Announcing a WordPress Community Translation Sprint on September 20 – 24!

One of our Community Team goals for 2021 was to translate our Community handbook into different languages. We officially started work on translating our handbooks to different languages as part of past documentation sprints. I would like to extend our efforts by using the Translation Day Celebrations as an opportunity to translate our handbooks to as many languages as possible. 

Towards this, let’s plan another Documentation sprint (focusing on translating Community team content) from September 20 – 24, 2021, in conjunction with the WordPress Translation Day celebrations organized by the Polyglots team! (Thanks for the idea, @evarlese!)

What is the Community Translation sprint?

From September 20 through 24, community contributors and deputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. work together to translate Community team handbooks and any related documentation for the Community Team to their local language. This differs slightly from the traditional docs sprints we have organized before in that our focus will be on translation. If you are proficient in a non-English language, feel free to join us and help translate the Make/WordPress Community handbook to your local language!

Please note: This translation sprint is restricted to the community team handbook pages – we will not be working on the official wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ documentation as part of this sprint. However, if you wish to translate wordpress.org documentation and need help, please reach out to your local translation team, or simply pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” in #polyglots

Read on to find out more!

What contents need translating?

While it’s up to you to decide where to get started, here are some of the commonly translated contents:

Recommended contents to translate 

If you don’t have any preference for the contents to translate, you can start from these recommended contents.

Meetup Basics
These are the WordPress MeetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. Chapter Program basics and are likely to stay relevant for a long time.

Virtual Event Resources
If you see a lot of confusion in your community with the transition to online events, it’s a good idea to provide translated information for reference. Please note these pages may change more often than others, as the Community Team updates the online event guidelines to adopt the community’s needs.

Returning to In-person WordPress events
The Community Team has prepared resources on how to return to in-person WordPress MeetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook.. As in-person meetups return in locations wherever eligible, getting this documentation translated would help immensely in bringing in-person events back! Here are the documents that need translation:

How do I participate in the documentation sprint?

Anyone can participate in this initiative! The team will keep track of edits in a Google Sheet. Please log all the changes you make in that sheet. The team will also coordinate together in the #community-team channel.

Translate Handbook pages, announcements, and Tuesday Training posts
Translating handbooks is an​ important part of our Translation sprint. All you need to do is to pick a document from the handbook, and start working on a translation in the language of your choice. If you are confused about which document to translate, you can choose from the recommendations in this post. In case you do not have access to your locale’s Rosetta site or HelpHub, you can prepare your translations in a Google Doc (please set the document’s privacy setting to “Anyone with the link can comment,”). Once you have completed the document, please fill-up the Translation sprint tracking sheet so that deputies can track the changes.

If you are creating your translations in Google Docs, don’t forget to reach out to the Locale managers of your Translation locale to merge them into your HelpHub. If you are a Locale Manager or a GTEGeneral Translation Editor General Translation Editor – One of the polyglots team leads in a geographic region https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/. Further information at https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/handbook/glossary/#general-translation-editor., you can start off by creating a handbook page for your Team P2 (in case you do not have one already) and start adding contents over there. If you need permission to create or edit handbook pages, ask in your local community SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. or in #polyglots channel.

You can use the same process to translate important announcements in the Community Team blog or one of the Tuesday Training posts as well! Make sure to publish the posts in your locale’s blog though (speak with your locale manager about the same). While translating documents, please follow the style guide or guidelines set by your locale. Check out the Translating Community Team Handbooks page and the corresponding Tuesday Training to learn more on how to translate handbook pages. You will find more information in our handbook.

WordCamp.org site interface and contents
You can translate the UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. text of the WordCamp.org site on translate.wordpress.org as part of the sprint. For more information about the translation platform, visit the First Steps page of the Polyglots Handbook. Please log any translations you make on the site in the Translation sprint tracking sheet.

Remember: Every contribution, however small, is valuable!

What’s next, once the event is over? 

Locale managers will review and publish all the changes made to the Community Team handbook pages into the respective Rosetta sites and make the contents available for viewing. Community DeputiesDeputy Community Deputies are a team of people all over the world who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and generally keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about deputies in our Community Deputy Handbook. will also review the event, along with the updates that were made to the docs, to evaluate our work and identify areas of improvement in our process (if any). 

I warmly welcome you all once again to join us in this initiative and to help us translate our documentation pages into as many languages as possible. It will go a long way in supporting the WordPress community!

The following people contributed to this post: @evarlese @nao

#sprint #documentation-sprint #wptranslationday #translation-sprint