal letter, with donation messages which are on the Fundraising 2010/core messages for translation at meta, rather than the Donate interface extension messages at translatewiki.net. I completed the translation of the new core messages (including the text of the latest site notice) 3 days ago, since it seemed urgent to translate something which has already been put to use in the Fundraiser. Presumably the volunteers who are able to publish these are just snowed under, but I want to request publication anyway. It is really annoying to have the site message appear in English.
-- You're right that people are snowed under, but it's not volunteers: the box that the credit card servers are on is necessarily extremely secure. There are only four people in all of Wikimedia that are allowed to access it, and three of them are our tech staff. I've been negotiating for some time in an attempt to get more people access to that box, but it's slow going. We're doing our very best.
-- But the site notice should be in the actual language of the wiki, and I'm surprised that it's not, and will ask my team to figure out why and fix it immediately.
When site notices were posted for all foundation wikis together, it used to be that a link to the translation pages on meta was provided on the site notice. The site banner this year has no such link. Is this deliberate? Would you consider putting a link up just for a few days, to encourage more translations?
-- It was deliberate. The issue was this: each link that leads to anywhere but the donation pages from the banner results in an "abandon" rate, which means that people got distracted from taking the single path that we need them to: directly to the donation page. Those abandon rates are substantial... on the scale of hundreds of thousands of link follows.
-- To compensate for the loss of that link, we did much more aggressive outreach to translators this year, including hiring staff whose job it was to reach out to local language communities and recruit translators.
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On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 4:54 PM, Eleri James elerijms@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
The latest version of the appeal banner links to the appeal letter, with donation messages which are on the Fundraising 2010/core messages for translation at meta, rather than the Donate interface extension messages at translatewiki.net. I completed the translation of the new core messages (including the text of the latest site notice) 3 days ago, since it seemed urgent to translate something which has already been put to use in the Fundraiser. Presumably the volunteers who are able to publish these are just snowed under, but I want to request publication anyway. It is really annoying to have the site message appear in English.
I just opened up the Welsh Wikipedia and I see a Welsh banner ("Darllenwch: / Apêl bersonol gan / Jimmy Wales, sylfaenydd Wicipedia") that links me to a Welsh donation page: http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=WMFJA1/cy.
When site notices were posted for all foundation wikis together, it used to be that a link to the translation pages on meta was provided on the site notice. The site banner this year has no such link. Is this deliberate? Would you consider putting a link up just for a few days, to encourage more translations?
Good point! That wasn't deliberate actually, I think we all just forgot to update the local Meta-Wiki sitenotice to link to the fundraising translation pages. I added a note, just like last year: http://meta.wikimedia.org/?diff=2215352
On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 5:16 PM, Philippe Beaudette pbeaudette@wikimedia.org wrote:
-- It was deliberate. The issue was this: each link that leads to anywhere but the donation pages from the banner results in an "abandon" rate, which means that people got distracted from taking the single path that we need them to: directly to the donation page. Those abandon rates are substantial... on the scale of hundreds of thousands of link follows.
I don't think Eleri is talking about links on *foundationwiki*, I think he's talking about ones on *metawiki*. He wanted a link in the Meta-Wiki sitenotice to the fundraising translation pages so that visitors from other wikis looking for the materials to translate them could find them more easily. :-)
-- Casey Brown Cbrown1023
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