WordPress Global Translation Day recap

Saturday 12 November 2016 was the second WordPress Global Translation Day. It was my first event, not only as translator but also as co-event host. I was a little nervous as I would also mostly be meeting the attendees for the first time, so I had no idea how things would go down.

Fortunately the WordPress community is a great place, and this is because of the people in it. From the moment the first attendee arrived to when we eventually packed up for the day we had a blast, translating WordPress into our chosen languages, telling stories, cracking jokes and just generally having a good time.

Attendees included (from left to right in the picture above) Shabier, Wesley, Rosy, Sello and myself. Wesley, who submitted the locale request with the help of Trisha from the Johannesburg meetup group, was also translating Xhosa for WordPress for the first time. Not only that but Rosy started working on Sotho and Sello on Setswana. By the end of the day we had two translation files for these languages that we’ll be looking to submit requests to be added as locales for WordPress. We’re almost halfway towards adding all 11 official languages, just in one day.

At around 12pm we had the opportunity to share the live stream with Petya Raykovska (the WordPress Polyglots team lead) and the team from Johannesburg, led by Trisha. We had a few feedback/echoing issues but it was good fun to be able to share our story with the translation teams around the world. It was also pretty amazing to see all the other teams from Europe and India and share in their fun.

After a great lunch from Woolies and Vida (sponsored by the great folks at WooCommerce) we had a group Skype with John Parkinson, a volunteer with WordPress TV from Ohio in America, who is putting together a short video showcasing the day. Afterwards we had another Skype with Trisha and the team from Johannesburg, sharing stories and meeting our Gauteng counterparts. I for one am looking forward to seeing them all again in person at WordCamp Johannesburg this coming weekend.

Thanks to our generous sponsors, Ashleigh Norris and the team from The Business Center for the amazing venue and WooCommerce, who sponsored our data and lunch for the event. Also thanks to my co-host Hugh for helping with getting the sponsorships in place (and checking in with me from time to time to see how things were going.) To Petya and everyone in the Polyglots team, thanks for organising this amazing event. I’m looking forward to the next one

Finally a big thanks to Shabier, Wesley, Rosy and Sello for taking some time out of there day to help translate WordPress in their languages. I look forward to seeing you all again at our next meetup!