I just wanted to give an update on development at Tatoeba. There has been a lot going on behind the scenes.
To begin with, we're rebuilding the team. Developers who were involved in the past but had to take a break are now part of the crew again. Others are learning new skills so that they can help perform new tasks and make life easier for others. Thanks to lool0, we have a new mailing list so that people can communicate via e-mail and continue to refer to our collective wisdom throughout eternity.
In terms of changes that make life better for developers: First, pep has created a virtual machine, which means that regardless of whether developers are running on Windows, Mac, or Linux, they can recreate Tatoeba on their own machines, and can test both how it works now and how their changes affect it. This is a big deal. Secondly, lool0 has moved our repository (the place where we store our code and our problem reports) to GitHub, which is easier for our developers in all countries to reach, and opens us up to collaboration with people who find out about us there. Also thanks to lool0, we have a new mailing list so that people can communicate via e-mail and continue to refer to our collective wisdom throughout eternity. Finally, I've been working with the various translations of the user interface so that the good work already done by the UI translation teams at Launchpad, as well as their translations for all our new features, can be seen live. We are also getting closer to getting new languages and audio onto the site once again. And perhaps it will even become possible to use Tatoeba on a smartphone.
But developers shouldn't have all the fun! I'm hoping that some of you will help with various tasks that don't require you to know how to write code. For instance, I would love for someone to take on the role of translation czar (monarch?), who communicates with the various Launchpad translation teams and sees how we're coming along with making the Tatoeba user interface available in dozens of languages. It would also be great if we could get people involved in testing, whether at the top level (creating a test plan, recruiting and coordinating with other testers), or simply stepping through a list of functions and seeing how well they work. Finally, it would be nice to have a king/queen of collecting audio so that Tatoeba can be seen as well as heard.
Please send me a private message at Tatoeba (or e-mail me at alanf . tatoeba AT gmail) if you're interested in getting involved. And if you want to be part of the development team, visit (and join) the mailing list at https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!forum/tatoebaproject . I look forward to hearing from you!
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Hello, team!
Hello, everyone! Trang asked me to write this post to let you know that I'm going to be coordinating between the administrators, the developers and the contributors who form the Tatoeba community. As she explained in her previous post, she and sysko are very busy now with other responsibilities. Thus, they can't be involved in all the same ways, and to the same extent, as they were in the past. However, she will maintain an active advisory role in which she promptly answers the questions that I pass to her from the developers. In turn, I will make sure to relay those answers quickly back to the developers. In addition, as I've been doing for months now, I will make sure that the problems and requests posted by contributors on the Wall make their way into help tickets so that they can be tracked and solved in an organized way.
I will also be working with the developers on ways to make the site robust. We will be documenting and spreading the collected knowledge that prevents problems and that helps us recover from them quickly when they do happen. At the same time, we will be planning how to restart development.
I will soon be contacting people who have contributed to development, or have helped us get back on our feet after problems have occurred, or both. But just as importantly, I urge you to contact me if you can help with the technology on the site, whether or not you have done so in the past. You can always send me a private message via Tatoeba to tell me you would like to get involved, along with ways that you can be contacted and a description of your skills, interests, and experience. (There will be other ways you can contact me in the future.) I'll let you know how the current software on the site is set up and how you can jump in.
I'm excited about our getting together to make this site, which I love so much, stronger and better in every way. Join us in making 2014 a happy new year for Tatoeba!
I will also be working with the developers on ways to make the site robust. We will be documenting and spreading the collected knowledge that prevents problems and that helps us recover from them quickly when they do happen. At the same time, we will be planning how to restart development.
I will soon be contacting people who have contributed to development, or have helped us get back on our feet after problems have occurred, or both. But just as importantly, I urge you to contact me if you can help with the technology on the site, whether or not you have done so in the past. You can always send me a private message via Tatoeba to tell me you would like to get involved, along with ways that you can be contacted and a description of your skills, interests, and experience. (There will be other ways you can contact me in the future.) I'll let you know how the current software on the site is set up and how you can jump in.
I'm excited about our getting together to make this site, which I love so much, stronger and better in every way. Join us in making 2014 a happy new year for Tatoeba!
