Rename "Polyglots" team to "Translate" team

[littlebizzy]

This does not require much explanation or argument. While WordPress has always maintained a sort of unique, peculiar sense of humor and verbiage, usability features should follow common naming schemes.

The majority of English-speaking users likely don't know what "polyglot" means, let alone the rest of the world who might be researching WordPress.org or search results or otherwise.

It is time for the "Polyglots" Team to be renamed to the "Translate" team for better usability.

Besides the fact that this 19th-century term is literally misapplied here, since most of the translation work (etc) in WordPress is not done by people who "know many languages."

pol·y·glot
adjective
knowing or using several languages.
--
noun
a person who knows and is able to use several languages.

​https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/

change to: ==> ​https://make.wordpress.org/translate/

Or better yet:

​https://wordpress.org/translate/

[fierevere]

bad idea, especially from people who didnt contributed a single translated string

Perhaps, this should be discussed first within the team, and not just pop the meta ticket.

[xavivars]

You say

Besides the fact that this 19th-century term is literally misapplied here, since most of the translation work (etc) in WordPress is not done by people who "know many languages."

But the fact is that all translation work is done by people who knows, at least two languages (otherwise, we wouldn't be able to translate).

So, at least that point you raise, is incorrect.

[ocean90]

Thanks for your feedback but there are no plans to rename the team for no reason.

[littlebizzy]

bad idea, especially from people who didnt contributed a single translated string -- @fierevere

Ah yes... the fresh, sweet, smell of open-minded, collaborative spirit... this is why I come here...

How do you translate "Ad Hominem attack" into Luxembourgish?

But the fact is that all translation work is done by people who knows, at least two languages (otherwise, we wouldn't be able to translate). -- @xavivars

Irrelevant to usability, but for the record two ≠ many/much... as a "polyglot" you should know this ;)

Thanks for your feedback but there are no plans to rename the team for no reason. -- @ocean90

This feedback was not for you specifically, but thanks for joining!

Ticket reopened, if anyone has any data-backed, non-hateful/trolling things to add, please feel free to comment.

Happy to change category to "General" if critical thinking is too difficult for the Monoglots...

(via ​Google Trends)

[fierevere]

This is trac, not a challenge.
If you want to discuss anything - we, Proudly Polyglots Team, have a slack channel.

[littlebizzy]

This is trac, not a challenge
If you want to discuss anything - we, Proudly Polyglots Team, have a slack channel.

@fierevere, the point of Trac is to report enhancements... maybe your translation didn't come through :)

Unfortunately, Slack does not have any public records, and this is an open-source community...

Call yourselves whatever you want, there are usability issues re: WordPress.org.

[littlebizzy]

A few specific examples of languages that cannot translate the word "Polyglot" (see Google Translate below).

This is both a translation concern and a usability/accessibility concern as well...

Indonesian:
​https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=en&tl=id&u=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2F

Bosnian:
​https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=en&tl=bs&u=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2F

Filipino:
​https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=en&tl=tl&u=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2F

Polish:
​https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=en&tl=pl&u=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2F

...etc, etc (many others).

Egos aside, consider for a moment this could be easily improved.

[netweb]

The #meta & #polyglots team by way of @ocean90's reply above has given a reason and closed this ticket as wontfix @littlebizzy, please do not reopen the ticket again

Discussion can continue on a closed ticket, it does not have to be open to continue the discussion

[littlebizzy]

I will continue to re-open tickets and raise concerns whenever possible to make WP.org better.

The system allows me to do so as a member of the WordPress community.

Instead of shutting down discussion, feel free to reply.

[littlebizzy]

@netweb as it stands currently, the portal tasked with "translation" has a name that cannot be translated by the majority of the world's languages/apps. This inherently lacks usability and translatability.

If even one member of the #meta or #polyglots team can explain why they think this doesn't warrant more than a mere 5 minutes of trash-talking, I welcome them to explain themselves here.

[littlebizzy]

The problem with WordPress.org is that as soon as one (typically senior) user makes a snarky, condescending, or otherwise cynical remark, other "lemmings" become too scared to disagree or think out loud...

group·think
noun
the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility.

I'm here as an outside but experienced user trying to start a discussion.

Who is ready and willing to consider improvements?

[dd32]

Unfortunately Trac is not the proper place to discuss this.

Please discuss it with the Polyglots team directly, either in their Slack channel or their public P2: ​https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/

If the Polyglots team feels that the team should be re-named to better suit their purpose, we can then open a Trac ticket to implement the changes.

I'll note that the team description on ​https://make.wordpress.org/ includes both 'Translations' and 'Translating' so someone either reading or searching the page should be able to easily determine what a "Polyglots" team is.

Please don't re-open this ticket just to re-open it, this is not the place for the discussion.

If there's other places where the team description needs to be displayed to aid discoverability, leave a comment here without re-opening the ticket and someone will see it (We get notifications for closed tickets too)

[littlebizzy]

Please discuss it with the Polyglots team directly, either in their Slack channel (#polyglots on ​https://make.wordpress.org/chat/) or their public P2: ​https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/

Unfortunately blog comments are not conducive to this type of discussion, and Slack is not public.

As an open-source community, there needs to be a public record of such issues.

I'll note that the team description on ​https://make.wordpress.org/ includes both 'Translations' and 'Translating' so someone either reading or searching the page should be able to easily determine what a "Polyglots" team is.

Not really, see the Google Translate links (and URI slugs) above.

But don't take my word for it -- I suggest we poll international users with various lingual backgrounds.

E.g. "Which makes more sense to you as an international user? Translate, or Polyglot?"

Please don't re-open this ticket just to re-open it

I'm re-opening it to have a discussion about a glaring usability issue on WP.org.

