End of Japanese community • Hacker News Board

Re: End of Japanese community

#61

Post by onetokeoverthe » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:00 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #53

jogu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

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 un…

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Re: End of Japanese community

#62

Post by dingnuts » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:01 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #53

jogu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

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 un…

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

Re: End of Japanese community

#63

Post by move-on-by » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:01 AM UTC

omoikane wrote: post #27

barbazoo wrote: post #2

> They are all happened on the product server, not on staging server. I understand that this is mass destruction of our work and explicit violation to the Mozilla mission, allowed officially. Could this have been a mistake rather than a malicious act?

If this was a mistake, the proper response might have been "sorry, we applied automation in error, those changes have been rolled back while we fix the process that allowed it to happen". And not "call with us to talk about this further".

At the very least, ‘we will discuss how this could of been handled differently’, not I’m sorry you feel this way.

Re: End of Japanese community

#64

Post by ants_everywhere » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:02 AM UTC

kaveh_h wrote: post #17

Some people do these type of contribution or charity work not just to do some good but also to feel some autonomy and mastery in a world were much of the regular top down driven drudgery work does not provide much of that feeling. These people are canaries in the coal mine. I expect more people feel a loss of purpose and rise of anxiety and depression in the world.

Conversely, it's a bit strange for a for-profit company like Mozilla Corporation to rely on volunteer labor through its non-profit parent Mozilla Foundation to perform customer support.

There was a period where every company was trying to "crowd source" free labor. It died off because people didn't like working for corporations for free.

I can see why they have it under Mozilla.org. And lots of companies have community support.

But I do think we should ask ourselves whether companies have some sort of moral obligation to continue relying on unpaid labor because it might make the unpaid laborers feel a sense of meaning. I'm very sympathetic to the need to have a sense of meaning. But I'm less sympathetic to for-profit companies relying on unpaid labor and especially to the idea that we should encourage more of it.

Re: End of Japanese community

#65

Post by jogu » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:03 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #53

jogu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

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 un…

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.

Re: End of Japanese community

#66

Post by ezoe » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:04 AM UTC

When the machine automation quality became okay enough, this conflict of interest happens.

His demand of not using his existing work for AI training is nonsense. Because the entire article is stated:

Didn't he agree on that?

So, this contributor revealed he doesn't understand the license his work is published under. As such, Mozilla must refuse his contribution because he don't understand the idea behind Creative Commons license. His wish granted I guess.

Re: End of Japanese community

#67

Post by pseudalopex » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:05 AM UTC

Incipient wrote: post #28

benatkin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They said sorry for how you feel about it which is insincere and unhelpful.

My partner has been picking me up on the specifics of wording. Is there a slightly different phrasing that would make this better, or is it the sentiment that's crap? "I'm sorry for how these changes impacted you"? Personally just the sentiment feels insincere to me haha.

The sentiment is more important. But I'm sorry for how you feel suggests to many people the sole problem was their feelings. I'm sorry for how these changes impacted you suggests the changes could have been wrong.

Re: End of Japanese community

#68

Post by sitharus » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:07 AM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #24

sitharus wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those would be the guidelines that all translation contributors are expected to follow, which are given to all prospective translators. It sounds like Mozilla just turned on the machine without consulting the human translators to see if the machine actually worked in a useful manner.

> It sounds like Mozilla just turned on the machine without consulting the human translators to see if the machine actually worked in a useful manner. Yes. And someone should make a real apology. But learning what the machine did wrong is part of fixing a machine.

Yes, that's why you engage with the people doing the work first and run it on a staging environment to see what would be overwritten. You test until it's working well enough to enhance the effort done by the translators.

Re: End of Japanese community

#69

Post by ezoe » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:07 AM UTC

adeptima wrote: post #7

10+ years in Japan. The message here is much deeper from my perspective. “Let’s jump on the call” is not the solution. The guy was stripped off of his face. I love Japan for being human. Small business bar or restaurant with 3 tables. Not everything should be streamlined for a quick call solution… the process was pushed on his head. Google nemawashi decision making process

Exactly, this is just a 面子(face) problem.

Also, his demanding of not using his work for AI training is nonsense. Because entire articles, this one included is published under a Creative Commons license.

Didn't he agree on that?

Mozilla must reject his further contribution because he stated he don't understand the term of Creative Commons license. His wish granted I guess.

Re: End of Japanese community

#70

Post by overfeed » Thu, Nov 06, 2025, 4:08 AM UTC

thwarted wrote: post #21

What is the logic behind adding machine translation for content that already had a seemingly robust, enthusiastic, and motivated (volunteer?) community maintaining the translations? The "saves money" rationale to deploy LLM/MT automation doesn't make sense when its volunteers are contributing because they want to. This is kind of community and participation destruction wrought by the introduction of LLMs/MT has a ser…

Mozilla has long suffered from FAANG-envy. If big tech is doing Social Network|Mobile OS|AI, then by golly, Mozilla reflexively has to spend Firefox money on a poorly executed, me-too copy that's discarded when the next fad comes around. The sad thing is the reasoning is usually sound, but the execution... Yeesh.