Something had to change, but to rectify that problem was a daunting task.  Not only were documents outdated or obsolete, but also they were scattered through the Mozilla Wiki (wikimo) and the Mozilla Developer Center (MDC) like wet leaves across a yard, over into flowerbeds and onto the driveway.

Staś (and the l10n team, but primarily Staś) took up the goal of overhauling Mozilla’s l10n documentation.  One result of a lot of work and many meetings was a Delicious page that we created and titled “Mozdocs“.  If you’ve clicked through on that link, you’ll see our attempt to bookmark and tag *every document written* about Mozilla localization.  This became our base for updating all of our documentation.

The Mozdocs Site

Staś determined that the best way to work was to create an inventory of what we had, categorize that, and then begin work.  And so, we began by finding pages in our documentation and adding them to the Mozdocs page.  We then tagged each page we found with something that described it.

Tagging pages became critical in our ability to work on these docs.  Staś created a set of meta tags that tell us some information about the state of the page.  Namely, does it need to be updated, is it obsolete, does it need to be fixed, should it be deleted, and more.  We also have “location” tags that tell us where we found the document (i.e. my blog, Axel’s blog, Mozilla Wiki, etc.).  Lastly, we have general purpose tags that describe the document.

If you’re interested, Mozdocs could be a very helpful page for you to get a sense of what is in the Mozilla L10n inventory of docs.

New documents, New Naming Guidelines

As foreman of the cleanup crew, Staś also determined that we needed to separate our documents properly.  MDC would serve as the place for docs that describe how to develop and localize and can be abstrated from the Mozilla process.  The Mozilla Wiki would serve as the spot for anything specific to the Mozilla Project’s localization process.

Get that?  MDC = how to/abstract from Mozilla; Wikimo = Mozilla process.

As we created and edited documents, we made sure that they were placed on the proper platform.  Furthermore, we started to rename documents using new “Naming Guidelines“.  If you plan to create a new localization document on the Mozilla Wiki or MDC, we are asking that you use the following (Below is one massive hyperlink to the Naming Guidelines from the previous sentence):

1. Always use the L10n: namespace (wikimo only)
   • Bad: Firefox_productization_guidelines
   • Bad: L10n_Firefox_Productization
   • Good: L10n:Firefox/Productization
2. For hierarchies, use /, not :. This will create breadcrumbs automatically.
   • Bad: L10n:Firefox:Productization
   • Good: L10n:Firefox/Productization
3. Prefer hierarchies than longer names if you need to disambiguate.
   • Bad: L10n:Firefox_Productization
   • Good: L10n:Firefox/Productization
4. If not ambiguous, simplify.
   • Bad: L10n:Product/Firefox/Namoroka
   • Good: L10n:Namoroka
   • Good: L10n:Firefox/Productization and L10n:Mobile/Productization are OK, because L10n:Productization is a more general document.
5. Don’t repeat yourself:
   • Bad: L10n:Firefox/Firefox_Productization
   • Good: L10n:Firefox/Productization
6. Add localization-related tags (on MDC) or categories (on wikimo)
   • On wikimo, use [[Category:L10n]] anywhere in the contents of the page.

Our hope is that all new pages that deal with Localization will follow these naming guidelines.

And now, your turn…

As I mentioned, if you’re interested in scanning the inventory of documents, take a look at Mozdocs and the tags we have created.  This could be a very helpful page for you to get a sense of what is in the Mozilla L10n inventory of docs.

Also, if you are finding new documents, can you please tell us and we’ll tag them on the Delicious site?  Staś is the module owner of this site and we are accepting any “patches” to it.  So, if you want to add something, just let us know and we will make the change.

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Got a presentation or topic you want to discuss?  Email me or comment or this blog and we’ll see how to get it in a slot.  I intentionally left some open blocks so localizers can attend other non-l10n talks of interest.   See you in Prague next week.

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“This causes the comment to become irrelevant to the text it references.  Additionally, if someone then fixes the localization note, localizers won’t be notified on this change, and the comment does not get changed in our translations…As some of us are actually reading such comments before translating, it is important to get it 100% accurate.”

Here is an example that Tomer provides.

<!– LOCALIZATION NOTE (bookmarksSidebarGtkCmd.commandkey): This command
-  key should not contain the letters A-F, since these are reserved
-  shortcut keys on Linux. –>
<!ENTITY bookmarksGtkCmd.commandkey “o”>

You can see that example in our code on MXR here:  http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla1.9.2/source/browser/locales/en-US/chrome/browser/browser.dtd#110

For those readers who may not be seeing what is happening here, notice that the <!– LOCALIZATION NOTE –> is referencing “bookmarksSidebarGtkCmd.commandkey“, but the !ENTITY variable name is actually “bookmarksGtkCmd.commandkey“.

That mismatch in the entity names has made that localization note untrackable by any locaization tools.  Unfortunately, localization tools will not understand which comment belongs to bookmarksGtkCmd.commandkey.  Furthermore, localizers who use these notes for translations will have to make the educated guess where the comment is pointing.  If the note gets updated in the future, it’s likely that localizers will miss it.

Tomer suggested writing a script to look for these mismatches.  In the very least, I am hoping this post will spread the awareness to developers to remember to do this.  A quick request from l10n community: please maintain localization notes if entities get changed.

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• Population is 92 million, online population is between 20-24 million
• English is one of the official languages of the Philippines.  Tagalog is spoken by roughly 22 million people in and around Manila.  Cebuano is another language spoken by nearly 20 million Filipinos south of the Luzon region (where Manila is located).
• Depending on what factor we use as a multiplier for our blocklist/AUS ping data, we can estimate that between 3 and 6 million Filipinos are using Firefox.  That is a rough guess, but it places Firefox market share at a low-end of 12.5% and a high-end of 30%
• Most people we spoke to browse the Web in English (Firefox US version), but some did suggest that a local version would have appeal.
• Even further debate arose on whether a Tagalog version would have traction, with an audience of bloggers at Wordcamp responding collectively that it might not.

That latter point does not rule out Mozilla shipping a local version of Firefox.  But, like every other localization, if we were to ship something localized to the Philippines, it will be because a local community member(s) responds to my call to action and decides to help us complete the body of work.

Obviously, Mozilla Firefox is taking off in the the Philippines, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see if the nascent community stepped forward with an offer to localize Firefox.

Finally, take a look at some stats about Firefox in the Philippines.  (All numbers are based on our blocklist data.)

Growth of blocklist pings over one year

The Philippines is #4 on the list

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However, as we ramp up our efforts to localize Firefox 3.6, and a mobile Firefox, we have been reaching out to our “mn” community leader, Natsagdorj (Nagi) Shagdar, but have had no response to the emails we have sent.  I guess it’s an inevitability to have some turnover when a 100% volunteer community rallies together to ship Firefox in over 70 languages.  Building sustainable communities is critical to our ongoing success and something we take very seriously.

Therefore, this is an open blog post to reconnect with our Mongolian team in order to make sure everything is OK and receive a status update on the work/team going forward.  It would be terrific to receive an email from Nagi or others to let me know how to proceed with work on the mn locale.

This post serves a secondary purpose because we also would like to invite any others interested in joining the Mozilla Mongolian community to contact us.  We are looking for community members to help take up some of the localization effort so we don’t lose all that we have accomplished with the mn version.  Plus, we don’t want to let down thousands of our Mongolian users who will be looking for the latest and greatest when Firefox 3.6 comes out.

If you have interest in joining the community or know of anyone who might help in some capacity (even with simple referrals), then contact me through the comment section of this blog.  We have a robust set of community members and tools that makes localization easy and fun.

As a matter of fact, we are welcoming all newcomers, so just ping me.  Thanks, everyone!

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Since one of our localization community leaders, Dwayne Bailey, posted the following message via Facebook, I thought I would repost it on my blog.  Sorry for lifting the email and reposting if you’ve already read this note, but I’m hoping to provide maximum coverage.

“Are you a Sepedi speaker, Firefox user or able to help test a Pedi version of Firefox? Yes that probably means all of you

“This work is soon to be part of the African Network for Localisation (ANLoc) (http://www.africanlocalisation.net/) activities where we’ll be localising Firefox into a number of African languages. So your help here can help change the way Africans view the internet, create content, etc, etc. You’re about to change the world!

“OK testers here we go:

1. Make sure you have Mozilla Firefox. Visit http://www.mozilla.com and install Firefox if needed.
2. Start Firefox
3. Visit the Northern Sotho collection https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/northern-sotho
4. Install both the Northern Sotho language pack and the Locale Switcher
5. Restart Firefox
6. Change your user interface language by selecting: Tools -> Languages -> Northern Sotho
7. Restart Firefox

“Enjoy Firefox in Northern Sotho!  Whenever we update the translations you should get new copies.   Please provide any feedback on the Translate.org.za Facebook wall (or on Seth’s blog).

“If you would like to get involved in the actual translation or in fixing errors then please contact Dwayne via Facebook (or Seth’s Blog). If your interested we could have a Northern Sotho Firefox bug day at our offices and work at fixing any errors.  But most of all HAVE FUN!”

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Presently, we have two communities, the tzLUG and the Kilinux teams, who have translated the Firefox application into Kiswahili (sw-TZ).  Unfortunately, we have had tough luck in getting an unbiased, thorough evaluation of each body of work to help us decide which one to use.  As it turned out, it was hard to find a number of individuals familiar enough with technical writing and Kiswahili who had time on their hands to volunteer for Mozilla.  Furthermore, we didn’t have an easy package to evaluate, except for the “diff” of the code differences between the two.  Yeah, that sounds ugly and it was.  Still is.

To solve what has become a long-standing debate, we asked each team leader to create a Mozilla language pack of their work as an add-on that we would then host on and promote though our addons.mozilla.org website.  Both teams agreed and uploaded their versions.  Since then, I created two separate “collections” that bundle each language pack with Ben Smedberg’s Locale Switcher addon.  Our hope is that end-users ready to test will install both versions and use the addons.mozilla.org site to provide feedback to each developer team.

