Testing of new translation tool for LACRALO mailing lists

ICANN Staff has created two mailing lists to test the new translation tool with a select number of persons testing the system

Below are some of the bug reports/observations noted from testing the new translation tool

Some of the changes in the new translation tool.

• The lack of punctuation was identified as a key issue for the poor translation of emails. This is because the Google Translate API (which was in use from 2011 from still being used has a limit to the number of characters that could be sent in one call  

One of the outcomes from the LACRALO translation WG was the Proposed Notice when email is not translated which would be sent to the user if the email had formatting issues. A key issue identifed for the poor translation quality was the lack of proper punctuation 

History

• The LACRALO list in English: http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/lac-discuss-en/ and LACRALO list in Spanish: http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/lac-discuss-es/ were machine translated around September 2008. The translation engine was based on Systran.
• The quality of translation left a lot to be desired in terms of the language translation. Also, there were technical issues such as the subject lines of translated emails becoming garbled.
• During the LACRALO meeting in Cartagena in 2010, there were intense discussions regarding the quality of mailing list translations. Some wanted to disable the translation entirely. Others wanted to keep the imperfect translation for mobile  users and disabling translation would send the wrong signal to ICANN when ICANN should be giving language services a higher priority. ICANN staff acknowledged the issues and stressed that IT staff were aware of the issues and would be looking to solve the translation problems.
• Around May 2011, the translation engine was switched from Systran to Google Translate.
• in May 2011, Google announced that it would be depreciating the (then) free Google Translate API (http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/05/spring-cleaning-for-some-of-our-apis.html) in a few months but later (due to public outcry) announced that a paid version of the translate API would be offered.
• Other issues noted around June 2011 were identified, one was the translation engine would stop translating emails when they became too big. This meant that a conversation thread would stop being translated leading to missing emails from one list not being translated to the other list. See http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/lac-discuss-en/2011/004308.html for the solution to this (translation tool would stop translating quoted text)
• Around August 2011, the translation engine was switched back to Systran due to Google rejecting calls to the Google Translate API. See http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/lac-discuss-en/2011/004368.html
• Updarte to the translation engine: September 2011, http://atlarge-lists.icann.org/pipermail/lac-discuss-en/2011/004498.html
• June 2012, detailed analysis of translation issues (see below)

Background - Identification of LACRALO translation issues 

(this section is from a June 18 2012 email)

...

Examples abound from a review of the archives.

...