431501 - "This is a significant edit" is not clear enough about the effect

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(support.mozilla.org :: Knowledge Base Software, task)

Description

[David Tenser [:djst]]

The "This is an significant edit of this article that should mark other translations as outdated" checkbox is being misused by localizers. We need to make it clearer that this should ONLY be used when a significant error is being corrected that means any translations of the same article is incorrect/outdated. Also, it should only be used for the first language that is being corrected, so if e.g. the Finnish article is corrected because someone notified all localizers of a mistake in the en-US article, the Finnish editor shouldn't check the checkbox again for his update because the Finnish article wasn't the first language corrected; the en-US article was. 

Suggestion:

[x] This edit corrects a new, critical error that should be 
    corrected in all other translations.

Warning: This automatically marks ALL other translations of 
this article as "potentially outdated." Do NOT check this 
checkbox if you were notified of this error from another
translation of this article. It should only be used if this
translation is the first to correct this error.

The warning paragraph should appear when the checkbox is checked (using javascript) and should be clearly visible in e.g. red. Other suggestions and/or wording improvements welcome.

---- 

Example of when the checkbox SHOULD be used: The en-US version of the article is updated because of a factual error that makes the info incorrect. Any translation of this article should also be corrected. Checkbox should be checked.

Example of when the checkbox should NOT be used: The de version of the article above is updated because of the significant correction made in the en-US article. When submitting the changes to the de version, the checkbox should NOT be checked.

Another example of when the checkbox should NOT be used: The es version of an article is corrected because of mistakes made in the original translation. The en-US version or other translations didn't have these mistakes in the first place. When submitting the changes to the es version, the checkbox should NOT be checked.

Comment 1

[David Tenser [:djst]]

Jason, is this something you could take a look at implementing?

Comment 2

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

"Mark other translations as out of date"?

Comment 3

[David Tenser [:djst]]

That sounds like a good suggestion for the checkbox, assuming we would still keep the warning below it. (Please improve that one too!) :)

Comment 4

[Jason Barnabe (np)]

Need bug 425713 fixed first.

Comment 5

[David Tenser [:djst]]

Does this really depend on bug 425713? I'd rather the string is reset to en-US for other locales than reusing the old one, since it's the wording (in their language perhaps) that's causing the confusion about when to use this option.

Setting milestone 0.6.3. Jason, if you don't have time to do this before the code freeze, please push back or reassign. 

This is what we have so far:

---
[x] Mark other translations as out of date

Warning: This automatically marks ALL other translations of 
this article as "potentially outdated." Do not check this 
option if you were notified of this error from another
translation of this article. It should only be used if this
translation is the first to correct this error.
---


Improvements welcome. And to repeat, the warning text should appear when you check the option, to avoid cluttering the UI by default. Preferably, it should appear in a box with a light yellow background.

Comment 6

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

If the problem is the wording, I think wording could be more obvious. Something like "New information has been added that should be added to all versions of this article."

If the problem is that people aren't reading it at all, that's slightly different. Are we very clear on what this box is for in our contributor docs?

Comment 7

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

(In reply to comment #6)
> If the problem is the wording, I think wording could be more obvious. Something
> like "New information has been added that should be added to all versions of
> this article."

Even without the box checked, there's still a notice in the sidebar (when logged in) that an edit has been made to a translation. What makes this checkbox special 
is that it puts an "Article may be out of date" warning on translations; and just because an edit is significant (which can also be a subjective term) doesn't necessarily mean translations are out of date. IMO, it's best to just state the literal effect of check marking the box.

Comment 8

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

The problem with stating the literal effect is that people don't know when or why that effect should take place. I wouldn't know what "out of date means" and I would assume that making a change puts the other versions out of date.

I suppose I want to suggest a second bug where we change "out of date" to "missing information available in another version" unless we're using the "out of date" checkbox to mark english articles that are missing fixes due to an update etc.

Comment 9

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

Yeah, that should be a separate bug; but I don't think "out of date" is equal to "missing information available in another version". 

