transifex's "fillup" causing chaos for en-* translations

[k-yle]

This has already been reported in openstreetmap/iD#7508 (comment) but we need a separate issue to track this ongoing issue

Transifex seems to be behaving weirdly with the en_* translations.

Recently it recorded @k-yle as making a translation to en_AU which he says he's never had permission to edit.

Then also I apparently edited en_GB which I don't think I've ever gone into.

[...]

(@andrewharvey in openstreetmap/iD#7508 (comment))

Specific example:

• In March 2022, I added "Dairy" as the en-NZ translation of 'Convenience Store'^[1]
• In November 2024, somehow this change was synced to en-CA^[2]. Even weirder, the edit was apparently authored by me!^[2], even though I don't have permission to edit en-CA^[4] 🤨
• In March 2025, the changes were synced into github for en-CA:

  id-tagging-schema/dist/translations/en-CA.json

  Line 8217 in 26abac8

  "name": "Convenience Store / Dairy",

---

Possibly related:

See also: openstreetmap/id-tagging-schema@defe6cb#commitcomment-153871643

Since the most recent release, it's impossible to review the changes to en-*.json, because those files now transclude every untranslated string from the base language.

(@k-yle in openstreetmap/iD#7508 (comment))

This forced me to hack together this tool to review partially translated languages.

Looking through the diff in that tool, there's a lot of other weird stuff. For example, en-NZ now has:

-  40, 50, 60...
+  40 mph, 50 mph, 60 mph...

which was ostensibly added by @arrival-spring in Novemeber 2024^[3], but that's impossible, because @arrival-spring doesn't have permission to edit en-NZ^[5]...............

[andrewharvey]

This forced me to hack together this tool to review partially translated languages.

Nice! I always found it hard to review what's actually changed when using Transifex.

[1ec5]

In my experience, the authorship information in Transifex’s history tab has always been highly suspect. I basically always discount it. Filtering by author still works for me for the most part, but things might be worse for translating a language variant.

[k-yle]

leaving a note here since we can't trust the transifex edit history. today i cleaning up en-NZ and deleted everything that was copied from en-CA/en-GB. If the terms come back then we know this is more than a one-off issue.

Some random examples for future reference:

• Power Line -> High Voltage Power Line
• deleted Lorry Speed Limit (synced from en-GB)
• deleted Shared Zone Road (synced from en-AU)
• deleted CAD placeholder (synced from en-CA)

[andrewharvey]

Another one, noting this is from "Translation memory" not sure if that's the root cause?

Vacuum Cleaner Store was changed to Hoover Shop in en-au by bgo_eiu but they are only a member of Panjabi so I don't think they would have been working in the Australian translations. I've just updated in now.

EDIT: I'm seeing a lot of updates to en-AU with via "Translation memory" from contributors to en-UK.

[1ec5]

Yes, this suggestion is coming from en_GB. Maybe it includes any other language for which you’re a member of the translation team?

[andrewharvey]

Yes, this suggestion is coming from en_GB. Maybe it includes any other language for which you’re a member of the translation team?

I didn't even realise I was a member of the en_GB Translation Team. I just left the team, hopefully that helps.

[matkoniecz]

is en-NZ supposed to have "Convenience Store / Dairy" rather than "Convenience Store" ?

[k-yle]

yes, Dairy is the local term, but there's an evergrowing australian & american influence so we kept / Convenience Store in the name too. i can't remember when that was decided, about 3 years ago

[k-yle]

not sure whether slack preserves the chat history these days, so copying this comment from @bryceco:

When I add an amenity/waste_basket iD calls it a “Trash can”, but the translation provided in “en-US” is “Rubbish bin”. “Trash can” is used by the “en” translation. My browser is sending “Accept-Language”: “en-US,en;q=0.9”.

@k-yle:

this is caused by #1536, "Rubbish Bin" should only exist in en-AU and en-NZ, but all the en-* languares are completely messed up now 😢
en-US.json was empty until the problematic release a few months ago

so en-US.json also needs to be cleaned up. This one will be the easiest, since we can just delete every translation.

[matkoniecz]

it needs to be fixed on Transifex by deleting entries, right?

Cannot be fixed by PR to this repo?

[homersimpsons]

Edit: actually there are 2 locale for french fr_FR and fr so the difference comes from here.

I do not know if this is the same issue but some translations (from 8 years ago) are not synced during the releases, I noticed this in openstreetmap/iD#11183 (comment):

By the way I wanted to update the french transhlation for https://app.transifex.com/openstreetmap/id-editor/translate/#fr/presets/41336797?q=key%3Aincline+reviewed%3Ano but it was updated correctly 8 years ago (on april 2017). So it seems there is an issue somewhere in the process, because I can still see the old translation in https://www.npmjs.com/package/@openstreetmap/id-tagging-schema?activeTab=code in file dist/translations/fr-FR.json:2129:

                "incline_steps": {
                    "options": {
                        "down": "Vers le bas",
                        "up": "En haut" // <- this is wrong
                    }
                },

Note that if I setup the project and run transifex_password="..." npm run dist I have a correct translation:

                "incline_steps": {
                    "options": {
                        "down": "Vers le bas",
                        "up": "Vers le haut" // <- correct
                    }
                },

But this translation is not in the history, nor displayed in the list nor in the translation view, but it is in the suggestion tab from 1 month ago. They clearly have issues.