All Networks My take on the Translations Team removal

[DrHam]

Hi.

I used to be a really active member of the community, and also was part of the translations team for a bit two years ago. I must say, removing the Translations Team (TT) is one of the biggest mistakes cubecraft management has made. And I witnessed some really disastrous movements.

In first place, with the team, all translations had a decent quality and consistency. The former was achieved due to the recruitment process: you had to complete an application (which filtered people with low English knowledge) and then pass a test (which was fairly easy if you knew the language), furthermore, there were proof readers (PR), who approved translations and looked out for typos. However, PR didn't really had to look out of poor grammar, as most of the sentences were grammatically correct, they needed to look out for consistency. The difference between a good translation and a mediocre one is the consistency. A lot of words can be translated as many other words, sometimes giving different meanings the the sentence. And also, the way of writing, pace, delivery... Let's see some examples:

1. "The staff team must ban them"can be translated as:
   1. "El equipo tiene que prohibirlos"
   2. "El equipo tiene que vetarlos"
   3. "El equipo tiene que banearlos"
   4. "Los empleados/as tienen que vetarlos"
   5. "Los empleados tienen que prohibirlos"
   6. And many more
2. "Cheaerts will be banned"
   1. Los tramposos serán prohibidos
   2. Los tramposos serán castigados
   3. Los trampososo serán vetados
   4. Quien haga trampas será castigado
   5. And many more
3. The Anticheat banned you
   
   1. El anticheat te baneó
   2. El anticheat te prohibió
   3. El anticheat te baneó
   4. Fuiste baneado por el anticheat
   5. El sistema antitrampas te vetó
   6. And many more

See what all three have in common? They're related to banning someone. See how many ways there are to translate the same word? Now, with a translation team, a translation for the word "banned" can be agreed on, and used everywhere. With an open translation system, this is really hard to achieve, and would give PR a lot of (needless) work. Want a real-life example? The game SCP: Secret Laboratory uses community made translations, and while they are reviewed, most of the time the translations lack consistency (due to translations being made by different people, from different countries with different dialects). Lack of translation consistency looks really unprofessional. Not to mention how hard it'll be to review each submission (you don't really know who the translator really is, if they have good knwoledge of the language, etc).


In second place, if what I have read is true, who thought closing a team with no prioir warning was a good idea? Some translators have been since the team started, others not for so much. All of them spent a lot of time working for free because they wanted to. Yes, maybe, maybe, after a lot of time, one could be promoted to Staff Team Translator (lack of better words), one, if I remember correctly, it's Obsidian+ (150 EUR, free of cbarge for CubeCraft). Or maybe, you could keep getting discounts for ranks (pay them for your work) points multipliers, etc. Basically, had a lot of people working on their free time translating for free whenever was needed... and it was decided to shack them all? Imagine the frustration all of them have to endure, all their work, disappeared, no proof of them contributing, no nothing. Dispensable manpower. Sr Translator? Nah, we needn't your feedback about TT future.

I don't want to imagine how rotten must be CubeCraft internally. Poor management makes poor decisions.

 

[Lunyi]

given they recruit literal children as helpers/moderators it shouldn't be surprising that the management is... not of the best quality, to not offend some poor souls ;)

suggesting any feedback that is not praising the staff may get you in trouble if an admin wakes up in a bad mood. they will not admit their mistake because they consider themselves the smartest people on the network.

just saying they're eating themselves at this point and no amount of warnings/punishment handed out straight to my DMs will change my opinion :) looking at you, certain staff member.

again - throwing the translation quest on the open board will NOT make it more productive, as I myself witnessed such things happen. if anything, it will slow down the progress.
congratulations cube, well done decision-making /s

 

[Ellie Williams]

I can think of two words that exist in English but not Chinese and numerous swear words that google translate doesn't recognize as swears, right off the bat.

Imagine trying to be consistent on that.

Oh yeah, @SpringWarz said that they'll use google translate or something to do reports translations or something. Good luck entering foreign scripts from screenshots into that lmfao

 

[Nacio]

In second place, if what I have read is true, who thought closing a team with no prioir warning was a good idea? Some translators have been since the team started, others not for so much. All of them spent a lot of time working for free because they wanted to. Yes, maybe, maybe, after a lot of time, one could be promoted to Staff Team Translator (lack of better words), one, if I remember correctly, it's Obsidian+ (150 EUR, free of cbarge for CubeCraft). Or maybe, you could keep getting discounts for ranks (pay them for your work) points multipliers, etc. Basically, had a lot of people working on their free time translating for free whenever was needed... and it was decided to shack them all? Imagine the frustration all of them have to endure, all their work, disappeared, no proof of them contributing, no nothing. Dispensable manpower. Sr Translator? Nah, we needn't your feedback about TT future.

Let me correct you here, the TT wasn't eligible for any rewards for their "contributions" (wouldn't want to call it work, now would we) for quite some time, I believe the reason for this was "because no, sorry", anyway going further...

In first place, with the team, all translations had a decent quality and consistency. [...] they needed to look out for consistency. The difference between a good translation and a mediocre one is the consistency.

This is something I've personally tried to focus on, going through entire sheets (back when we used Google Spreadsheets) and now on Weblate, obviously I am sure there's still strings that are inconsistent since I'm only human after all, but it could've been fixed over time (no one ever thought of a translations bug reporting system, gonna need one now). I can't even begin to imagine how that is supposed to be done by a wide community, or even the leftover proofreaders (I'd imagine there's ~0.1 proofreaders per language now, if not 0), it's realistically impossible (but I'll let the Admins believe it is).

At this point, this is entirely irreversible, I'm obviously in contact with many old Translators and Proofreaders and they wouldn't come back even if offered money, - I'd love to use a certain phrase here but I wouldn't want Eli to have to advocate for me because of a warning again, so instead - they've made their bed, and now they'll have to lie in it.

 

[Buckyy]

I don't want to imagine how rotten must be CubeCraft internally. Poor management makes poor decisions.

Their appeals system will be affected by this change and there will be misunderstandings, their partner verification system as well.

I have seen a moderator saying that they will use google translator if is necessary. I wonder how are they going to copy letters from Cyrillic alphabets into google translator.

 

[Ellie Williams]

Their appeals system will be affected by this change and there will be misunderstandings, their partner verification system as well.

I have seen a moderator saying that they will use google translator if is necessary. I wonder how are they going to copy letters from Cyrillic alphabets into google translator.

@SpringWarz yeah how do you guys plan on doing that? I don't trust OCR that much

 

[Buckyy]

@SpringWarz yeah how do you guys plan on doing that? I don't trust OCR that much

Unfortunately OCR is not accurate, therefore will create more misunderstandings

 

[Ellie Williams]

Yup, just as I said.

 

[solarxysm]

I can think of two words that exist in English but not Chinese and numerous swear words that google translate doesn't recognize as swears, right off the bat.

Imagine trying to be consistent on that.

Oh yeah, @SpringWarz said that they'll use google translate or something to do reports translations or something. Good luck entering foreign scripts from screenshots into that lmfao

fr tho.. in tagalog there are so many words that dont come out correct in google translate because they have a very vague english equivalent. i can already think of “pambahay” try putting it through google translate which comes out as household which is similar but NOT WHAT IT MEANS see this is why you need the translation team you need them to cover every little quirk of a language no matter how small, there are swear words in tagalog that wont translate properly through google, take

Spoiler: SWEAR WORD:

putang ina mo

for example, if you try putting it through google translate, nothing will show up so you need people who have actual experience in the language, people who know the quirks and nuances

 

[Ellie Williams]

yup it's happening