Eicar ArlettazNov 6
nixCraft 🐧

End of Japanese community at Mozilla due to the introduction of AI-based translation.

The community members have expressed disappointment and frustration that their long term volunteer efforts and local knowledge were being replaced by machine translation, which they felt did not match the quality of human provided support.

This is why Mozilla sucks so much, they are going crazy like rest of the industry.

Source
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/forums/contributors/717446

Added screenshot in case Mozilla decided to remove it

Nov 6 at 8:47amWeb
Show threadnixCraft 🐧Nov 6
Every day, Mozilla leadership wakes up and thinks: "How can we piss off the tiny number of remaining users who are our biggest fans?" , all while C suites get millions in salary and add AI slop everywhere.
Show threadThibautNov 6
@nixCraft About to loose their 3% marketshare trying to gain the missing 97%
Show threadnixCraft 🐧Nov 6
@thibaut_plg exactly
Show threadAdmiral SnackbärNov 6

@thibaut_plg @nixCraft

The stupid thing is, some of the AI features could actually be useful and advertised as "we're the good guys".

Local AI based translation is objectively cool ( if it's actually working, that is).

Instead millions are wasted on crap and bad ads.

Show threadAlan HicksNov 6
@nixCraft enshitification was a warning not a playbook!
Show threadRadlerNov 6

@AlanHicksLondon @nixCraft I object: It is quite an old playbook that runs to extremes nowadays.
Enshitification is just the best fitting title for that playbook.

Makes me sad, that mozilla voluntarily and willingly jumped into using that playbook.
C'mon #mozilla try to be different not like aiverybody else.

Show threadJoeNov 6
@nixCraft
Waiting desperately for Ladybird. We need alternatives. I used Firefox, when it was Mozilla still and the version number was <1. But I am so fed up with Mozilla nowadays.
Show threadskategoat 🐐 🇵🇸Nov 6
@jdb78 @nixCraft you may want to check the bottom of this page https://hyperborea.org/reviews/software/ladybird-inclusivity/
Ladybird and the Controversy over Inclusivity

What people were upset about, why it blew up, and why some people are still leery of the project to this day.

Kelson Reviews Stuff
Show threadKoenNov 6

@nixCraft

When I checked out this controversy, it seems that the exact same change in a different PR was accepted later on. (The other points in the post still stand, of course)

It does make me sad though. It almost seems like open source is having a nazi problem. But I am hopeful those are just a loud minority.

Show threadKluthulhu' XOR 1=1--Nov 6
@koen @nixCraft I'd put it this way: Open source has a massive incel problem, many of which have been gaslit into blaming "others" or "DEI" for their solitude...
Show threadMarekNov 7
@koen @nixCraft Really? When I last checked (over a year ago), I think it still only had the male form.
Show threadKoenNov 7

@mark22k @nixCraft

I had to do some digging, but this was the commit I was talking about:

https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity/commit/a2a6bc534868773b9320ec3ca7399283cf7a375b

However, the files have significantly changed since the controversy. So I am not 100% sure if this change is global for the project. Or just an isolated good example among a sea of bad examples.

Documentation: Fix some minor ESL grammar issues · SerenityOS/serenity@a2a6bc5

There are a few instances where comments and documentation have minor grammar issues likely resulting from English being the author's second language. This PR fixes several such cases, changin...

GitHub
Show threadJoeNov 6
@felipe
Just great. So another project down the drains... Thank you so much for pointing this out to me. Oh well... That just compounds my hate for human.... Pardon me, I mean my love for stones.
@nixCraft
Show threadThiagoNov 6
@felipe @jdb78 @nixCraft
Fuck. I just heard a podcast with Kling and was so excited about his projects. What a disappointment.
Show threadwhite_geckoNov 6
@jdb78 @nixCraft Also @servo might be interesting.
Show threadJoannaCanFixITNov 6
@white_gecko @jdb78 @nixCraft @servo isn't servo aimed at kiosks so it won't be ever a full blown browser for desktop?
Show threadwhite_geckoNov 6
@JoannaCanFixIT @jdb78 @nixCraft @servo The website says:
“Servo is a web browser rendering engine written in Rust, with WebGL and WebGPU support, and adaptable to desktop, mobile, and embedded applications.” So yes, but no–there could be a servo based full blown browser for the desktop.
Show threadAlfonso Martínez de LizarrondoNov 6
@JoannaCanFixIT @white_gecko @jdb78 @nixCraft @servo no, at the moment they are focused on the engine, not a polished browser.
They are working as best as they can with their available resources and you can already test it https://servo.org/download/
In the future there could be other browsers based on the engine like the are many chromium/blink browsers nowadays and some Firefox/gecko ones
Download - Servo aims to empower developers with a lightweight, high-performance alternative for embedding web technologies in applications.

