How Voyant Compass works
Each language has a team: a lead, translators and reviewers. Machine drafts give everyone something to start from; people choose, write and check; the lead signs off; Augustine approves it for Voyant.
Step by step, with pictures: Reviewer Translator Language lead
Who does what
| Role | What you can do |
|---|---|
| Reviewer | See the options for each string and vote for the one that reads best, or say none is right. Reviewers do not type translations. |
| Translator | Everything a reviewer does, and also edit an option or write a translation of your own. |
| Language lead | Everything a translator does, and runs the team: invites people by email, changes their role, gives them strings to translate or to review, keeps the glossary, and signs off the team's work. |
| Superadmin | Approves what each lead signs off, which sends the language to the main Voyant site. |
The first person approved for a language becomes its lead, and later applicants join under them.
Translating and reviewing
- Open Translate. Strings your lead gave you come first, then the ones on Voyant's main screen, then the rarely seen ones.
- Short strings (one to three words) go fastest in the Quick list. Longer ones open one at a time.
- The options are shown in random order with their sources hidden until you choose, so you judge the words, not the machine.
- If the same English appears in several places, your choice fills them all.
- Use the note box for a doubt only the lead should see, and the comments under the string to talk with your team.
- Press Preview in Voyant to see your language on the experimental Voyant server with a corpus loaded.
Rules every translation keeps
- Keep placeholders such as {count} exactly as written. You may move them to wherever your grammar needs them.
- On strings with formatting or tooltips, you type only the words, one box per piece; the tags stay in place for you.
- Give one translation per string, not alternatives separated by slashes.
- Voyant, Spyral and the tool names may stay as they are, be written in your own script, or become a pun in your language: your choice.
- Follow your team's glossary for words that recur, such as corpus, document and term.
For language leads
- My team opens your dashboard: progress from the main screen down, who did what, and recent work.
- Team: invite people by email (they join when they accept, no other approval needed), approve or decline applications, change roles, or remove someone (their work stays on record).
- Give out strings: a number of strings to translate (not done yet) or to review (done, to check for mistakes), the main screen first.
- Sign off: strings sorted into disagreements, checker flags, clean and waiting. What you sign off replaces the machine draft on the experimental site and goes to Augustine for final approval.
- Once every main-screen string is approved, your language is ready for the main Voyant site.
Tips & Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard Shortcuts
| Ctrl + Enter | Save and advance to the next string |
| ← Left Arrow | Previous string |
| → Right Arrow | Next string |
| Esc | Back to queue list |
Best Practices
- Always preserve placeholders — placeholders and HTML tags must appear in your translation exactly as they do in the source.
- Check the back-translation — if the meaning drifted, the translation probably needs editing.
- Watch for QA flags — they catch issues automatically, but they're not perfect. Use your judgment.
- When in doubt, flag it — it's better to flag a string for discussion than to approve an incorrect translation.
- Be consistent — use the same term for the same concept throughout. Check how similar strings were translated.
Typing your language's letters
Above every translation box is a bar of the letters and tone marks your language uses that an English keyboard lacks, such as ɖ ƒ ɣ ŋ ɔ ɛ ʋ in Ewe or ẹ ọ ṣ in Yoruba. Click in the box, then click a letter: it goes in where your cursor is.
- Tone marks (shown on a dotted circle, ◌́) go on the letter just before the cursor: type e, then click ◌́ to get é.
- Capitals switches every letter on the bar to its capital, for example Ɖ or Ɛ.
- Accented letters opens ready-made letters with tone marks, and More letters opens the letters other languages on the hub use.
- Missing a letter? Open Add a letter, paste or type it, and press Add. It joins the bar for everyone translating your language, recorded under your name.
If you type a lot, a keyboard for your language is faster. Keyman is free on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iPhone, with keyboards for many African languages, including Ewe, a Ghana keyboard and SIL's Pan Africa keyboard. On Android, Google's Gboard also has keyboards for many African languages, Ewe among them.
Understanding QA Flags
The source has a placeholder that is missing from the translation. This will cause a runtime error.
The number of HTML tags in the translation doesn't match the source. Broken tags break the UI.
The back-translation drifted far from the original meaning (score < 0.75). Review carefully.
The translation is suspiciously shorter or longer than expected. May indicate missing content.
Mismatched braces in the translation. Potential runtime error.
The engine returned nothing. Needs a manual translation from scratch.
Ready to start?
Log in and open your queue. Every translation you review brings Voyant one step closer to supporting your language.