GALA Blog

In the past month the GALA Standards Initiative has shifted from start-up mode to working on some of its key projects. In particular, the following projects have started or will be starting soon:

The Language Interoperability Portfolio Project (Linport). This project, a joint effort of GALA, the European Commission Directorate-General Translation, and the Brigham Young University Translation Research Group, is focusing on the creation of a standard method for sending and receiving translation jobs. See my previous post on this project and visit the project’s website at linport.org for more information. Two upcoming meetings will allow interested parties to learn more about these projects and participate in their development:

• Linport Symposium, September 27 in Luxembourg. Hosted by the European Commission, this day-long program will feature presentations on Linport, discussion of Linport features and development, and time for feedback on the Linport project. Open to any interested individuals, participation is free of charge. Visit the Linport site to register. [Learn more and register…]
• Pre-Conference Working session on Linport at Localization World, 10 October in Santa Clara, California. This half-day session will feature an overview of the Linport project and discussion with participants about development. Open to all interested parties, participation is $75. (All fees will be used to defray meeting costs and support the GALA Standards Initiative.) [Learn more and register…]

Model Service Elements. The Model Service Elements project will focus on the current lack of authoritative definitions of basic services in the localization industry. It will define independent descriptions of services (ranging from “simple” tasks such as alignment up to complex tasks like “localization” or “internationalization”), along with associated business resources, such as model contracts for various services. To learn more about this project, read our overview of this project. We are also planning a face-to-face working meeting for this project and invite all interested parties to attend:

• Pre-Conference Working session on Linport at Localization World, 10 October in Santa Clara, California. This half-day session will feature an overview of the Model Service Elements project and open discussion on issues and features to consider. Open to all interested parties, participation is $75. (All fees will be used to defray meeting costs and support the GALA Standards Initiative.) [Learn more and register…]

In addition to the meetings mentioned above, the GALA Standards Initiative will have a presence at the following events and we invite you to arrange to participate or meet with Arle Lommel (alommel@gala-global.org) at any of these events:

• 21 September: Presentation on the GALA Standards Initiative at the 3rd Multilingual Web Workshop in Limerick, Ireland
• 22 September: Panel discussion on standards at the 16th Annual LRC Internationalisation and Localisation Conference in Limerick, Ireland
• 29 September: The Great Translation Automation Debate (14:00 GMT) as part of the ProZ.com & TAUS online virtual conference
• 6 October: Upcoming GALA Webinar on the Model Service Elements Project (details forthcoming)
• 11 October: Panel Discussion: Why Localization Standards Matter, Even If You Think They Don’t at Localization World, Santa Clara California
• 14 October: Panel discussion at Bringing MT to the User: Research Meets Translators (Luxembourg)
• 18–20 October: GALA booth at tcworld (Wiesbaden, Germany). Stop by and talk about standards and GALA
• 20 October: “When quality is not equal to quality: Unifying quality perspectives to achieve practical results.” Session presented by Arle Lommel at tcworld (Wiesbaden, Germany)

We of course invite your feedback and contribution to enable the Standards Initiative to move forward.

One of the consistent challenges we face as an industry is in reducing the manual overhead associated with translation tasks. Currently we deal with multiple ways of sending and receiving files and communication: email, FTP, DropBox or other cloud services, phone calls, etc. A significant portion of the effort incurred by LSPs is spent in file handling, format conversions, clarification of intent and instructions with clients, checking for project completeness, etc. All of these things add up to significant cost (some estimates put these tasks at almost 50% of the cost of translation to the end buyer).

One area where the GALA Standards Initiative is already active is in a new project intended to address these issues. The Language Interoperability Portfolio (Linport) project is a new proposal to define a standard format for representing and packaging translation projects and transmitting them through the entire production chain with full project metadata. The Linport project represents a merger of the Container Project and a European Commission project called Multilingual Electronic Dossier (MED). Both of these projects had very similar goals and the decision was made to merge our efforts.

Our hope is that the Linport project will result in a unified format for sending and receiving translation and localization jobs that will simplify the process for all involved. We anticipate that as the specification develops we will also see the creation of model business resources (e.g., RFPs) that match the requirements of a Linport portfolio so that the business and technical processes of the industry will be in greater alignment. By doing so we will see reductions in the manual overhead associated with both business and technical processes in our industry, delivering benefits for all involved.

An initial public draft of Linport is now under preparation by GALA, representatives of the European Union Directorate General for Translation, the Brigham Young University Translation Research Group (BYU TRG), and LTAC Global. This draft will unify the structure of the two projects into a unified format. As soon as this internal discussion is complete, the project will be opened to the public for feedback and discussion on an open mailing list. This working method will allow anyone to get involved with the project and contribute to it at no fee. When the project delivers a stable specification in this open forum it will then submit this specification for further development and ratification in a recognized standards-development body.

In addition, we have scheduled two face-to-face meetings to work on this project. The first Linport Symposium will be held in Luxembourg on September 27. This one-day meeting, hosted by the European Commission, will be open to all interested parties and will focus on technical discussion about the project. The second meeting, a half-day working session on October 10 held in conjunction with Localization World, will also be open to interested parties and will build upon the results of the September meeting to develop the Linport specification further. More details about the venues and logistics will be available soon.

To sign up as part of the Linport working group, we invite you to visit http://box456.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/linportmail_linport.org. By signing up for the Linport list you will be kept advised of all discussion and will be able to participate in the development of this important new format. More information about the project will be posted at linport.org as the project progresses, as well as on the GALA Standards Initiative website (http://www.gala-global.org/standards).

In April the W3C received a proposal to add a “translate” attribute to HTML. In essence, the proposal is to add an attribute to certain HTML elements (like <p>,  <span>) so that translation processes—human or machine—would know whether text should be translated or not. The proposal would produce code like this:

<p>Please return any containers marked with <span translate=”no”>“Produced in the United States”</span> for a full refund.</p>.

In this case the translate=”no” attribute would ensure that the quoted text is not translated (since users would need to identify the containers based on the actual text in the quotes). Currently there are a number of ways to indicate this requirement, but these are not standardized.

There was some discussion of this proposal after it was submitted and the decision was made to reject the proposal. It was later reopened, however, when some individuals pointed out that the proposed alternative solution (using language tags) did not address the actual requirement.

We believe that a standard attribute in HTML5 for translatability would be very beneficial for content creators, translators, LSPs, and tools developers by providing a way to ensure that translation requirements are honored in the content lifecycle without the need to support a variety of custom attributes, CSS hacks, or other approaches that may not be universally understood or honored. A standard approach would help improve the quality of translated text on the web, and improve integration between CMS tools and translation processes. In addition, the inclusion of translatability as an attribute in a core standard for the web would help raise awareness of best practices for content internationalization.

For this proposal to succeed, the W3C needs to see a demonstration that this new attribute meets a widespread need and that it is the appropriate way to handle this need. To read more about this proposal, please visit http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=12417. If you feel that you can add to the discussion there—by showing use cases or demonstrating the requirement—you can sign up for a free account to comment on W3C issues at http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/createaccount.cgi. Since this is an issue that has the potential to impact almost anyone involved with localization, we believe that it deserves serious consideration by the industry at large and we encourage you to add your constructive comments to the discussion.