We were thrilled to start the year’s localization (l10n) community workshops in Barcelona at the end of March 2017! Thanks to the help of the ever dedicated Alba and Benny the workshop was fun, productive, and filled with amazing Catalonian food.

This workshop aimed to gather together core and active localizers from twenty-one l10n communities scattered throughout the southern parts of Western and Eastern Europe. Unlike the 2016 l10n hackathons, this was the first time we brought these twenty-one communities together to share experiences, ideas, and hack on Mozilla l10n projects together.

The w orkshop was held at Betahaus, a local co-working space in Barcelona located in Villa de Grácia, Barcelona. The space was great for both large group presentations and small group breakouts. We had room to move around, brainstorm on whiteboards, and play our favorite icebreaker game, spectograms.

All of the l10n-drivers were present for this workshop (another first) and many gave presentations on their main projects. Localizers got a look into new developments with L20n, Pontoon, and Pootle. We also had a glimpse into cross-channel localization for Firefox and how localizers can prepare for it to come in June.

Following tradition, l10n communities came to the workshop with specific goals to accomplish while there. While together, these communities were able to complete around 75% of their goals. These goals largely surrounded addressing the question of localization quality and testing, but also included translating strings for Mozilla products, web sites, and planning for recruiting new localizers.

We couldn’t think of being in Barcelona without taking advantage of participating in a cultural activity as a group. Alba was kind enough to guide the whole group through the city on Saturday night and show us some of the most prominent sites, like Sagrada Familia (which happened to be the most popular site among the l10n communities).

On Sunday, the l10n communities and drivers gathered around four different tables to discuss four different topics in 30-minute chunks of time. Every 30 minutes, Mozillians moved to a different table to discuss the topic assigned to that table. These topics included localization quality, style guides, recruiting new localizers, and mentoring new localizers. It was a great opportunity for both veteran and new localizers to come together and share their experience with each topic and ideas on how to take new approaches to each. Sure, it was a bit chaotic, but everyone was flexible and willing to participate, which made it a good experience nevertheless.

For more info about the workshop (including the official Spotify playlist of the workshop), visit the event’s wiki page here. ¡Hasta luego!

More pictures from the event: