Categories: Languages & Cultures

Awesome L10n Contributor: Peter Pin-Guang Chen

Part of a series similar to the Awesome L10n Communities series where individual contributors are spotlighted for their efforts.

Peter Pin-Guang Chen

 

Started with Mozilla project: End of April, 2010
Nationality: Taiwan

Languages: Mandarin and Wu Chinese, Taiwanese, English
Background: Graduated from dept. of information communication, I have been an amateur software developer/localizer for ~10 years and also a FreeBSD system admin for ~6 years.
Role in L10n community: L10n Owner
Projects you’re currently working on: Localizing all Mozilla software and most web projects (see https://wiki.mozilla.org/L10n:Teams:zh-TW).

How did you get started with the Mozilla project?

I organized a school-wide activity and asked Bob (@BobChao), MozTW’s former Community Liaison, to give a talk about free culture, Mozilla, and MozTW. Then Bob asked me to attend some gatherings and meet-ups held by MozTW and I began to take care of some community affairs, also promoting and localizing.

What is your approach to overcoming blocks and bugs in your L10n work?

I take some time to test and be careful when new functions or strings are landed (usually when the status in dashboard turns red). I also use central channel in daily life as my default browser to spot the issues early.

How do you find new contributors for your community?

We have multiple ways to reach people from online mailing list and forums to offline weekly meet-ups. Usually I’d ask those who are interested to make a small self-introduction on mailing list to let everybody know who they are, see what they want to contribute and encourage them to dig in and get hands dirty.

How do you go about mentoring new contributors?

Thanks to our former L10n owners, we already have a bridging server with Narro installed so there are not much technical problems for new contributors. I usually just tell new contributors some special issues or customs we have first, let them try for a short time, and then improve (no matter these contributors or myself).

If you could identify several best practices that have helped you to become a successful Mozilla localizer, what would they be?

Well, as of my time becoming a Mozilla localizer, there were not many documents or HOWTOs to help freshmen. I just learnt the skills from former owners and peers via L10n workshops and try myself. But now I have seen useful MDN articles and guides for L10n, I believe this can help new L10n teams to get started faster and easier.

What are you most looking forward to accomplishing this year?

We have pretty much community members, but I’m looking forward to having more people volunteering in L10n continuously, not only sharing my load but we need some more stable localizers.

What projects are you most looking forward to working on this year?

Applications: Thunderbird and Seamonkey.
Others: BrowserID, B2G, and Marketplace

Few things you may not know about me:

1) I was born in 1989, learned to use a computer at age of 5 for the first time, and went online at 7, but I’m not the youngest member in MozTW 😛
2) I’m still a student, just got my BA degree last summer and studying for Masters in Digital Content now.
3) I love travelling and finding something delicious. Although I have been to only a few countries, going to Malaysia for MozCamp KL was also my first time to go abroad (thanks Mozilla!)
4) My hobby is transportation. From Shinkansen to TGV and ICE, I really love anything about railways; I follow news for air crafts, buses, and roads as well.

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