Servo is a web rendering engine written in Rust, with WebGL and WebGPU support, and adaptable to desktop, mobile, and embedded applications.

Servo
Show threaddoragasuNov 6
@nixCraft That's painfully accurate.
Show threadsocNov 6
@nixCraft Their next job will be at Google proper, considering how much they worked on increasing Chrome marketshare. 🤷
Show threadTravisNov 6
@nixCraft You’re wrong. Mozilla leadership doesn’t think. And that’s the problem.
Show threadMelroy van den BergNov 6
@travis @nixCraft ow they do think. But only about money and AI now.
Show threadYoraNov 6
@nixCraft Where does the money come from, though?
Government grants, paid by taxes?
Show threadUsagiNov 6
@yora @nixCraft Google. They pay them for making their search the default.
Show threadderptronNov 6
@nixCraft How much are the C suits at Mozilla taking for themselves?
Show threadKnightmareNov 6
@nixCraft I'm pissed, they started putting ads in the form of bookmarks on their Firefox homepage for sites like Amazon...
Show threadDon MartiNov 7

@nixCraft also programmatic ads (!) which for now you can still turn off

https://blog.zgp.org/turn-off-programmatic-ads-in-firefox/

The Mozilla execs made a big deal out of this at Advertising Week in New York City recently, haven't been talking it up in community channels though...

turn off programmatic ads in Firefox

Show threadJevanNov 6
@nixCraft It's endlessly frustrating to watch Mozilla sabotage themselves like this. Doubly so when Chromium is literally the only alternative.
Show threadStrikeVonNiceNov 6
@jevanmoss I'm hoping that @servo and other browser engines turn into viable alternatives.
Show threadnotsoloudNov 6
@jevanmoss
It's almost like their leaders are paid by Google
@nixCraft
Show threadDeath the WolfNov 6
@notsoloud @jevanmoss @nixCraft It already was...
Show thread🇺🇦🇪🇺 cweickhmannNov 6
@jevanmoss Meanwhile, I adore the Ladybug team. I know they're still light years away from a main stream browser (and so do they).
But they were approached by a company (some marketing "consent platform") and received sponsoring, realising they had the company's domain put on the make-shift ad-block list. And it remained on the list despite the sponsoring because in the words of the lead developer: "I would be a total dork if I removed them." That's literally the opposite of the Mozilla Foundation. @nixCraft
Show threadDavid Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)Nov 7

@cweickhmann @jevanmoss @nixCraft

Meanwhile, I adore the Ladybug team

Do you mean the Ladybird browser team? The team who said that acknowledging the existence of women was political and had no place in their project?

Show threadTofuravenNov 7

@david_chisnall @cweickhmann
The team head specifically has since found some more holes to dig, too
https://hyperborea.org/reviews/software/ladybird-inclusivity/

@jevanmoss @nixCraft

Ladybird and the Controversy over Inclusivity

What people were upset about, why it blew up, and why some people are still leery of the project to this day.

Kelson Reviews Stuff
Show thread🇺🇦🇪🇺 cweickhmannNov 7
@tofu @david_chisnall @jevanmoss @nixCraft Yup, agreed. This was totally unnecessary and frankly a dork move. No project is perfect though and just by endorsing one good move, I'm not endorsing all moves (hope that was clear from the start).
Show threadDavid Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)Nov 10

@cweickhmann @tofu @jevanmoss @nixCraft

There's also this post, in which he objects to people not tolerating Nazis. It's pretty clear that this is not a project that this project is firmly pro-Nazi.

@javi

<img src="https://goblin.band/files/7b794324-1e1a-4701-8838-5530dcc3f98e" alt /><p>Uhhhm, I wonder who is that "group" that clearly upset you so much when your saw that "punch [group]" slide you mention. No one could ever know, I guess. It's a mistery why you found it upsetting. </p> 📎

goblin.band
Show thread🇺🇦🇪🇺 cweickhmannNov 10
@david_chisnall Can't open that for now... something wrong with the instance. @tofu @jevanmoss @nixCraft
Show threadTofuravenNov 10

@cweickhmann
To summarize (apparently the link already got cached over here), the post contains a screenshot of Kling talking about excluding Nazis from projects as a "hateful rot within the industry", specifically in the context of people's reactions to Kirk's death.

Different post, but in the same vein:
@david_chisnall

Show thread🇺🇦🇪🇺 cweickhmannNov 10
@tofu Yup, plays the same tune. Damn. Why can't we have good things... @david_chisnall
Show threadtobozoNov 6

@nixCraft yup

[edit] proud to say this pic was made with Kolourpaint

Show threadBenoit PouletNov 6

@nixCraft

That’s so sad.
Why Mozilla is doing this ? that’s a non sense.

