Don't use Crowdin AI translations Please. #134

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opened 2025-10-07 00:03:00 +03:00 by OVERLORD · 10 comments
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Originally created by @xlionjuan on GitHub.

Originally assigned to: @kmendell on GitHub.

Feature description

tl;dr Please don't use AI translation without supervised, you should familiar with this language first in order to translate

This is one of the reasons I don't like Crowdin, commercial sometimes making things worse, this is a great example of this.

I'm not against AI, I personally use AI a lot, I'm also using AI to help me decide the way of expression when I'm confused or unsures, what I'm against is using AI unwisely.

A word said, no translations are better than bad translations, because nowadays, most people knows how to use translate services, if they still don't understand what it is, they can change to another translator, or ask AI

There's no need to translate something to make people confused or frustrated, because user may being forced to change the entire UI languages back English just to know what the string actually is (In some edge cases, very terrible translations may even make AI don't know what is going on), this hasn't been the case for Pocket ID, but if Pocket ID is growing bigger, and still using AI translate without supervised, this is the potential that it will make people feeling "unprofessional", cheap, or it might give Al haters an opportunity to blow things out of proportion or take advantage of the situation.

I'm currently the main translator for zh-TW at RustDesk, I have saw a person pushed a PR that translates my language, so I take a look and review for it, it just...very terrible, and even the punctuation marks are not consistent, suddenly, I found out that he is even not Asian! I back to the PR list, and see he uses AI to generate the translations for lot of languages and pushed the PRs, they're definitely useless, so closed.

Pitch

Not needed.

Originally created by @xlionjuan on GitHub. Originally assigned to: @kmendell on GitHub. ### Feature description ## tl;dr Please don't use AI translation ***without supervised***, you should familiar with this language first in order to translate **This is one of the reasons I don't like Crowdin**, commercial sometimes making things worse, this is a great example of this. I'm not against AI, I personally use AI a lot, I'm also using AI to help me decide the way of expression when I'm confused or unsures, what I'm against is using AI unwisely. A word said, no translations are better than bad translations, because nowadays, most people knows how to use translate services, if they still don't understand what it is, they can change to another translator, or ask AI There's no need to translate something to make people confused or frustrated, because user may being forced to change the entire UI languages back English just to know what the string actually is (In some edge cases, very terrible translations may even make AI don't know what is going on), this hasn't been the case for Pocket ID, but if Pocket ID is growing bigger, and still using AI translate **without supervised**, this is the potential that it will make people feeling "unprofessional", cheap, or it might give Al haters an opportunity to blow things out of proportion or take advantage of the situation. I'm currently the main translator for zh-TW at RustDesk, I have saw a person pushed a PR that translates my language, so I take a look and review for it, it just...very terrible, and even the punctuation marks are not consistent, suddenly, I found out that he is even not Asian! I back to the PR list, and see he uses AI to generate the translations for lot of languages and pushed the PRs, they're definitely useless, so closed. ### Pitch Not needed.
OVERLORD added the feature label 2025-10-07 00:03:00 +03:00
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@xlionjuan commented on GitHub:

we have a disclaimer that a few translation strings might be auto-translated

Is is unfortunate and very sad that a software developer trampled his software...I never thought this is the means to attract people contributing the translations.

the worse option because then a user gets a mix of two languages.

Even though the automatic translations might be misleading the user can at least understand it.

No, it is NOT true, AI translate sometimes making things fully incomprehensible, don't do that, this could ruin your reputation, and making bad experiences for users.

@xlionjuan commented on GitHub: > we have a disclaimer that a few translation strings might be auto-translated Is is unfortunate and very sad that a software developer trampled his software...I never thought this is the means to attract people contributing the translations. > the worse option because then a user gets a mix of two languages. > Even though the automatic translations might be misleading the user can at least understand it. No, it is NOT true, AI translate sometimes making things fully incomprehensible, don't do that, this could **ruin your reputation**, and making bad experiences for users.
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@kmendell commented on GitHub:

We understand your frustration, at the same time, i dont think its reasonable to expect the maintainers to know every language and to know how to review every word, This a community project, so contributions like this are welcome and its alwsyd open to improve the translated langauge if you dont think its correct.

