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- Chit-chat around Week 42's WIU
Chit-chat around Week 42's WIU
Hi folks, for anyone interested in discussing this weeks WIU, feel free to use the comment section below.
Because it is an unofficial post and I'm not helping put it together, I don't know why it's locked. But, my current guess is that it's locked so people with slow internet connections can still access it. (The more comments a discussion gets, the slower it loads for people with slow internet connections. If it slows down too much, it produces a page error. At least, that's what happened to me back when I had slow internet and was trying to access Duolingo's more popular posts.)
Anyhow, people were really missing the discussions and found them important. So, I hope having a new place to discuss it helps, while keeping the initial update information accessible. ^_^
Disclaimer: Unlike many moderators, I'm not a course contributor. So, I largely lack information about how it works. I don't have insider information either. And, staff is tightening restrictions on giving information that isn't already out to the public. So, I'm not sure what all contributors are allowed to say about their courses now either.
*Not really chit-chat ;)
55 Comments
I don't have a slow internet connection and large threads still take a long time to load. I think it's more about the forum software than a user's internet speed. Duolingo really needs a much better forum software. It's just text, much less than the size of a typical novel, and loading it shouldn't be a problem.
It has nothing to do with Internet speeds, jrikhal specifically said the WIU is locked because it's an update, not a discussion.
1981
Indeed; in many WIUs people have used the discussion to provide useful information such as pointing out errors in the update, translations of updates written in various languages, contributors have themselves posted to clarify things, etc.
1981
I don't expect contributors to appear in every WIU; I have merely noticed that they do now and then. But thank you for having already thought of this, and for making this discussion in the first place.
It would be nice if you could persuade jrikhal to include a direct link to these discussions from the original WIU posts, or they will become less easy to find.
With Klingon, on their last update, they said that apostrophes count as a letter in Klingon and capital letters have to be recognized by the system because capital letters are important in Klingon writing. So all that has to be done by Duolingo's technical staff.
I supposedly have high speed internet, but if there are something like 300 comments for a post, it's next to impossible for me to scroll through them all. It gets extremely slow.
Sometimes they lock the discussion if they don't want it to get too slow or if people would post silly comments.
I don't work on the Incubator side of things so, I could be wrong. But, usually when courses are stuck near or at 100% for a long while, it is because there are things outside of just the course itself, for example the website that have to be translated. There is also other stuff that happens. I'm not sure what all it is, but, it can take a few months even after a course reaches 100%
Actually, I just had another thought. I've updated it in a disclaimer up top. But, staff's been tightening restrictions on what volunteers can say about things that are happening in the background. So, I don't know what contributors are allowed to say about their courses before release right now. :(
The Klingon course is essentially finished and the alpha testers are still busy working through it.
There are still some technical issues that have to be solved before the course can be published - this is largely outside of our control and I can't give an estimate for how long this may take.
A new technical issue came up in the past couple of days which has been reported to Duolingo staff/developers as well.
I know it must be frustrating seeing the course stand still for weeks on end -- it's frustrating for us as well, as we'd love to release the course! But we need a course that works.
I remember someone saying there that the mod jrykil (cannot remember hows its spelt, in my head its a jumble of letters beginging with J :/) had said he did it because it is common that people with low interent cannot access posts with a lot of comments and wanted everyone to be able to access it.
They provided a link but I did not click it so cannot confirm, this is just what someone else said he said.
Well, I'v always heard that it is because of people with slow internet, but in this instance, I don't exactly agree with that. This is the second to last update, and it only has 51 comments. So anyhow, I think the necessity to lock these updates is unnecessary. I myself have slow internet, but a discussion with 51 comments loads in the blink of an eye ;)
Infact, check out this discussion, https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22360462 It has all the WIU updates that you need. And, if you click on those links, you will see that lots of them don't have that many comments. But the comment they do have are good, on topic questions. P.s Quick thanks to lindakanga for making and updating that discussion :D
This isn't really related to the WIU but is there any information you can give us regarding Swahili.
The last update was 3 months or so ago which said all the audio was finished and it would be intergrated into the tree within two weeks, nothing has been said since (to my knowledge) and the audio hasn't been added. I know that it isn't the most popular language on Duolingo but a lot of people have waited months with no word about why it was delayed or if it is even ever going to be added.
390
It seems like only one contributor is left, and I don't know if he's actually visited Duo recently. I'm wondering if it has been abandoned. If so, I wonder if there is a way for some of us using the course to pick it up to fix the multitude of errors and push for sound implementation. Last we heard the sound was ready and waiting for Duo to add it, so I take it that means the Duo team has the files.
Just not sure how one would go about that. I know there is the contribute form, but that asks for a certain level of understanding of the language that isn't necessarily required for what I'm thinking.
390
I know it has been recorded. They said 4 months ago they were just waiting on Duo to implement it. Since then they have neither chased it up nor apologised for the delay. I'm pretty sure they've been extremely busy, and I'm not blaming them or anything -- I've been one of their biggest cheerleaders -- but you do eventually get a little antsy when absolutely nothing is getting done, not even the occasional added translation. It is beginning to look abandoned.
Well one of the contributors (mhagiwara) is actually a staff member, but he is fluent in Chinese. He also contributed to the Korean and Japanese courses.
1981
Duolingo posted this tweet a few days ago, the meaning of which does not appear to be excessively cryptic...