[jogu]

From my read, the software didn't go wrong. It did exactly what they intended it to -- machine translations replaced handwritten translations provided by community volunteers. Seems like a pretty big middle finger to those volunteers.

The lead realized that Mozilla doesn't care about their opinion (they did this without discussing with them) nor do they care about the work they were doing (by replacing their work with machine translations). A "quick call" doesn't solve this.

[crazygringo]

Those are a huge number of assumptions you're making, absolutely none of which are in the post.

Generally speaking, orgs aren't trying to replace high-quality human translations with lower-quality machine translations. They are often trying to put machine translations in where there are no translations, though. Getting the balance right requires fine-tuning. And fine-tuning requires a quick call to start to better understand the issues in more detail.

[jack1243star]

> Generally speaking, orgs aren't trying to replace high-quality human translations with lower-quality machine translations.

Seems that this is exactly what Mozilla did? And Microsoft, and Reddit, etc.

[josefx]

> Generally speaking, orgs aren't trying to replace high-quality human translations with lower-quality machine translations.

How would you handle updates to an article? Would you blindly replace all existing translations or would you notify the maintainers and wait for them to get around to it?

I wouldn't be surprised if orgs blindly opted for the first, which also means that a single spelling correction would be enough to overwrite days of work.

[jogu]

Hence why I said "from my read". This is how I view the situation, and why the lead is reacting the way they are.

> They are often trying to put machine translations in where there are no translations, though.

And at what point are all of the translations done by machines and the work the community is doing no longer needed? At the very least, the nature of their work will change and I think they're not interested in participating anymore.

[dingnuts]

and actually understanding their contributors would require a lot more than a fucking "quick call"

that's the problem. stop thinking about the org and think about the person. these are volunteers who feel taken advantage of, being met with corporate jargon

fly out and take him to dinner if you actually give a shit. or write a check. a "quick call" is so insulting