Saturday, January 11, 2014
We need a better team!
Alright, so we have a problem.
Last month Tatoeba crashed and was then unavailable for more than a week, which is a pretty long time for a website that is used every day by thousands of people. After we managed to get Tatoeba back up, there were still issues with the site being very slow, and there were some additional downtime. And only now, after 3-4 weeks, things are stable again (at least they seem to be). It's a good thing that we got everything to work again, but it's not a good thing that it took so long. Now that I don't have to worry about Tatoeba not responding, or being too slow, I'd like to take some time to talk about the current situation.
I don't want to sound dramatic, but the current situation isn't good. There was a time when Tatoeba was actually growing, as opposed to the past 2 years where things have been stagnant. There was a time when users would report bugs, and they would be fixed within a few days, sometimes within a few hours. There was a time when users would request new features, and they would be implemented and released the next week. And if Tatoeba crashed, we could be working on it before you would even notice it was down. Basically, that was the time when sysko and I were both very involved in the project, and had necessary the time, motivation, energy, and passion to work on it.
But things have changed and now it feels like the project is going to fall apart if we don't do anything. Not right now, but one day. I mean, it's still working, a lot of people still love it, but nobody can maintain it properly anymore, and nobody can make it grow anymore. There are so many things that we could do, that we should do, but neither sysko or myself can (or want to) do it, and it will never be done unless someone else than us is willing to take care of it.
So my priority right now is to make a better team for Tatoeba. We need more people to take on tasks/responsibilities that would usually be done by sysko or myself. I'm talking about things like accessing the server and updating Tatoeba's code to include bug fixes or new features, writing on the blog and on Twitter to keep users informed of what's going on or what we're working on, replying to emails that are sent to team@tatoeab.org, etc.
As far as I'm concerned, I know that I will never be able to dedicate as much time and energy to Tatoeba as I used to, and neither does sysko. But I still want this project to keep growing and be more successful, and I know it's not going to happen if there's only sysko and myself in charge of these "higher responsiblity" kind of tasks.
Of course we wouldn't give such responsibilities to complete strangers and there are some people that are in my "need to talk to" list. But whoever you are, if you're reading this and feel that you would want to participate to this project on a higher level, then contact us and let us know about it!
Now, before I end with this article, there is another topic that I'd like to mention briefly: donations. This has been brought up a few times on the Wall and also in our IRC channel, that we should start a donation campain, or try to raise money through Kickstarter or selling goodies. I will talk more about this in another article but my short answer is, yes, I agree. And this is probably going to be one of the next priorities. But first, we need a better team and hopefully 2014 will be a better year for the Tatoeba.
Happy New Year by the way :)
Last month Tatoeba crashed and was then unavailable for more than a week, which is a pretty long time for a website that is used every day by thousands of people. After we managed to get Tatoeba back up, there were still issues with the site being very slow, and there were some additional downtime. And only now, after 3-4 weeks, things are stable again (at least they seem to be). It's a good thing that we got everything to work again, but it's not a good thing that it took so long. Now that I don't have to worry about Tatoeba not responding, or being too slow, I'd like to take some time to talk about the current situation.
I don't want to sound dramatic, but the current situation isn't good. There was a time when Tatoeba was actually growing, as opposed to the past 2 years where things have been stagnant. There was a time when users would report bugs, and they would be fixed within a few days, sometimes within a few hours. There was a time when users would request new features, and they would be implemented and released the next week. And if Tatoeba crashed, we could be working on it before you would even notice it was down. Basically, that was the time when sysko and I were both very involved in the project, and had necessary the time, motivation, energy, and passion to work on it.
But things have changed and now it feels like the project is going to fall apart if we don't do anything. Not right now, but one day. I mean, it's still working, a lot of people still love it, but nobody can maintain it properly anymore, and nobody can make it grow anymore. There are so many things that we could do, that we should do, but neither sysko or myself can (or want to) do it, and it will never be done unless someone else than us is willing to take care of it.
So my priority right now is to make a better team for Tatoeba. We need more people to take on tasks/responsibilities that would usually be done by sysko or myself. I'm talking about things like accessing the server and updating Tatoeba's code to include bug fixes or new features, writing on the blog and on Twitter to keep users informed of what's going on or what we're working on, replying to emails that are sent to team@tatoeab.org, etc.
