ErCiccione: Coordinator of the Localization Workgroup - March
Preview of the proposal: https://repo.getmonero.org/monero-project/ccs-proposals/blob/6f045dfbf677a453a45ef38db7136cd9bae2bc22/ErCiccione-localizations.md
Feedbacks/suggestions/critics are welcome.
Merge request reports
Activity
What are the specific milestones that you have set for this proposal?
I don't see any clear goals or planned objectives for what the Monero Localization Workgroup will be doing for the 3 months of funding being requested.
The proposal in its current state is requesting $3,000 per month for 3 months to maintain work that has already been done.
If the scope of this proposal is not simply maintaining the state of past work, maybe it would be helpful to establish clear milestones for work to be done during those 3 months.
Right now the two functions you have described in your proposal are "support" and "coordinate".
With regards to support, the Pootle translation platform is quite user friendly and does not require significant overhead to assist translators. (That was the point of switching to Pootle in the first place right?)
With regards to coordinate, I do not see any meaningful projects, milestones or plans that would justify 30 hours per week of work for 3 months. Maintaining the translation tools and making announcements do not consume 30 hours of work per week.
I vote against this proposal until amended to reflect meaningful work and milestones that would justify 30 hours per week of work for 3 months.
I don't see any clear goals or planned objectives for what the Monero Localization Workgroup will be doing for the 3 months of funding being requested.
Check better and maybe take a look a the past proposals.
The proposal in its current state is requesting $3,000 per month for 3 months to maintain work that has already been done.
Every single word of this sentence is false: I add languages, features, tools, guides, trackers all the time. Last week I announced 8 new languages available for translators to work on for the GUI and this very proposal contains the plans for future additions (just a hint: translation memory). You say 3000$, that's the case now, but it rarely happens when it's time to get the reward. As any other long term community funded member can testimony, we got screwed up badly by volatility (that's the reason why sarang and surae are asking their reward in advance). Please read the proposal and get familiar with the activities of the localization workgroup if you are going to comment on the matter. I also suggest you to check the average compensation of a Localization manager for a project this big, I assure you I would be paid at least twice that hourly amount if working for a company.
the Pootle translation platform is quite user friendly and does not require significant overhead to assist translators.
Beside the fact that we currently use Pootle for 2 of the 7 major projects I take care of, so you are missing a big chunk of work, saying that a platform is user-friendly and then translators do not require much support is just moronic and shows that you have no idea of the complexity of Monero, how the structures we use work or how localizations work. For example, did you ever ask yourself who reviews every single translated string of the GUI on Pootle? Do you have a minimal idea of how much time that takes? Please get familiar with these subjects before making false assumptions.
With regards to coordinate, I do not see any meaningful projects, milestones or plans that would justify 30 hours per week of work for 3 months
Again, I invite you to make your researches before affirming something so absurd. I take care of more than 7 projects made in different languages and structures by different developers; the GUI has more than 30 languages, Monerujo more than 18, the website takes months for adding one single language. You are right, I usually don't work 30 hours a week, but much more. If you don't believe me, you can ask some of the Monero contributors who are familiar with our projects and the amount of work behind them.
You haven't participated in any way to our codebase, I haven't seen any contribution of yours in the GUI, CLI, daemon, getmonero, kovri, monerujo or other Monero projects, you are not a developer or coder and you don't participate to developer or community meetings. Your only meaningful contribution to the Monero ecosystem in years is fixing a couple of typos on Mastering Monero. I really don't know what your statements are based on, but I'm honestly not interested in continueing the conversation with you, I consider you a toxic person that only harmed the communty with your actions. I answered your nonsensical points because I wanted the situation to be clear to outside readers.
Edited by erciccioneCheck better and maybe take a look a the past proposals.
I just looked at your last proposal. Now that you mention it, why does your current proposal include a payment for March when you were already paid for March from your last proposal? You were paid 53 XMR on March 18, 2019 so why are you requesting another 48 XMR for the month of March?
