I noticed that source strings are sometimes updated which makes the translation no longer fit. Sometimes important parts are missing in the translation. I remember when the recycle bin was introduced that the translation still mentioned deleting an entry and the user didn’t know that the entry only ended up in the recycle bin.
Current example: https://crowdin.com/translate/bitwarden-browser/26/en-de#15087 Here the English text was changed shortly after publication, so that a previous translation no longer makes sense. In such cases, can’t the translation be deleted automatically, so that all translators get a notification that it needs to be retranslated? I suspect that there are already many such cases, which in case of doubt are only discovered through user feedback.
This is true and Crowdin should have an option for notification about this. But at least the approval status is reset, they might not be included in the apps (I haven’t noticed if Bitwarden uses unapproved strings). This could also be avoided by adding the changed strings as new ones but that might be complicated to do from technical point of view.
Personally, when I get a notification about new strings and check those out, I also check the whole project for changed approvals at the same time (easy to do, just clear the search from the sidebar and make sure that you have the whole project open). I will occasionally check the projects also if there hasn’t been new additions for a while. That way I can stay on top of these changes rather easily.
Crowdin uses either the approved translations or, in the case of non-approved ones, the ones with the most upvotes.
Unfortunately, there are few or no approved strings in many languages. For example, the last approved strings for the German translation are over 5 months old. It all depends on the activity of the proofreaders, if there are any.
Yes, Crowdin does prioritize suggestions by votes but Bitwarden doesn’t necessarily include unapproved translation in production. There are many projects that use only approved strings and use the source language for everything else.
Personally I consider proofreading to be a sign of trust, and in my opinion it should be taken decently seriously. If I don’t think that I can dedicate time or I’m not interest enough to do it, I generally don’t want to become one. If I do it, I want to commit to do it for many years if possible and I especially wish to be able to respond to any issues/comments that others might have (Finnish projects don’t have much though).
Obviously we do this for free so it shouldn’t be taken too seriously but does one consider themselves worthy of the position if they can’t manage to check their projects manually at least once in a month or two? It takes literally minutes to check if there are any new reset approvals or other activity, and when there are, they are usually very quickly handled the more frequently you check because they don’t pile up.
This doesn’t mean that I’m against Crowdin providing better notification options.
Thanks for the feedback all, the team is looking at making improvements to this process, thanks for your patience!