As far as I'm concerned, I know that I will never be able to dedicate as much time and energy to Tatoeba as I used to, and neither does sysko. But I still want this project to keep growing and be more successful, and I know it's not going to happen if there's only sysko and myself in charge of these "higher responsiblity" kind of tasks.
Of course we wouldn't give such responsibilities to complete strangers and there are some people that are in my "need to talk to" list. But whoever you are, if you're reading this and feel that you would want to participate to this project on a higher level, then contact us and let us know about it!
Now, before I end with this article, there is another topic that I'd like to mention briefly: donations. This has been brought up a few times on the Wall and also in our IRC channel, that we should start a donation campain, or try to raise money through Kickstarter or selling goodies. I will talk more about this in another article but my short answer is, yes, I agree. And this is probably going to be one of the next priorities. But first, we need a better team and hopefully 2014 will be a better year for the Tatoeba.
Happy New Year by the way :)
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Tatoeba is back up, with some issues still
So we managed to bring back Tatoeba, and you have to thank mostly sysko and liori for this. Since the recovery process involved moving to a new server, we have of course some issues to deal with still. I will list here the issues that people have reported and that I have taken note of.
1. Language detection is not working. This is normal. It's one of the things sysko didn't have time to reinstall yet.
2. Apparently some people cannot add new sentences. Right now I have no idea why...
3. The furigana for Japanese sentences isn't displaying properly. It looks like some encoding issue, but I don't know how easy it will be to figure out how to fix it.
1. Language detection is not working. This is normal. It's one of the things sysko didn't have time to reinstall yet.
2. Apparently some people cannot add new sentences. Right now I have no idea why...
3. The furigana for Japanese sentences isn't displaying properly. It looks like some encoding issue, but I don't know how easy it will be to figure out how to fix it.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Tatoeba down
If you were trying to browse Tatoeba but ended up here on the blog, this is not a mistake. Tatoeba is currently down and will remain unavailable for a few more days. We hope to have it back some time this weekend (21st-22nd Dec). Very sorry for the inconvenience!
UPDATE (23 Dec, 00:50 GMT+1)
We currently have a new server up and the necessary data was transferred to this new server. There shouldn't be much left to do to have Tatoeba back, but we cannot work 24/7 on this and we don't know if we may run into some more unexpected problems, so we cannot guarantee the website will be available on Monday. We will keep you up to date if it should take much longer than expected though. Sorry again for the inconvenience and thank you for the supportive comments!
UPDATE (25 Dec, 4:30 GMT+1)
So as expected we had some unexpected issues which delayed us from bringing Tatoeba back up. And as you know this is Christmas and New Year's time, which means we are busier than usual with families and friends. As much as I hate it, all I can say right now is that Tatoeba still won't be back today. We still wish you a Merry Christmas though :)
UPDATE (25 Dec 20:00 GMT+1)
Tatoeba is now back! I have changed the DNS only a few minutes ago so you will have to give it a bit of time before http://tatoeba.org will actually bring you to the website instead of the blog. You can however go to http://93.20.168.172 in the meantime.
UPDATE (23 Dec, 00:50 GMT+1)
We currently have a new server up and the necessary data was transferred to this new server. There shouldn't be much left to do to have Tatoeba back, but we cannot work 24/7 on this and we don't know if we may run into some more unexpected problems, so we cannot guarantee the website will be available on Monday. We will keep you up to date if it should take much longer than expected though. Sorry again for the inconvenience and thank you for the supportive comments!
UPDATE (25 Dec, 4:30 GMT+1)
So as expected we had some unexpected issues which delayed us from bringing Tatoeba back up. And as you know this is Christmas and New Year's time, which means we are busier than usual with families and friends. As much as I hate it, all I can say right now is that Tatoeba still won't be back today. We still wish you a Merry Christmas though :)
UPDATE (25 Dec 20:00 GMT+1)
Tatoeba is now back! I have changed the DNS only a few minutes ago so you will have to give it a bit of time before http://tatoeba.org will actually bring you to the website instead of the blog. You can however go to http://93.20.168.172 in the meantime.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Tatoeba update (July 24rd, 2013)
This is only a small update but I would like to mention here as well some useful information for people who would want to get more involved. But first, about the update.