Maybe this is a mistake and you meant to say April, May, and June not March, April May?
From your past proposals, I see that you list the same bullet points of translation projects that you maintain. What is the status of completion for these projects? Certainly the Localization projects that have already been completed should not be listed again and again.
I still don't see a list of objectives or plans for any of your past proposals. Maybe start by listing each language for each project and the percent completed for each item. Then specify goals to translate which language for which project for this specific quarter.
Right now your proposal basically just says "continue working" and this is the exact sort of non-specific goal setting that led to the mis-allocation of community funds for the Kovri project.
Please read the proposal and get familiar with the activities of the localization workgroup if you are going to comment on the matter.
I did. Additionally I have used the Monero Pootle interface personally and can attest to the simplicity for translators to jump in and get started with no need to be managed.
You haven't participated in any way to our codebase
What does this conversation have to do with me? We are talking about YOUR proposal and the lack of goal setting and transparency with regards to what you are getting paid to do.
I answered your nonsensical points because I wanted the situation to be clear to outside readers.
You did not answer any of the points I raised and resorted to personal attacks when I proposed a reasonable critique and improvement to your proposal. Outside readers can clearly see this.
Edited by XeaguI have followed the work of ErCiccione for a long time. His contributions to translations makes and has made Monero unique in it's ability to serve a large and ever expanding percentage of people. His work with
the localization workgroup as well as other areas has shown his dedication to the development of Monero.I would donate to this CCS.
I don't like the attitude that Xeagu is taking here, but it seems like the previous FFS proposal covered March. I would like for @erciccione to adjust the dates of this one to April, May, June or offer an explanation for the double coverage.
@sgp what attitude?
-
@sgp I think the confusion is due to fact that the difference between milestone reached and payout released in the two proposal and also that i opened my proposal one month late. In my case, rewards are released the month after the mileston is reached. so, last FFS proposal covered December, january and February; with release of payments the month after. last reward i received was at the beginning of March, for the work done on February. Now i would receive the reward for march on April and so on. @luigi1111 can confirm.
There is no double coverage, as it is explained at the bottom of the two funding requests:
Last proposal:
Payouts will be around the 7th of every month (January, February, March)This proposal:
Payouts will be around the 7th of every month (April, March, May). I'm making this proposal a bit late, so i'm asking the funds for the work i've done since the end of last proposal.I understand it's not clear, i can edit this proposal to make it clearer if necessary. changing milestones or whatever.
Edit: Now i understand the confusion: on the old system the milestone was set to when the payout for the milestone was released, here i set it on when the milestone is reached (the month before the reward is released).
Edited by erciccione -
i realized i actully wrote the milestones wrong in the milestones section. I realized only now, i'm sorry about that. I updated the request using the month the payout will be released, therefore milestone reached, to avoid any confusion. Now both sections are set to April, May, June. Diff: https://repo.getmonero.org/monero-project/ccs-proposals/merge_requests/53/diffs?diff_id=1376&start_sha=4d9d46815e8af32620834339a50299ca2b17f3ac
Edited by erciccione Thanks for clearing that up @erciccione
Looking at Pootle, it looks like the Monero GUI is 60-70% translated into all of the 42 listed languages. Most of the remaining translations for the GUI seem to be Pirate, Ukrainian, Polish, Lithuanian, Korean, Indonesian, Croatian, Hindi, Hebrew, Danish, Czech, Catalan, Arabic, and Finnish (these are roughly 50% completed for the GUI). How are the people making these translations incentivized by you to produce more translations? Where is there a lack of human translating resources for these languages?
For the GUI, the languages Bengali, Persian, Irish, Urdu, Zulu, Greek, and Nepali are at 0% currently. What is your strategy for finding people who can translate these languages? How much of your 30 hours per week is devoted to that purpose?
