Tag: WordPress

WordCamp Europe 2019 Contributor Day: Polyglots Team

Naoko Takano

As a polyglot, WordCamp Europe Contributor Day has always been one of the most exciting WordPress events to attend since I had experienced it for the first time.

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This year, I came back to WCEU (my last time was Vienna 2016) and the day was as great as I remembered, if not more.

At the Polyglots Team table, there were at least 60 volunteers. I was lucky to work with several experience translators and GTEs, as well as many brand-new contributors.

What we did:

  • Translation of core/plugins/themes/meta projects in Maltese, Serbian, German Informal & Formal, Portuguese, Arabic, Serbian, French, Japanese, Dutch, Persian, Hindi, Gujarati, Italian, Polish, Spanish, Catalan, and Afrikaans.
  • Translation review request documentation in English, Italian, Japanese, and Polish.
  • 12 translator interviews in collaboration with the Marketing Team.
  • Discussion on support & community documentation internationalization.

It was also great to catch up with WordPress Translation Day 4 organizers & local event hosts, and other polyglots contributors who are active in other teams.

Looking forward to continuing collaborating with polyglots on the Make Polyglots P2 and WordPress Slack #polyglots channel!

 

Global WordPress Translation Day in Tokyo

September 30 was the third Global WordPress Translation Day (GWTD3).

Global WordPress Translation Day 3

649 translators for 60 different locales added 93,179 translations over the 24-hour period. 346 projects (core, meta, plugins, themes, and apps) got new language pack created as a result.

Meetups & Online Events in Japan

In Japan, there were four local meetups in Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, and Ogijima. We also had several online participants on WordSlack, the Slack instance for the Japanese WordPress community.

We held the Translation Day event in Tokyo at Gengo office for the second time following the last year. Active translation contributors Mayuko (Mayo) & Akira (atachibana) were there, and we had a nice mix of new and experienced polyglots.

“How to Make Strings Translator-Friendly” session

From 11 am, three of us did a live session on for the Crowdcast streaming.

The idea of the session came out from a question from WordCamp Tokyo Contributor Day participant. He asked how we should translate ALL CAPS, and some of us said: “we actually don’t have a good way to translate it in Japanese (because the Japanese language doesn’t make use of capitalization)”. Then, Mirucon said the best thing we can do is to try letting developers know not to use language-specific expressions such as this.

Mayuko, Akira, and I gathered some examples of strings that we can’t translate well and I categorized them into four types. I hope this is useful for anyone writing strings for WordPress, its themes & plugins, and any other products to be localized.

Making strings translator-friendly can not only help translators but improves the overall quality of the text for all users. Precise and unambiguous instructions and UI labels can be a great feature on its own.

It’s Fun to Work Together

I was only able to stay until 3 pm since I have kids waiting at home, but I’m glad I was able to join the offline event even for a short time. I enjoyed working side by side with other translators — it’s not something I experience much, as a member of a distributed company.

But working with a remote team was also a fun part of the event. It was great to see the GWTD3 organizing team put together the whole thing with strong teamwork (I’m listed as one of the team members but I had a minimum involvement due to my early maternity leave, the hard work was done by everyone else!).

Suggesting translation is one of the easiest ways to start contributing to the WordPress open source project for those who understand multiple languages.

You don’t have to wait until the next Translation Day to get started 😄

WPTD3-wapuu-512

WordCamp Kyoto 2017 Photos

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WordCamp Kyoto 2017 took place on June 24-25. Around 350 people gathered at Kyoto University and enjoyed the time togeter as WordPress enthusiasts.

Day 0: Travel & Speakers Dinner

On the day before the event, two of my colleagues and I took a bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto. We walked around Kiyomizudera Temple and Nineizaka, then went to the Speaker’s Dinner in Sijō.

Kiyomizudrea
Kiyomizudera
Nineizaka
Totoro at Kyoto Nineizaka
Kamogawa at dusk

Day 1: Session Day

Saturday was a session day. We arrived at the venue early to set up Automattic (Jetpack/WooCommerce) tables. All went by fast – I gave a talk about WordPress.com (video/sildes), attended a session about translation, and mostly talked to people at the sponsorship table.

International Science Innovation Building
“Sponsor booth tour” flag
Automattic hiring cards
Jetpack booth
WooCommerce booth
Me during my session (Photo by Atsushi Ando)
Perler beads table
Perler beads Wapuu
George at the booth

The organizing team did a great job excecuting the event, closely focusing around session while keeping a relatively simple overall setup. They had beautiful and very original swag too!

Handmade Japanese Unbrella
Tea cup, tenugui, & sticker
Keychain & sticker

I received some more Wapuu stickers and postcards from Tachibana-san, who went to WordCamp Europe in Paris.

At the after party, I talked some more people… For someone who work alone for most of the days and use typed words as the main means of communication, it felt as if I was intensely training my vocal cord during these WordCamp days.

After party flash talk
Me & Nukaga-san (Photo by Atsushi Ando)

Day 2: Contributor Day

Then on Sunday, about 100 people participated in the Contributor Day. I helped as a mentor for the documentation and polyglots teams.

It was a very well-organized setup and each team got a lot of things done in a day. There were many first-time contributors — it looked like they had a good time while learning how to get involved in many aspects of the WordPress project.

Contributor Day: WordCamp Kyoto 2017
Kyoto University
Contirbutor Day staff meeting

Day 3: Coworking

On the final day, some of us met up at Tenrō-in Bookstore (天狼院書店) for a little bit of coworking. It’s a renovated old house with two floors of coworking/café space.

2nd floor of Tenrō-in
With WC Kyoto main organizer Okamoto-san
1st floor of Tenrō-in

This trip made me realize it again that the WordPress community in the Kansai region (= Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, etc.) is very strong. With multiple local leaders that have experience in organizing WordCamps and meetups, the team is diverse and giving good infulence to each other.

I’m sure they will put together a great WordCamp next year – you should come and see it yourself, and get to know this part of Japan too!