Source-string suggestions without direct editing

[comradekingu]

Describe the issue

I want to leave suggestions for source strings.

If I understand it correctly the "read-only" flag is on by default and lifted when direct editing is turned on. (Suggestions for source strings work for projects that also allow direct editing of source strings.)

In any event it isn't possible to leave suggestions for strings by default, (with "suggestions" turned on), top of https://hosted.weblate.org/settings/remmina/remmina/#translation and it isn't possible to remove the "read-only" flag. in the settings for any strings.

Says "read-only" is inherrited from project/component — English, but that is what I am trying to edit, and it isn't bulk-added…

I already tried

• [X] I've read and searched the documentation.
• [X] I've searched for similar issues in this repository.

Steps to reproduce the behavior

1. add project.
2. try to add suggestion for any source string.

Expected behavior

Suggestions should be allowed by default (as now), for all projects.

Screenshots

Exception traceback

No response

How do you run Weblate?

weblate.org service

Weblate versions

No response

Weblate deploy checks

No response

Additional context

I didn't try to turn on suggestion voting, which just sits at 0 votes. Useful for people that don't have GitHub accounts, or don't want to leave suggestions in comments.

Would be a nice use-case for admins to come in and click yes or no to suggestions with direct editing that is only available to them.

[nijel]

Weblate does not allow adding suggestions if there is no way to accept them. Use https://docs.weblate.org/en/latest/workflows.html#source-strings-reviews instead.

[comradekingu]

I am at a loss for why is that not allowed?

From my point of view I go to make a suggestion

• If it isn't easy to direct edit, or I am not confident about my suggestion
• If it isn't to make PR/MRs upstream, or my change doesn't warrant the attention on either end

What I get instead is very often that I just know something that is wrong, What can I do with this info? I have no other way of keeping track of what it is without doing comments, which is too much work and wastes too much attention everywhere. There just happens to be more broken stuff than time permits fixing, and piling a bunch of comments atop that makes it insurmountable.

But I can keep track of where it is by marking as "needs editing", for the local string, even if it is an issue in the source string, as marking source strings locks stuff down.

Now what do I do if I see a suggestion (either by comments or the functionality), well I most often go and fix it. Every time I make a PR in Weblate with "Spotted by @username" that is how it happened.

I don't control every project, or have write access. It is most often just manual work, and that stuff gets made and picked up in a manner that is easy to deal with.

Also, the suggestion functionality should behave the same, regardless of how easy it is to guess whether a project would turn on direct editing or not. It doesn't say in the Zen editor…?

Quality should never suffer, and it is harder than it needs to be to have any certainty.

[comradekingu]

Having one fuzzy-status that either means something was changed upstream, or isn't quite right downstream, or as the case often is happens to be a disguised source string error without locking all translations, is as problematic as one review-status that anyone can change.

Ends up like https://github.com/ddterm/gnome-shell-extension-ddterm/issues/593#issuecomment-1774086727

Every time someone notices an error and doesn't do anything about it that is effort lost. All over the place people will correct basic errors only in the translation of their language, when everyone could benefit or at least be notified.

If I can make suggestions in translations, it only follows everyone should be able to for source strings. It can't be less beneficial when it affects everyone that doesn't check other translations for fixes that should have been upstreamed or made available otherwise.

Verifiability matters more than anything else.

Instead there is a focus on translators only doing translations, coverage meaning completeness in terms of accuracy, and functionality that changes and miscommunicates quality between translators and developers.

[nijel]

I am at a loss for why is that not allowed?

Because there is no way to accept such a suggestion inside Weblate. There is no point in piling up suggestions which cannot be dealt with.

There is Source strings reviews exactly for this, but it is opt-in, as there needs to be somebody from the project doing something with the feedback.

[comradekingu]

I can't bring myself to see how this wouldn't help the continuous integrated translation that Weblate already is markedly better at.

Suggestions are for people thinking they have better ideas, and Weblate has those people, for every project, for every string, for every language.

As for what suggestions happen to be are vs. direct changes made as translations, they represent some level of insecurity without real change.

That all works, in every language, in every string - except for most of the source strings, where it all matters a lot more.

Nobody is limited from taking their own or the suggestions of others to upstream manually, it just isn't convenient per default in Weblate.

Be that as it may, suggestions on their own help improve quality, and provide a venue to present things that would be changed directly if possible.

We know that these types of ideas just go missing, because the problems they represent end up as fixed in some of the translations.

Suggestions don't pile up right now, precisely because of what presents an even bigger inconvenience in going to the full extent of improving source strings, by someone else. If that isn't a deterrence for those doing something about it, then what we are really arguing here is that there would be more source string suggestions if they didn't have to be made via comments.

As for always making suggestions as suggestions instead of sometimes comments, the real change there is that suggestions work uniformly across downstream and upstream languages.

Bad source strings is a fixed target. Errors, malice, subpar language and so on can either sit there, or someone can do something about it.

It isn't even like suggestions piling up would be a bad thing to deal with. That just makes it easier to get to everything when rehauling the stringbase. I get that it is database info that isn't sent anywhere, but as long as it happens to also be for translations, why not?

It does matter what ideas people have, so I made this poll https://github.com/WeblateOrg/weblate/discussions/10336

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because there wasn’t any recent activity.

It will be closed soon if no further action occurs.

Thank you for your contributions!

[github-actions[bot]]

This issue has been put aside. It is currently unclear if it will ever be implemented as it seems to cover too narrow of a use case or doesn't seem to fit into Weblate.

Please try to clarify the use case or consider proposing something more generic to make it useful to more users.

[nijel]

https://github.com/WeblateOrg/weblate/discussions/10336 is a follow-up discussion.

https://github.com/WeblateOrg/weblate/issues/9729 would make this feature more useful.