Documentation for the theme and plugin translation process

[johnbillion]

Now that translations are being served live from translate.wordpress.org for all themes and many plugins, it's noticeable that there's a lack of documentation which explains the process to authors of themes and plugins.

The "Language Packs Coming Soon to Your Plugins" email which is being sent to plugin authors doesn't even explain the process at a high level, and assumes some knowledge of what translate.wordpress.org is.

Documentation needs to be added (preferably to the plugin and theme developer handbooks, and then promoted on the make blogs and emails to plugin authors) which explains:

• What translate.wordpress.org provides
• Who can add and edit translations
• The translation approval process
• Who can and cannot approve translations
• How a language pack goes live (ie. needs 100% translation)
• How a theme or plugin appears in localised theme or plugin directory
• Security and safeguards regarding text that's allowed in translations
• Where issues with translations should be addressed

In addition, and this is probably covered in a separate ticket, there doesn't appear to be any available notifications so theme and plugin authors can be notified of new, updated, or completed translations, which currently makes the process even more opaque.

[samuelsidler]

This doesn't really need to be a meta ticket and should probably just be a post on make/docs. ​See also.

[obenland]

@petya @netweb What's the status on translation docs? Do you think there in a state that satisfies this ticket?

[petya]

I don't think the documentation has been approved much since John wrote this ticket, especially for plugin developers. Let's leave this open.

I see two issues in this ticket - one is the state of documentation and the second is a notification for plugin/theme authors when a project translation is complete. I can help with the first one, even though I don't have access to update any of the plugin/theme development handbooks. If I get pointed to someone who's got access to do that, I can write some drafts.

The second one will need to probably be transferred to a separate meta ticket.

[evarlese]

In the process of ​updating and reorganizing the Polyglots Handbook, we've also updated the ​Plugin/Theme Developer Guide and the changes cover most of the suggestions here.

The one piece missing at the moment is "Security and safeguards regarding text that's allowed in translations." If anyone has any input or edits (esp. on that topic in particular), we can easily revise, so we can get all of this in there.