One year project "What If?". About creating and working with a community of translators-enthusiasts

ноября 21, 2017

About a year ago, on June 26, Randall Monroe, the author of the comic xkcd launched the "What If?". The essence of the project is that Randall from the physical point of view, answering "stupid" questions that are often addressed with unexpected points of view. Of course, Randall never missed an opportunity to arrange a catastrophe on a planetary scale during the response.

But, the article is not about that. I would like to tell about "What if?" where we translate articles from "What If?". No wonder I published an article in a hub "project Management" (UPD: We moved to "I'm a PR", and what are we, and we — nothing), because the article is about how we manage it and what came out of it in less than a year (I started it to do at the beginning of September 2012).

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historical introduction

By the time I started, I found a few sites with translations, but they were not very successful, mainly suffered from the quality of the translation, but most of all I didn't like the design.

So I took the job, and it went very briskly. I quickly turned a dozen texts, made a quick website, published, and collected the first feedback, a lot of things have altered in the process. In General, the project has earned.

At first I tried to translate articles a day, although not translated images do not bother on typography, but I tried to translate well. And then, as there are more people in the project, we gradually moved to a release on Thursday.

Success came when we didn't expect. In a post on habré about 13 gigapixel xkcd comic I advertised your site and went home. When I came, I saw sharply skaknuvshem attendance and a very high load on the server. I was on edge and quite vividly has fixed all found bugs and improve the website. At that time the site consisted of markdown files on github, which I then manually uploaded to the site.

There I met with in absentia bobermaniac. At first I was kind of too shy to contact him, painfully well he translated. But I was actively improve your text pieces of his translations (because the license allows). In the end, we somehow got in touch and from this moment begins the "we" in the history of the project.

We thought long and hard how we can translate together. And not just together, but with the plan to expand the team. Github has disappeared at once. First, a high barrier to entry, and secondly- just uncomfortable. And we gradually moved on notabenoid.

I have a couple times altered website, added that. And then it hit me — we should do a Facebook group and begin to sell themselves to any "Piscine".

Evil is simple enough. A little stepping on the throat of conscience on the subject of "well, not to spam all your band" and "how will look at me people, if I'm going to post links to your website" and here, the band is rapidly gaining popularity, and there is some response from the "fishernet". And here it is, a sharp rise in attendance. And we started coming translators.

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About anarchist-democratic dictatorship

That is how I can describe the prevailing social system.

When they began to come translators in quantity, it's time to think about hierarchy and about how to organize the translation process.

First, we developed the "guideline" which describes the philosophy of the project, describes the style of the translation, the rules of formatting and given many of the common errors of translators. He sent in a "welcome" letter along with instructions on how to join the project.

Actually, I will tell you, the documentation around the head. Even in a project like ours.

And every Tuesday, as soon as a new release, I'll convert to the desired format, add the translation on notabenoid and mailing for all translators. In the newsletter I usually add in addition to information about the translation some more advice, which I try to adjust the work of the team.
Now, the interpreter has completed the required operation, and is ready to translate.

At first, of course, a translation is not very good, due to the lack of practice. And the practice we have heaps.

Come people I can fall into several categories:"

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the"Heavies" — those who quickly translate the text.

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Editors — who feels Russian language and effectively correct mistakes in a translated text.

It is clear that the more people, the more chaos, and with the number of people more than one, often it is impossible to come to any decision. So we are in the process of the appearance of people constantly varied structure.

First translated everything, and then I corrected and edited the text and of the translated pieces for publication on the website.

Then I started to translate less and less, as the translation was ready zadroga before I even had the opportunity to do this, the text was ready. And I just had to carry out proofreading and collect the final Yes to transfer images.

And so on.

Now in our team there are translators, and editors (I am, by the way, even hired a proofreader to correct errors in already published articles and the site in General), there are people who collect the text, and I can only subtract it, to transfer pictures and publish. Slowly begins to work the social component of the service for transfers. Pieces of translation are being actively discussed, people vote, in General, is the movement.

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