Comment 10

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

It's not, but are we marking articles as out of date for any other reason?  Also, would people updating the article check that box for any other reason? Not understanding exactly what we mean by "out of date" here I'm sure my wording could be improved upon.

Comment 11

[David Tenser [:djst]]

I'm been thinking about how we're using the translation system for SUMO, and it's pretty clear that the majority of our articles are created in en-US first, and then translated. Therefore I suggest that this option is only available to en-US. This means that the en-US locale is the "main" locale, and that others are translations. However, that doesn't stop e.g. a German localizer from making an improvement to the German article and then do the same in the English article and check this "out of date" checkbox. We become less loosely organized, which might concern some localizers. However, I think this is a fair trade-off because it will simply the localization process; everyone will know that the en-US article is supposed to be the one up-to-date, and only that locale has the power to mark translations as "out of date" when an important change is made.

The checkbox is used when we fix something in the English article that would make any translation of it outdated because the translation no longer contains the "correct" information. It should only be used in two scenarios:

1) the translations of the en-US article now contain outdated, _incorrect_ information
2) the translations of the en-US article don't contain new, added information

It should not be used in the following example scenarios:

x) the en-US article got a typo corrected
y) the en-US article got improved wording
z) the en-US article got an added/updated screenshot

This bug is about making the implications of using that checkbox clearer, by adding a warning when someone checks it, explaining what will actually happen. Lucy makes a good point that we should try to explain when it should be used. Maybe information similar to what I wrote here could be used in this warning that pops up?

Comment 12

[Laura Thomson :laura]

Depends on a bug that is targeted for 0.7, targeting to 0.7.

Comment 13

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

(In reply to comment #11)
> Therefore I suggest that this option is only available to
> en-US. 

I agree. File new bug?

Comment 14

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

This is contrary to what we were telling localizers at the summit. Requiring people to add it in their own language as well as in English is going to make people not contribute.

Comment 15

[David Tenser [:djst]]

That's not what I said. People can still add articles in their own language without an English article. But this option of marking other languages as "out of date" would only be visible on the en-US locale.

Comment 16

[Majken Connor [:Kensie]]

I"m not talking about new articles either. I'm talking about adding information to existing articles.

you said "Therefore I suggest that this option is only available to
en-US. This means that the en-US locale is the "main" locale, and that others
are translations." and "However, that doesn't stop e.g. a German localizer from
making an improvement to the German article and then do the same in the English
article and check this "out of date" checkbox."

This is exactly what localizers were saying they didn't want. They want to be able to add new content to articles if they find something we don't already know. They should be able to add it in their locale without having to also add it in English.

Really we should have a way that doesn't involve editing an article to note that something is out of date or missing information altogether, but we still want a mechanism that allows people to see there's an important translation to be done.

Comment 17

[Thomas Schwecherl]

Majken, the problem is that when an article was edited in the Chinese version, I as an Austrian (German language) can't read and understand the changes and therefore can't incorporate the changes in the version of my language.

But most of the contributors can read English ...

Comment 18

[David Tenser [:djst]]

(In reply to comment #17)
> Majken, the problem is that when an article was edited in the Chinese version,
> I as an Austrian (German language) can't read and understand the changes and
> therefore can't incorporate the changes in the version of my language.
> 
> But most of the contributors can read English ...

Yes, that is a good point. English is the one language we all understand more or less, and highlighting changes made in a foreign language isn't going to help people. If a significant edit is made in a foreign language that corrects an error in the English article, we should come up with a better way of communicating that with the maintainers of the English article. But there's no reason a German article should be marked as outdated because of changes in a Chinese article, as that is just confusing.

Comment 19

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

I've filed bug 456119 ["Alert translators" checkbox should only appear on English articles].

Comment 20

[David Tenser [:djst]]

How about this for the warning?

---
[x] Mark other translations as out of date

Warning: This automatically marks <b>all</b> other translations 
of this article as "potentially outdated." Only use this option
if your edit corrects a serious error that needs to be corrected
in the translations as well.
---

Comment 21

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

Do you want to see how much affect bug 456119 ["Alert translators" checkbox should only appear on English articles] has, before implementing this?

