[Fsa-guatemala] A modest proposal about dealing with L>1 Workshops (Proposal 0)

Daniel Kahn Gillmor dkg at fifthhorseman.net
Sat Sep 20 10:23:39 EDT 2008


Thanks for these notes, Jamie!  This proposal for translations is
still unnamed -- could you give it a name so we have a way to refer to
it?

On Fri 2008-09-19 18:33:58 -0400, Jamie McClelland wrote:

> An incomplete right would only have the group who wrote (or last
> edited) it as the endorser. They would appear with all localizations
> (even incomplete ones).

But would Rights on the Board that need translations be identifiable
as such?  If so, how?

> dkg wrote:
>
>> In the editing scenario, what happens to the "non-original"
>> localization?  Does it retain the old value (which presumably
>> corresponds to the previous revision), or does it get cleared?  
>
> I *think* it would contain the old value, to make tweaking a translation
> easier.
>
>> If it retains its old value, and i'm looking at a Translation (that
>> is, an editable Localization), how can i tell if it contains the value
>> From the previous revision or an "incomplete" Translation of the
>> "original"?
>
> I'm beginning to think that the "incomplete" flag should apply to each
> localization, rather than the right as a whole. That would solve this
> particular confusion.

How would that solve this confusion?  Right A is currently published
in languages X and Y, with the Localizations of this revision i'll
call A(x0) and A(y0).

Group J edits the Language X version.

Right A now is "incomplete", but with A(x1) and A(y0).  A(x1) is
marked as the "Original", as per your initial specification.

Group K offers a stab at a translation into Y, but doesn't feel
comfortable claiming it's "done".

Right A (still incomplete) now consists of A(x1) and A(y1).

If your Group is looking at Right A, whether you see A(y0) or A(y1)
seems like a qualitatively different experience, and it would be
useful to know which one you're seeing.

I'm not sure how applying the "incomplete" flag to the Localization is
helpful to distinguish between these cases, since it seems to me that
A(y0) and A(y1) would both be marked as "incomplete", right?

>> Does a translating Group automatically endorse the new version?
>> Does the author of the "original" automatically endorse the right
>> once translated, including the translation (which was unknown at
>> the time of authorship)?
>
> No - translating groups do not automatically endorse the new
> version.  Yes, authors automatically endorse the right without
> seeing the translation (trust in the group to create an useful
> translation).

Why do translators not automatically endorse the new version?  Is this
to encourage as accurate a translation as possible, without forcing
people to agree or disagree?

>> What is the workflow for a multi-lingual Group who wants to edit an
>> existing Right to just wordsmith in only one Localization and not
>> the other?
>
> Click translate. You can't touch the original, but you can edit one
> *or* all of the localizations.

My question was probably unclear; i meant to be asking about a
Complete Right.  Can you click Translate on a Complete Right?  If you
can, what does that mean for existing Endorsements?

> I do think it's worth it - not to slow down the democracy, but slow
> down a group that might get carried away with their contributions
> without realizing that other groups are not able to collaborate with
> them.

I think a group will realize that they don't get the collaboration
they want simply because they're missing out on Endorsements for
Rights that they care about, no?

And why will this slow down such a group?  I'm worried that this
policy will actually let the ideas of a monolingual group dominate the
Board, simply because their ideas *cannot be edited* until some other
group is willing to do the work of translating them.  This provides a
"lock-in" feature that multi-lingual groups won't get.  When a
mono-lingual group reviews a Right submitted by a multi-lingual group,
they are always able to change them.  But when a mono-lingual group
reviews a Right submitted by a multi-lingual group, editing is always
possible.  This seems to imply that the ideas from a mono-lingual
group have more importance than ideas from multi-lingual groups, and
has the potential to dramatically effect the way that the Rights are
distributed.

Here's a possible way that it seems this workflow could play out:

 * Group ▣ is mono-lingual, has minimal internal process, and is
   comfortable with the Web UI (at least, with the part of it that
   they use, because they don't use the translation features).

 * As soon as the Workshop starts, Group ▣ submits two Rights.  Other
   Groups in the session who are more multi-lingual see the Rights,
   and start working on translating them because it seems like a
   necessary, straightforward task, and their internal politics for
   submitting their own ideas are more complicated and deliberative.

 * While the translations are going on, Group ▣ submits two more
   Rights.  Two other Rights are submitted (with translations) by
   other Groups.

 * At this stage, 4 of the 6 Rights on the board are authored solely
   by Group ▣, and a significant portion of the work done by other
   Groups has been to translate the ideas of Group ▣.

 * As the board gets full, half of the Rights are submitted by Group
   ▣.  Because those Rights are permanently on-display until some
   other group is willing to translate them, the mono-lingual group
   manages to dominate the discussion.

This dynamic seems pretty unfriendly to the multi-lingual Groups, who
should be valued Participants.  And it seems like there is a
significant amount of extra mechanism (separat

> Once a group clicks the translate link, a lock with a default time
> out of, say 5 minutes, is placed on it. If anyone clicks the
> translate link after that, they get a message saying: this right is
> currently being translated and they are not able to submit a
> translation.
>
> A translator gets a countdown on their screen, with a button that
> says: give me 5 more minutes. If they let the count down run out,
> then they won't be able to submit the translation (but now the
> translate link re-appears on the list page and others can
> translate).
>
> It sounds stressful to translate with a count down timer. Any other
> ideas?

Aside from sounding stressful to translate under a countdown, i can
imagine it would also be really frustrating if you feel that you can
offer a translation, but are denied the opportunity to do so.  This
would be doubly annoying if you felt the resultant translation was
inferior to the one your Group could have offered, or if the other
translating Group eventually gave up (and dropped the Lock).

I'm *really* wary of locks in any sort of UI.  For example, I think
it's a good thing that we don't lock a Right in L=1 Workshops just
because a Group is editing it.

Is there some other way we could deal with concurrent translations?

   --dkg
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 826 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.mayfirst.org/pipermail/fsa-guatemala/attachments/20080920/f8cc4655/attachment.pgp 


More information about the Fsa-guatemala mailing list