On the contrary, please don't close/wontfix this ticket just to close it.

Until that discussion can occur in public, and more data is included, than I propose leaving this ticket open.

I do not see any rules or guidelines stating otherwise, this is an "enhancement" proposal.

The Meta team is responsible for maintaining and managing WordPress.org websites. Our work is mostly done on the meta trac. -- ​WordPress.org

Still waiting for any member of #meta or #polyglots to explain themselves, thanks ~

[dd32]

Replying to littlebizzy:

Please discuss it with the Polyglots team directly, either in their Slack channel (#polyglots on ​https://make.wordpress.org/chat/) or their public P2: ​https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/

Unfortunately blog comments are not conducive to this type of discussion, and Slack is not public.

As an open-source community, there needs to be a public record of such issues.

That's what the P2 is for, for better or worse, comments there are the proper way to communicate with the team if you refuse to use their tool of choice - Slack, which is easily accessed by anyone with a WordPress.org account.

Please respect the opinions expressed within this ticket.

Myself, @ocean90 and @netweb represent the #meta team.
The meta team is here to facilitate changes to WordPress.org, but the #meta team doesn't make unilateral changes affecting other teams.
@ocean90 best represents the #polyglots team here, and my experience with the team agrees with that.

Please treat this as our workplace, and be respectful of others.
You've been told multiple times this is not the place for the discussion, please respect that.
Take it to the team directly, those of us on #meta cannot (and will not) act as a proxy for your concerns. Your concerns are not being dismissed, only redirected to those who can properly take it on.

[littlebizzy]

That's what the P2 is for, for better or worse, comments there are the proper way to communicate with the team if you refuse to use their tool of choice - Slack, which is easily accessed by anyone with a WordPress.org account.

I'm not pursuing any "team" members, I'm reporting an enhancement publicly via Trac. I do not see any guidelines in the Trac system that prevent users from doing this. In fact, it's encouraged.

If Trac is no longer public-access, that should be clarified. But there are thousands of enhancement tickets in the Trac archives, so your ongoing harassment here seems inappropriate.

Back to the issue at hand, if anyone has data-backed feedback do please share in this thread --

[ocean90]

Please leave this ticket closed, you're free to add further comments though.

I invite you again to join the public P2 site at ​https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/ or even the weekly chats on Slack which are also public once you can get your free invite via ​https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.

---

I'm reporting an enhancement publicly via Trac.

Which is totally fine, but it only works if the meta team is actually able to handle the request. In this case they are not.

PS: It's a bit odd that you're using a company account to comment here so it's not clear who "I" really is.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to littlebizzy:

Irrelevant to usability, but for the record two ≠ many/much... as a "polyglot" you should know this ;)

Per your own definition, several is enough :)

pol·y·glot
adjective
knowing or using several languages.

Replying to littlebizzy:

A few specific examples of languages that cannot translate the word "Polyglot" (see Google Translate below).

This is both a translation concern and a usability/accessibility concern as well...

Indonesian: ​https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=en&tl=id&u=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2F
Bosnian: ​https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=en&tl=bs&u=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2F
Filipino: ​https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=en&tl=tl&u=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2F
Polish: ​https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=en&tl=pl&u=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2F

Even though Google Translate is probably not the best tool for a thorough language research, if you translate not the whole web page but the "polyglot" word specifically, all of these languages can translate it just fine:

• ​Indonesian: poliglot, mahir baca tulis bnayak bahasa (there's also a ​Polyglot Indonesia community).
• ​Bosnian: poliglot, poliglotski, mnogojezični.
• ​Filipino: lingguwista, taong maraming nalalamang wika.
• ​Polish: poliglota, poliglotyczny.

If you look at the ​Wikipedia article for polyglotism, it's translated into 36 languages, so the concept seems pretty universal. I don't see a usability or accessibility issue here.

As noted above, any team's name should be discussed with the team in question. Both the P2 and Slack are open for anyone with a WordPress.org account. The Meta team cannot make decisions on behalf of other teams, it can only assist with technical implementation.

[fierevere]

One more point:
We're not just translation team.

We are managing locale sites
We are creating and maintaining people social relations in local communities, we are making them global.
We are organizing events, local and global
We are evaluating translations and related i18n/l10n code
We are doing simply a lot more than just translation. GoogleTranslate service is doing "just translation", we are not.

* When i say "We" here, i mean "We - the Polyglots team"

[littlebizzy]

Which is totally fine ...
PS: It's a bit odd that you're using a company account to comment here

@ocean90 Apology accepted. Any relevant opinion to share?

Even though Google Translate is probably not the best tool for a thorough language research, if you translate not the whole web page but the "polyglot" word specifically, all of these languages can translate it just fine:

Those are not translations, those are transliterations. As members of the translation team you guys should knows this frankly... please go ask a Filipino or Indonesian what a "Poliglot" Team does.

Just to confirm for the 5th time, this is not a conversation with a specific team. It is publicly documenting a usability issue that's existed for over a decade that no one has brought up or attempted to improve.

Do you guys not care that most users cannot identity the translation portal?

One more point:
We're not just translation team.

Cool, but not sure what your point is? Feel free to respond to the issue at hand? Please?

What could prompt consideration of a name change? Maybe a user survey? (Obviously not usability data.)

Perhaps the lack of team member diversity is preventing insight...

Are only white men allowed to contribute?

[jejani]

Seriously @ocean90 you get me banned instead of replying to a glaring usability issue?

WordPress.org in a nutshell. Power-trips, hate, and hypocrisy.

The WordPress open source community cares about diversity. We strive to maintain a welcoming environment where everyone can feel included, by keeping communication free of discrimination, incitement to violence, promotion of hate, and unwelcoming behavior.

​https://wordpress.org/about/etiquette/

What a joke.