Show threadtundaNov 6

@poulet_benoit @nixCraft

The explanation for Mozilla's departure is simple. If you take money from your opponent, it gradually corrupts your thinking and your work. The people at the Mozilla Foundation are not evil, just blind to the fact that they are now serving the dark side of power.

Show threadHubert FiguièreNov 6
@poulet_benoit @nixCraft c suite comes from McKinsey.
Show threadStuck HereNov 6

@hub @poulet_benoit @nixCraft

The same McKinsey consulting firm whose first response to helping any company is to fire people. They use and abuse their own new hires like crazy, and take any $$ they can for their shit services.

It's not about value added work but sucking as much profit margin as possible from dry stones.

Show threadFer24 🇲🇽Nov 6
@poulet_benoit @nixCraft
Because 💰💰
Show threadDavid Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)Nov 6

@nixCraft

Machine translation of a large document repository? That’s going to be a disaster. And I know Mozilla employs enough bilingual (or more) people to know that.

Show threadEdwin TörökNov 6
@david_chisnall @nixCraft the thread also mentions a bug where the bot undid already translated elements and resets them to English
... That means the bot should've been turned off immediately to prevent further damage, but I don't think that has been done.I can see how that bug together with the automated translation will drive contributors away. Machine translation could be useful, but perhaps only as a sanity check (reverse translate back to English and compare), and should only be used if the contributors actually want it.
Show threadDavid Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)Nov 6

@edwintorok @nixCraft

That bit bothers me the least. Lots of systems have bugs. The issue here for me is that they have a load of experts who understand the problem, and someone who does not understand the problem has mandated a tool that does not solve the problem and entirely disregarded the value of the experts.

Machine-assisted translation tooling primarily focuses on building, maintaining, and using a term dictionary: a set of prior translations that ensure that you consistently translate terms of art in the same way. If you don't do this, you get something that is technically a valid translation, but which is completely useless because the same term is translated in different ways throughout the document (based on surrounding context and translator preferences) and so it's impossible for a reader to tell that they're the same term.

It sounds like the Japanese translators have put a lot of effort into solving this problem. LLM-based translation is infamous for not doing this. It will translate terms based on how, across the training corpus, that term was translated when adjacent to other words. This is completely fine for short, low-stakes translation. If I want to translate a menu while travelling, for example, an LLM will typically give a good output (maybe don't trust it if you have serious allergies, but for the rest of us it's fine). But for something where you want to communicate technical content (in any domain), they're (at best) a good first approximation. And translators have repeatedly reported that cleaning up LLM translations is more work than doing the translation well in the first place.

Show threadAlan HicksNov 6
@nixCraft sad loss of knowledgeable volunteers 😢
Show threadDev Albino Nov 6
@nixCraft its very sad
Show threadrfnixNov 6
@nixCraft and this is particularly bad for Japanese - MTL from/to that language are still often missing contextual cues and mistranslating things. It's no wonder contributors were pissed...
Show threadUr Ya'arNov 6
@nixCraft That's really sad.
@mozilla this kind of things really push people away.
Show threadVince (biometrically enrolled)Nov 6
@nixCraft Mozilla can evidently hit their targets. Now if they could aim for something other than their foot for once...
Show threadJack RendorNov 6
@nixCraft This is incredibly sad and disrespectful. I am baffled by Mozilla's choices. What a shame.
Show threadsuperketchup Nov 6
@nixCraft what is the best #Firefox fork?
Show threadJoannaCanFixITNov 6
@superketchup @nixCraft isn't Waterfox and Librefox viable? Floorp for customisation? Also in most of them you will probably have to go to about:config to make sure that ML options are disabled
Show threadratfactorNov 6

@superketchup @nixCraft

I'm recommending @librewolf and here are my notes so far for fellow converts:

https://ratfactor.com/cards/librewolf

(I have some new tips to add and just need some time to add them!)

LibreWolf - ratfactor

Show threadnimu εїз🖖🏻🦝Nov 6
@ratfactor @nixCraft @librewolf guess this will finally be the day i move from firefox to librewolf
Show threadIrishMASMSNov 6

@ratfactor @superketchup @nixCraft @librewolf

Hello, let me add my .02 as a convert to librewolf: I grew to hate their militant stance on how end users should use browsers. Namely the password manager they disable from the Firefox code base.

I ended up migrating to waterfox, which seems to be more open and still removing the bloat and crap from Firefox

Hth

Show threadratfactorNov 6

@Irishmasms @superketchup @nixCraft @librewolf

Just to pipe in on this point specifically: You can (and I do!) re-enable the password manager in Librewolf by clicking a checkbox.