Ill talk to elias and see if theres something we can do but, hopefully you understand.

@kmendell commented on GitHub: We understand your frustration, at the same time, i dont think its reasonable to expect the maintainers to know every language and to know how to review every word, This a community project, so contributions like this are welcome and its alwsyd open to improve the translated langauge if you dont think its correct. Ill talk to elias and see if theres something we can do but, hopefully you understand.
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@stonith404 commented on GitHub:

We have configured automatic pre-translation for strings that get newly added. I know from my experience that automatic translations are often misleading.

But we have two options: either automatically translate the newly added strings or keep them in English until they are translated. The latter is, in my opinion, the worse option because then a user gets a mix of two languages. Even though the automatic translations might be misleading the user can at least understand it.

Next to the language selection, we have a disclaimer that a few translation strings might be auto-translated, and we rely on contributors to improve the translations.

We would really appreciate it if you could help us to improve the translations :)

@stonith404 commented on GitHub: We have configured automatic pre-translation for strings that get newly added. I know from my experience that automatic translations are often misleading. But we have two options: either automatically translate the newly added strings or keep them in English until they are translated. The latter is, in my opinion, the worse option because then a user gets a mix of two languages. Even though the automatic translations might be misleading the user can at least understand it. Next to the language selection, we have a disclaimer that a few translation strings might be auto-translated, and we rely on contributors to improve the translations. We would really appreciate it if you could help us to improve the translations :)
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@xlionjuan commented on GitHub:

I may be wrong, at Crowdin's UI it said it is using DeepL to translate, DeepL seems not AI translate, but it is still really bad.

@xlionjuan commented on GitHub: I may be wrong, at Crowdin's UI it said it is using DeepL to translate, DeepL seems not AI translate, but it is still really bad.
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@xlionjuan commented on GitHub:

In Crowdin's interface, the machine translated strings will acts like "translated", so it is a NIGHTMARE for translators to tracking ALL LOW QUALITY translations

PLEASE STOP

@xlionjuan commented on GitHub: In Crowdin's interface, the machine translated strings will acts like "translated", so it is a NIGHTMARE for translators to tracking ALL LOW QUALITY translations # PLEASE STOP
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@xlionjuan commented on GitHub:

Some strings contains "passkey" are translated to "password" in Chinese.

Even though the automatic translations might be misleading the user can at least understand it.

Are you sure you still want to stand your ground on this?

@xlionjuan commented on GitHub: Some strings contains "passkey" are translated to "password" in Chinese. > Even though the automatic translations might be misleading the user can at least understand it. Are you sure you still want to stand your ground on this?
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@kmendell commented on GitHub:

@xlionjuan If you would like to be an approver on corwdin, let me know your username on there and i can add you. Your right in the fact of we shouldnt be submitting low quality stuff, but as elias or i dont know every langauge its hard to judge that hopefully you understand.

@kmendell commented on GitHub: @xlionjuan If you would like to be an approver on corwdin, let me know your username on there and i can add you. Your right in the fact of we shouldnt be submitting low quality stuff, but as elias or i dont know every langauge its hard to judge that hopefully you understand.
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@savely-krasovsky commented on GitHub:

@xlionjuan I solved that issue by asking "Editor" role and by approving manually every translation. I understand your frustration, but approval mechanics solves that problem in my opinion.

@savely-krasovsky commented on GitHub: @xlionjuan I solved that issue by asking "Editor" role and by approving manually every translation. I understand your frustration, but approval mechanics solves that problem in my opinion.
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@xlionjuan commented on GitHub:

@kmendell The problem isn't you should add someone as approver or not, the problem is submitting the translation strings by someone that don't understand that language.

@xlionjuan commented on GitHub: @kmendell The problem isn't you should add someone as approver or not, the problem is submitting the translation strings by someone that don't understand that language.
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@xlionjuan commented on GitHub:

@savely-krasovsky STOP submitting low quality translations is the answer

@xlionjuan commented on GitHub: @savely-krasovsky **STOP** submitting **low quality** translations is the answer
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Reference: starred/pocket-id#134