Restriction on private messages for new users
Users who are registered for less than two weeks can now only send 5 private messages per day. This is meant to prevent spam.
Just in case you are wondering, we don't have a "report spam" feature for now, so if you happen to receive spam, the best way to report it is to send a private message to an admin.
A simpler way to refer to sentences in comments
When writing a comment on a sentence, if you would like to refer to another sentence, you can now use the syntax [#id], where id is the sentence id. It will automatically create a link to the corresponding sentence. For instance, instead of writing:
And now for people who want to get more involved.
1. We're going to try to keep this tickets page as up-to-date as possible. It contains the various feature requests, bug reports, and other todo's that we would have to work on. If you would like to request or report something, you may want to check the page first to see if it hasn't been requested or reported already.
2. There is an article in the wiki for those who would like to help out with the development of Tatoeba. I wrote some months ago that we need people to help us maintain and improve Tatoeba, and we still do. We always will, actually. But back when I wrote the post, I guess most people didn't have a clear idea of what they could do to help. Hopefully the guide will help solve this issue.
Restriction on private messages for new users
Users who are registered for less than two weeks can now only send 5 private messages per day. This is meant to prevent spam.
Just in case you are wondering, we don't have a "report spam" feature for now, so if you happen to receive spam, the best way to report it is to send a private message to an admin.
A simpler way to refer to sentences in comments
When writing a comment on a sentence, if you would like to refer to another sentence, you can now use the syntax [#id], where id is the sentence id. It will automatically create a link to the corresponding sentence. For instance, instead of writing:
This sentence is similar to http://tatoeba.org/eng/sentences/show/1860660You can write:
This sentence is similar to [#1860660]
And now for people who want to get more involved.
1. We're going to try to keep this tickets page as up-to-date as possible. It contains the various feature requests, bug reports, and other todo's that we would have to work on. If you would like to request or report something, you may want to check the page first to see if it hasn't been requested or reported already.
2. There is an article in the wiki for those who would like to help out with the development of Tatoeba. I wrote some months ago that we need people to help us maintain and improve Tatoeba, and we still do. We always will, actually. But back when I wrote the post, I guess most people didn't have a clear idea of what they could do to help. Hopefully the guide will help solve this issue.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Tatoeba update (May 31st, 2013)
After a long time without much update, we're finally starting to have some changes in the code. Hopefully we'll have even more updates in the next few month as people have been contacting us to let us know they would like to help in the development and maintenance of Tatoeba.
So what's new?
Inappropriate comments
The main change in this update is that admins will now have the possibility to hide comments that have been considered inappropriate. Such comments will only be displayed to the author and to the admins. Other people will only see a message informing them that the comment was hidden because it didn't comply to our rules. This may not be our definitive way of handling inappropriate comments, but we're at least going to give it a try and see how it works.
Downloads files
For those who use the files we provide on our downloads page, there was a change in the way the lists data is exported. There is more information now, and the exports was split into two files rather than just one. Cf. "Lists" and "Sentences in lists" on the downloads page.
Light display
We have made a light version of the sentence's page, in which only the sentence and its direct translations are displayed. Here's what sentence #1 looks like in the light version. This is useful for those who would like to include our content on their website, like it's done for example here.
So what's new?
Inappropriate comments
The main change in this update is that admins will now have the possibility to hide comments that have been considered inappropriate. Such comments will only be displayed to the author and to the admins. Other people will only see a message informing them that the comment was hidden because it didn't comply to our rules. This may not be our definitive way of handling inappropriate comments, but we're at least going to give it a try and see how it works.
Downloads files
For those who use the files we provide on our downloads page, there was a change in the way the lists data is exported. There is more information now, and the exports was split into two files rather than just one. Cf. "Lists" and "Sentences in lists" on the downloads page.
Light display
We have made a light version of the sentence's page, in which only the sentence and its direct translations are displayed. Here's what sentence #1 looks like in the light version. This is useful for those who would like to include our content on their website, like it's done for example here.
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