If the problem goes away, I don't think we need the warning text; but I still agree with rewording the checkbox.

Comment 22

[David Tenser [:djst]]

Having the "warning" there is still a good thing, because it clarifies what the option is for in a non-intrusive way (not always showing, allowing for a clean UI, but still not blocking or asking for confirmation). That said, we should remove the actual word "Warning:" from the message; that's not needed.

Comment 23

[E. Cooper [:ecooper]]

Okay, just to avoid later confusion, the warning text reads like this:

This automatically marks <b>all</b> other translations 
of this article as "potentially outdated." Only use this option
if your edit corrects a serious error that needs to be corrected
in the translations as well.

Visually, what are we looking at? Just having it in red was the initial suggestion it seems.

Comment 24

[David Tenser [:djst]]

I would suggest a yellow background (e.g. the yellow in https://www.mozilla.org/images/subsite_back.gif) with some padding around the black text. The important thing is that it gets the reader's attention.

Comment 25

[E. Cooper [:ecooper]]

Attachment: Screen of improved alert

This is what it's looking like right now. Look agreeable?

Comment 26

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

(In reply to comment #25)
> Created an attachment (id=344836) [details]
> Screen of improved alert
> 
> This is what it's looking like right now. Look agreeable?

- The checkbox label should be "Mark other translations as out of date".

- The alignment and spacing makes it confusing to know which text belongs to "Alert translators", especially with the yellow background.

Sidenote: "Alert translators" is misleading as well. We should change that.

Comment 27

[E. Cooper [:ecooper]]

Attachment: Updated screenshot

Changed alignment of "Alert translators" and changed the wording.

Comment 28

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

Looks good to me. (so long as the "Alert translators" is a separate issue)

Comment 29

[E. Cooper [:ecooper]]

If you have something in mind, I don't see why we can't make it apart of this bug. I just wasn't sure what it should be changed to.

(In reply to comment #28)
> Looks good to me. (so long as the "Alert translators" is a separate issue)

Comment 30

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

"Mark translations"?

Comment 31

[David Tenser [:djst]]

Chris, what's misleading about "Alert translators"? In any case, I don't think "Mark translations" is clearer. How about "Mark other translations as potentially outdated" or simply "Significant edit"?

On a more general notice, the whole layout here is kinda cluttered and redundant. In this case, just removing "Alert translators" altogether would be the best solution, but that would make it look different from every other setting here. Completely rearranging stuff here is out of scope, so I suggest we try to be as clear as possible. 

Eric, could we use the same shade of yellow as we're using in the search box, to make it blend in better with the theme? E.g. #fff9d9 or something stronger like #fee86f?

Comment 32

[Chris Ilias [:cilias]]

(In reply to comment #31)
> Chris, what's misleading about "Alert translators"?

"Alert Translators" implies some sort of notification to translations, not users.

Comment 33

[E. Cooper [:ecooper]]

Attachment: Adds a drop down box to allow display additional information

#fff9d9 was used as the background color. I kept "Alert Translators" simply because a clear change wasn't decided. If something is decided before the patch is applied, the patch itself can just be edited to make the change.

bug 453451 contains the needed css changes for this bug.

Comment 34

[Nelson Ko [:nkoth]]

Comment on attachment 346251 [details] [diff] [review]
Adds a drop down box to allow display additional information

In r19587/r19588

Comment 35

[Stephen Donner [:stephend] Not actively reading bugmail]

Verified FIXED on http://support-stage.mozilla.org/tiki-editpage.php?locale=en-US&page=*Bookmarks+and+toolbar+buttons+not+working+after+upgrading as proposed by Eric; if we need additional refinements, please file followup bugs.

Comment 36

[David Tenser [:djst]]

Does the "mark other translations as out of date" feature exist in upstream Tiki? If not, the whole feature needs to be upstreamed too.

Comment 37

[Marc Laporte]

Let's discuss on the basis of current behavior at http://tiki-trunk.mozilla.com/

If we want changes, let's get Alain Désilets in the discussion.