Quoting the exact message rather than (or in addition to) an English translation is always helpful, since it can be searched for. Did he get this error message? If yes, that’s probably a bug in the abuse filter (or AbuseFilter itself).

No. Some time ago ruwiki requested a change in ContentTranslation settings, allowing only "autoreview" users to use this tool (due to many low-quality translations by new users)

Then, again, please quote the original (Russian) message, so that it can be searched for. It would also be helpful if you could mention the task of the requested change – both for cross-reference and to make it easier to find out what went wrong.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project:Форум/Технический#Переводчик

"В русской Википедии использование инструмента перевода доступно только автопатрулируемым"

Change #1227814 had a related patch set uploaded (by Shivaansh Singh; author: Shivaansh Singh):

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] Fix autoreview permission check to support FlaggedRevs rights

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1227814

In T414667#11528703, @MBH wrote:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project:Форум/Технический#Переводчик

"В русской Википедии использование инструмента перевода доступно только автопатрулируемым"

Thanks! It’s https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Contenttranslation-summary, and I think it appears to everyone, regardless of whether the user has autoreview right or not. (It’s meant by developers to be a generic description of the special page, so ruwiki is sort of abusing it for the error message – and while there is nothing wrong with this abuse from a technical viewpoint, it can lead to confusion, as you can see.)

I tried to understand the village pump discussion using Google Translate, but I’m not sure: is Basicowes really unable to use the tool, or did he just get confused by the message, and didn’t even attempt to use it?

In T414667#11528204, @Tacsipacsi wrote:

It would also be helpful if you could mention the task of the requested change – both for cross-reference and to make it easier to find out what went wrong.

Could you please add this? Or are you unable to find it anymore?

Looks like Singh already identified a problem and did a patch.

They already identified a problem, but I have major doubts the problem they identified exists to begin with. This is why I ask you to confirm with Basicowes whether he is really unable to use the interface. (Also, the patch in its current state would probably cause more problems than what it solves, so it would require a rewrite almost from scratch. I’d like to save the work of this rewrite if there’s nothing to fix.)

Basic says it works since 16.01.

Change #1227814 abandoned by Shivaansh Singh:

[mediawiki/extensions/ContentTranslation@master] Fix autoreview permission check to support FlaggedRevs rights

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/1227814

@Tacsipacsi user says the problem was real, a button could not be pressed: https://ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=148270&diff=151216329&oldid=151215693

@MBH Should I restore the patch then?

In T414667#11531333, @MBH wrote:

@Tacsipacsi user says the problem was real, a button could not be pressed: https://ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=148270&diff=151216329&oldid=151215693

Okay. Then my next question would be whether there are any JavaScript error messages – which of course he cannot answer, since the error is gone. You could ask him, though, to collect them in case the error comes back. (An unpressable button can have many causes: other than a bug in the ContentTranslation code, it can be a conflicting other extension, conflicting gadget or user script, conflicting browser extension etc. An error message can help telling these apart.)

In T414667#11531338, @ShivaanshSingh wrote:

@MBH Should I restore the patch then?

I don’t think so. The error is not currently reproducible, so we couldn’t tell whether the patch (or any other patch) fixes it.