Google Chrome's auto-translate of the contentEditable surface is very confusing for users
Closed, ResolvedPublic1 Estimated Story Points
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	Drongou
	Nov 16 2013, 12:05 AM

Description

This isn't a VE bug but ...
With google translate and chrome when you choose "always translate" and then hide the translate bar, the look and feel is really WP:en or WP:yourlanguage

When you choose to contribute with VisualEditor, everything is translated : text, button, message but the little "search" in the research box.

Then contributions in different language appear on WP:fr ex : https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Acrosport&diff=prev&oldid=98352033

A little change in text saves the all translated bloc.

Maybe, the VE edit button should be block with a warning message or the text display for edition should block google translate (I don't know if it's possible) like textarea does.

Version: unspecified
Severity: normal
Whiteboard: aklapper-moreinfo

Details

Reference: bz57124

	Subject	Repo	Branch	Lines +/-
	Add class="notranslate" to prevent Chrome from translating the CE DOM	VisualEditor/VisualEditor	master	+3 -1

Customize query in gerrit

Related Objects

Mentioned In: rGVEDfd7ee9877b53: Add class="notranslate" to prevent Chrome from translating the CE DOM

Event Timeline

• bzimport raised the priority of this task from to Needs Triage.Nov 22 2014, 2:15 AM

• bzimport added a project: VisualEditor.

• bzimport set Reference to bz57124.

Drongou created this task.Nov 16 2013, 12:05 AM

Hi Drongou,
thanks for taking the time to report this!

Please describe the actual problem, the expected outcome, and the exact steps to reproduce so somebody else could follow these steps. Also see https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/How_to_report_a_bug . Thanks in advance!

With Chrome

Go on a wiki with a language different of the language choosen in Chrome parameter

For example, if Chrome language is english go on WP:fr

For a registred account change the language in wiki preference to the language of the wiki (here français) because the button in english will block the chrome translate banner or do it on IP.

Go on a WP:fr page
The chrome translate banner appears; choose always translate and close the banner (not compulsory but better for the look and feel)

Go on VE (modifier button)

Select the first word (just one word) of any paragraph. Do copy/paste. (copy the word on himself) Then save

Then you get a paragraph in english in a french article.

Because it's difficult to change a Chrome for french to a Chrome for english (Chrome doesn't want to forget he's in a french environment), I've done it on WP:en (in reverse, it will be difficult for you to do it on WP:en) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3ADrongou%2FBug57124&diff=582266868&oldid=582266664

Unfortunately the only way to fix this is to add:

<meta name="google" content="notranslate" />

to the <head> of every Wikipedia page, which is undesirable (not least because it would disable translate.google.com requests of the page, too). - See https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/79812?hl=en

I think the duty lies with Google to fix Chrome to not translate contentEditable elements. There doesn't appear to be anything we can do at Wikimedia to fix this.

Marking as INVALID.

According to Drongou, this "google problem" would also explain that in the following edit, snowmen were added by VE to the text.
I doubt that google translate adds snowmen to its translation, and its a recurrent problem with VE.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Touche_pas_%C3%A0_mon_pote&curid=5972689&diff=111575789&oldid=110714100

I've nominated this task to Q3 blockers as it keeps damaging articles on frwiki, and I highly doubt that the snowmen are really added by google translate.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ben_Bocquelet&diff=113382413&oldid=113108176
https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jake_le_chien&diff=113382267&oldid=113253474
https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Miss_Rainicorne&diff=prev&oldid=113234436

BTW, I send feedback to Google Translate, requesting they ignore contenteditable areas. Probably not gonna make a difference, but you never know.

• Elitre awarded a token.Mar 30 2015, 8:06 PM

Roan's found a way to get Google Translate to be suppressed, which is awesome.

Jdforrester-WMF renamed this task from VisualEditor: Google Chrome's auto-translate of the contentEditable surface is very confusing for users to Google Chrome's auto-translate of the contentEditable surface is very confusing for users.Mar 30 2015, 9:07 PM

Jdforrester-WMF reopened this task as Open.

Jdforrester-WMF reassigned this task from Jdforrester-WMF to Catrope.

Jdforrester-WMF triaged this task as High priority.

Jdforrester-WMF added a project: VisualEditor-ContentEditable.

Jdforrester-WMF edited a custom field.

Jdforrester-WMF moved this task from Nominated to Accepted on the VisualEditor 2014/15 Q3 blockers board.

Change 200746 had a related patch set uploaded (by Catrope):
Add class="notranslate" to prevent Chrome from translating the CE DOM

https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/200746

gerritbot added a project: Patch-For-Review.Mar 30 2015, 9:18 PM

Jdforrester-WMF closed this task as Resolved.Mar 30 2015, 9:20 PM

Jdforrester-WMF edited projects, added WMF-deploy-2015-04-01_(1.25wmf24); removed Patch-For-Review.

Jdforrester-WMF moved this task from Accepted to Done on the VisualEditor 2014/15 Q3 blockers board.

Change 200746 merged by jenkins-bot:
Add class="notranslate" to prevent Chrome from translating the CE DOM