If you are interested in testing each version, please install the following two collections:

• Kilinux:  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/kiswahili.kilinux
• tzLUG:  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/kiswahili.tzlug

Once you have installed these, you can switch between the two versions and your English interface by going to the menu item Tools –> Languages…

Now for testing…

Requirements: You must be able to read Swahili and English fluently and you must use Firefox.

If you choose to test these localization language packs, you’ll need to follow something similar to the “Firefox 3.5 Localizer Test Run” that has been created in Litmus, Mozilla’s testing application.  If you use Litmus, please follow the steps I have posted in the first comment on this blog post.

You can also just use each language pack and keep notes of errors you spot.  Whether you choose to use Litmus or not, please record any translation errors that you find in the user interface of each version.  Please be very descriptive and thorough with any notes you keep, and write the notes in English.  Take a look at the word choices, terminology, spelling, grammar, etc. and keep a record of errors you see.  When you are finished, you can submit your evaluation to me.  Just ping me on this blog.

As always, please ask some questions if you have them.  Nothing is off limits.

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On the day we released, our community found two very similar errors in our mk and sr builds.  In both cases, a misspelling of &brandShortName; inside an <!ENTITY> triggered the “the yellow screen of death” when users selected the Help -> Check for Updates… option to get the new version.

A thousand apologies to our localizers and mk and sr users for not catching these errors pre-release.

With damage control in full swing, we removed the two localizations from the Firefox 3.5 release channels so that users would not receive a broken version of Firefox. The two localizers and the l10n-drivers then worked through our options.  We could either release a special post-Firefox 3.5 Macedonian and Serbian version, or wait until the release of Firefox 3.5.1.

The unexpected timing of the Firefox 3.5.1 release helped us with the above decision.  Although the circumstances of the security update were not ideal, it did allow us to release mk and sr earlier than expected, getting users of those localizations back on the release track. Furthermore, any users who might have gotten the broken mk or sr version of Firefox 3.5 on release day will be updated behind-the-scenes without having to check for updates.  [1]

What happened on the 3.5 release day underscored a few errors in our system that need to be fixed. Here are the proposed and soon-to-be or already implemented measures we are taking to reduce this margin of error:

• Localization sign-off via the Web: Rather than opting-in with change sets, localizers will soon select the Mercurial change set they want to use for a release from a list of IDs pulled from their locale’s repository.  How does this help?  In Macedonian’s case, a localizer *had* submitted to Axel a change set that corrected the error prior to RC3.  However, Axel was unreachable at a conference and couldn’t relay that update to me.  Sadly, I submitted the incorrect change set.  Mea culpa.  This application allows localizers, l10n-drivers, and Firefox project managers to view the choices that have been made, and to the extent possible, test to make sure that the version the localizer wants is good for release.
• Test automation: We are working on creating a script that can be run by our QA team before each milestone that will scan for misspellings in things like &brandShortName;. This bug is tracking that progress.  Our QA team also is increasing the number of automated tests that will be run on each locale before each milestone release.
• L10n-testable builds: Presently, we are producing testable nightly builds with Axel’s l10n-merge code that will create localizations with en-US strings replacing any untranslated ones.  Now, localization teams can give their testing communities something to test from the beginning of the release process.  In the past, localizers had to wait until they had 100% translation before we provided them a nightly build.
• Localized builds with nightly updates: Added to the testable builds above, we’ll soon be able to offer nightly updates to localizers and their testing communities.  Right now, only en-US testers of Mozilla’s pre-release versions get nightly updates pushed to them.  Soon, *all* localizations will get these nightly updates pushed their way so our global testing community can see the most recent additions made by Mozilla’s developers.

These tools empower the localizers and the testing community, and we believe will help narrow our margin of error so that we don’t repeat what happened to our mk and sr builds.

Many thanks to our Macedonian and Serbian localization teams for their understanding and patience and sorry for the errors discovered at the time of the Firefox 3.5 release.

[1] Mozilla developer rstrong and his team fixed this bug and cleaned up a lot of code for the Firefox 3.5 release so that users of Firefox get updated behind-the-scenes without having to check for updates or get prompted unnecessarily if they want/need an update.

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With the release of Firefox 3.5, Mozilla added twenty-seven localizations and grew our locale count by 56.25%. Future versions of this graph might include an overlay that shows Firefox usage statistics for each of these locales. I’ll work with Ken Kovash to figure out some more ways to interesting present the data.

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Sadly, amidst all we have done to ship Firefox to seventy-five locales, it was frustrating to read a blog post from one person suggesting that Mozilla’s l10n-drivers team is playing politics when it comes to shipping the Swahili version.  If it needs to be made explicitly clear, we are in the business of shipping excellent localized software to as many locales as possible.  If our team allowed politics to disrupt prudent judgment, I am not sure we would scale at all.

In his post, huarya writes, “The Mozilla people want to play nice with everyone instead of giving priority to the team that has actually showed results, real result!”.  I responded extensively in the comment thread, an d here is a copy of my lengthy response for those who care to read it:

huayra:  I’m not sure if we have ever spoken personally, so it seems a bit careless to suggest that we are playing politics.  If we have spoken via email or IRC, then my apologies.  You can find me on irc.mozilla.org, nick: sethb.