The CLI Wallet is maybe only <1% completed across 37 languages. If I understand correctly you supervise and coordinate the over 60 volunteers that do these translations. I would it helpful if you broke how down your 30 hours per week of labor is broken down given that a large majority of the actual translation work is done by other people. At 30hr/week you would be spending ~5 hours per day. Do you spend 5 hours each day messaging translators? When you aren't following up on the volunteer translators, what are you doing with the rest of your paid time?
I am interested to hear more about your outreach strategy to find new capable translators and incentivize them to volunteer their time and labor.
This CCS has some in favor and one apparent dissenter/request for comments. In light of this being a repeat user, to generally favorable reception, AFAIK, this CCS will likely proceed.
However, I'm interested to hear others' thoughts. Should any of the questions be blockers here? Do they warrant addressing, even if the CCS should proceed in either case?
I'm going to delay 24 hours for comments, and then go from there.
I'll chime in here since I didn't really express my thoughts so much as gave a thumbs up at the beginning. As someone who actually has contributed translations to the GUI, CLI, and Monerujo since the GUI beta 2 came out, I don't think the dissenter really has a notable understanding of the work involved that is done by erciccione.
Setting up Pootle for the GUI and CLI took a considerable amount of time. Unfortunately it looks like given annoying bugs with Pootle (https://github.com/translate/pootle/issues/6892), the lack of Pootle's response, and generally stale master branch, erciccione has his work cut out for him and will have to find and integrate a suitable replacement for Pootle, and then update the documentation, etc. erciccione does follow up with translators (he has with me on a couple of occasions). If people want money for offering a translation, they can request it of the community similar to how if someone believes they have something of value to add to the codebase and want money for it, they can make a CCS for it.
In short, there's plenty of work for erciccione to do in the near future, and as a translator I appreciate the work he has done thus far and don't really see the questions raised as roadblockers, more like obvious rhetorical ones: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink"
-
As i said to luigi in private, i'm not going to answer to questions that have an answer in my CCS or that are obvious (i'll say it again: we use Pootle for 2 of 7 projects). The ONE commenter against my proposal has shown to not understand how the the workgroup i cordinate works. After all the work i do and keep doing, far beyond the amount of hours i'm paid for, i must say i'm very disappointed by the fact that a single rogue member who, as you all know, i called out for his scammy behaviour multiple times (maybe this is the reason he is questioning my proposal?) has the power to delay my CCS, especially when 6 other people already gave their support. A wolf disguised as a sheep is still a wolf.
edit: To be clear: i would be happy to answer to any question/concern from any other member of the community. It just drives me crazy that @xeagu is literally making stuff up, and the first dissenter in 6 proposals has the power to make the core team question my work. That make me feel extremely undervalued.
I find this situation insulting.
@sanecito Thanks for your support :)
Edited by erciccione 
@erciccione has always been available anytime i needed his help for translations, and very efficient in all of the projects he managed in and around the workgroup.
I believe he actually goes underpaid considering he is available and working for the projects almost 14h a day, 7 days a week.
I thought I would not have to further explain why our community needs erciccione, but with the recent drama around @xeagu CCS proposal, and his questionable queries here, I do want to make it clear.
@erciccione the core team is not questioning your work. They merely asked the community if anyone agreed and wanted further elaboration besides Xeagu. So far it doesn't seem there is anyone who cares besides him, so you're in the clear.
Tone that insultedness down. You're very necessary in the community. When there is someone who stirs trouble, we still have to go about resolving the trouble in the best way possible. 24 hours to give anyone a chance to voice agreement with Xeagu is a molehill. Don't make it a mountain.
I support moving this to Funding Required btw. We need Erciccione and his work more than we need most.
In light of the expressed dissent, I would like to confirm el00ruobuob's observation that erciccione is available for the majority of the day, I see him constantly in multiple platforms that I participate in, well in excess of the hours asked for in his proposal. With no apparent dissent from anyone within the translations team who has an idea of how the process works, I vote in favor of this proposal.
