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Issues Β· activepieces/activepieces
# 🐢｜general
b
## 🚨 Translation quality issue β€” please help raise visibility Hey everyone πŸ‘‹ If you use Activepieces in a language other than English, or if you've ever contributed translations to a piece, this concerns you. The automated machine-translation workflow currently shipping with Activepieces is overwriting human-validated translations with low-quality MT output across multiple pieces and languages. The result is action names, trigger names, dropdown options, and field labels that are β€” in many cases β€” incomprehensible in the target language, or worse, factually wrong (think statistical operators translated into different mathematical concepts, or HTTP verbs translated as common verbs of the target language). I've personally seen carefully curated translations I contributed get reverted to MT garbage weeks later, with no notification and no review. Talking to other contributors, this is a recurring, structural problem β€” not an isolated incident. I've opened a detailed issue on the repo with concrete categories of failure and proposed fixes. The core principle being asked: MT is fine when no human has translated a string yet, but a bot must never overwrite human-validated work. πŸ‘‰ [github.com/activepieces/activepieces/issues/13530](https://github.com/activepieces/activepieces/issues/13530) If you've been affected by this β€” please add your examples in the issue, or πŸ‘ it. The more visibility this gets, the harder it is for the team to defer. Thanks πŸ™
a
thanks a lot for bring it to our attention, we will look at it ASAP, apologies for the overwriting that happened, Crowdin must have overwritten them when we were auto translating missing values just as placeholders until contributors get to them πŸ™
was a piece translation or UI related translation ? if you can remember we would be grateful
we turned off the auto translations we will try to look for a way to revert it back to what tranlsations we had previously
b
baserow piece, I’ve submitted a PR to reverse bad crowdin PR
a
is it the only one piece? did you face issues with other ones ?
b
no this is happening on every piece I am working on
Typefully, Postiz, etc etc
a
does the key always change, i.e displayName is "Insert Row" then it becomes "Insert Row X"
because that will require a new translation on crowdin
and crowdin will automatically translate its placeholder value in the target language
you get what I mean ?
b
mmm no I am not sure what you mean. When submitted a PR I always translate manually to be sure that it is correct translation in french. I just let other language with english default. I did not expected new PR to erase my translations which have been previously validated, withou notifying and with very very bad results
a
so you don't translate on Crowdin
you tranlsate in the code file itself ?
the fr.json of the piece
b
yes indeed, I translate manually the fr.json because crowdin is very bad at translate
a
hmmmm
b
I mean this is basically how translation works on open source repos. english by default, and native speakers submitting PR when they have a proposal. Crowing should be only used for a first translation on a language but should never overwrite a human translation
a
this is a workflow misunderstanding, basically, our workflow is like this: 1) a contributor creates a piece and merges it to our main branch. 2) a workflow runs that generates a translation source. 3) crowdin syncs from with the repo, takes the new translation source, auto translates it since it is empty, until a contributor translates on it. 4) crowdin syncs to the repo and puts the new translations.
b
i think the workflow is not good. you want to translate at the same time you create or improve the piece
a
I think you do have a point, let me see how Crowdin can help with this
b
crowdin should work only on untranslated locale files
never on human translated files
also as I can see the quality of crowdin translation I guess no translation is better than Crowdin translation
it even translates HTTP requests like GET / PUT etc with real verbs that have nothing to see
it s a real nightmare, I would just stop it until it correctly works
it feels like a bad google translation from 2010 this is not serious
a
fair enough, we need a better model probably
b
juste create locale files with english by default and let native users propose translations
they will do it
a
there aren't enough contributors to fully cover the translations so the thinking behind is, some translation is better than nothing
b
no I dont agree the quality of translation is so bad than it is worth than english
I just imagine chinese or russian user reading automated translation my god, he should think : what the hell does it mean
the exemple I faced with baserow pieces and other is very terrifying
the regression is huge
a
we have it disabled atm
we will need to figure out a way to improve it down the road for sure
@bst1_n the issue with enabling the translations to be pushed from git to crowdin is that we will end up writing existing work for people on crowdin, like if someone is editing baserow they will end up having their work overwritten by yours from Github
so can you please just translate on Crowdin so we don't fall into such problems ?
b
how does it work ? i don’t really understand do you have some documentation on it ?
a
b
so now I should use this but can I chose human translations with Crowdin ? Because if it chooses bad automatic translations I don't see the point
a
Yes you can type in your own personal translations
b
they will not be erased by automatic workflow then ? and is is possible to translate with MCP from claude ? or shoult be done manually
a
You can translate manually or use suggestions from the auto translator
It won't be erased
b
and MCP access is possible ?
a
For that you would need to check with crowding
Crowdin *
b
ok I will try to use it but anyway you should be very careful with the translations because automatic from crowdin are very bad
Thanks @Abdul (Viva-Palestina)πŸ’” πŸ™ To make sure my French work is safe, could a proofreader approve my French translations on Crowdin? As a translator I can only suggest β€” until they're approved, the pre-translate bot can overwrite them again (which is exactly what wiped my Baserow FR before). I've re-submitted my reviewed French as suggestions on these pieces (account: bst1n): β€’ baserow β€” 86 strings β€’ mailgun β€” 78 β€’ senja β€” 61 β€’ savvycal β€” 53 β€’ promotekit β€” 39 β€’ postiz β€” 38 β€’ umami β€” 31 β€’ typefully β€” 25 β€’ granola β€” 17 (tally was already correct β€” nothing to approve there) β†’ Project: https://crowdin.com/project/activepieces (filter by French, file packages/pieces/community//src/i18n/translation.json) Once approved they're locked against MT overwrite. Could you also confirm whether French can be excluded from the auto pre-translate so reviewed strings stay protected on future source changes? Thanks a lot πŸ™
@Abdul (Viva-Palestina)πŸ’” sorry to insist this is important to me
a
what is your email that you used on Crowdin
I will add you as a proof reader
so you can approve these things
actually I just did no need for anything
Bastien (bst1n)
on crowdin, right ?
b
yes this is me
so now I can submit and approve alone ?
can you check if it worked @Abdul (Viva-Palestina)πŸ’” ? I think I succeeded to approve but I am not sure
up @Abdul (Viva-Palestina)πŸ’”
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