My name is Jean-Baptiste Elcroft. I'm translator. I'm trying to help in the coordination of the federal localization community. We currently are in a situation where our translation platform, our current translation platform named Xanata is in end of life. There is no maintainers anymore. There is no developers since no nearly one year. If you go under Fedora Vicky, you have the L10N for localization team. You can go down a little bit. You see current task. One major challenge is the migration of our translation platform. I will do this. Can I zoom a little bit? Can I zoom a little bit? Yes. So you have the history. First, it's not our first translation platform migration. We already had two in the past. There is some content I wanted to highlight it because the people don't know what's represented to migrate from one translation platform to another. And they don't know the reasons. So we're migrating in 2011 to TransEffects.com. Before, at that time, we had the TransEffects installed in the federal infrastructure. And we wanted to share the maintenance with the TransEffects.com infrastructures. But after a few years, TransEffects stopped being an open source product. And then they decided, the community, as a whole, to migrate to the tool Zanata. Zanata, by that time, was already managed and developed by Red Hat. For a reason I don't know, the whole Zanata team is not part of Red Hat anymore. So there is no more activity. And as there were no external contributors, the tool is dying. So there is here a group of pages that are dedicated to the migration. I really encourage you to have a look at these pages, what are the objectives, what are the current situation, and what are the things that are mandatory. If we do that, the purpose of doing that is to make sure that every single person in our community understand what are the strengths and the weaknesses of our current translation platform and what are our need for the next one. As far as I know, the only existing serious candidate that we have is the translation platform, them WebLate. This translation platform has some very good qualities, but it's not perfect as any other tool. And we have a group of requirements that I try to list here on these pages. So we can make sure that the federal project can ask for some new features, eventually pay for it. So our translation platform migration is a success not only because we are leaving a tool that is dying with a high risk on our ability to work, but also because it better match our needs as translators. So you have here, you have my name. You know how to reach us on Freenade. We use the I11, the internalization channel on Freenade to discuss. We also have some tracking numbers to talk about the activity. And we've wrote already two articles, one giving the current status about our community, which is an article that you saw a few weeks ago on the federal community blog. It aims to show that our community is not healthy. It's too much based on very old-time contributors, and we don't know how to welcome new contributors. And the second article is a work Adam Chamelec from the documentation team and modularity team and I, we did together. We did the translation of every single documentation of Fedora. We have the whole process to transform it into PoT file, and then the translator can produce some Po file, and then we can generate localized content, and we can jump from one language to another. It's ready. It's works, but we are waiting for the new translation platform to make this live. So this migration is not only about risk. It's really a discussion about what do we need, and it's really an improvement about what we can translate, because any kind of documentation published on docs.fedraproject.org can be translated by any team. So the teams and the different people contributing to Fedora just have to publish a very basic documentation, and it will be translated about instantly. I already received some requests from diversity team and from other teams to be able to communicate in multiple languages, and this is one of the answers. So I will first read the objectives. Then I will read the current situation on each of these three items. And I would like us together to react and to discuss, does it match the reality? I did my best to list in a very agnostic. I tried to be neutral as possible to reflect our current situation, but I may be mistaken sometimes. So please react if you don't share the point that I listed. And then I think it will take 20 minutes to go over these three points. Then I will talk to you about what is beneath the migration planet in itself with the schedules and the steps. So sorry, it's not my computer. Can you read? Is it big enough? Yes? Good. So first part is being able to host projects. Second part is being able to support team processes. Third part is being able to translate to support translation process. So this first part is about hosting projects. Today, what we have in federal.zanata.org is we host upstream projects. And we host some federal specific project. Federal specific project, for example, is a website or documentation. Upstream projects are DNF. Some upstream projects will follow the release cycle of federal. It's those who are in the group main. And upstream means they have their own release cycle. It's not related to the release cycle of federal. This is how it's organized today. In addition of these two groups, we have a priority package list that was built with Previn and other Elton and contributors to make sure that in that huge amount of projects, we know where to start, what are the priorities, the things that are the most impactful regarding the end users. And we also have a Red Hat Enterprise Linux group, which aims to make it easier to identify what goes into the different releases of Red Hat. To be honest, I don't really know what is the detailed interaction with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux lifecycle and those translation. It's something I'm not expert in. So today, any project owner, meaning a federal contributor can come and Xanata create a new project, add some documents, and it's on the translation platform. Inside Xanata, you have the documents for a project that are grouped into a version. And normally, most of the time, it's just a single version, which is master. And I would say that's it. In theory, Xanata is handling multiple file formats. But what we currently use for 99% of our project is PO file. So the standard get text. The project owner today in Xanata, they push and they pull manually. Exactly like what you have on TrezFX, it's a manual process. If the project maintainer forgets to push new content, the translator will never know there is no translation to do new work. And if the project owner forgets to pull translation, he will make a release without the up-to-date translation. There is also a command line interface. And here are the strengths and the weaknesses of that. The strengths is upstream projects are very autonomous. I don't require anyone from the localization team to add a new project, to add new documents. They are autonomous. And in the Git repository, there is only one commit for all translation. The weaknesses of this situation is nobody knows when there is a new project added to the translation platform. There is no easy way to know if upstream downloaded the latest translation from Xanata. That's also the reason why we have trans stats making sure that the synchronization is good. There is no easy way to know if new content is, if the content is in Xanata, is in sync with the source repository. And projects can decide not to store translation in the Git repository. For me, it's something that is a very, very bad practice. But project maintainers can like to have this because they consider translation to be something like documentation. It can be out of the scope of the core product they are maintaining on their Git repository. So the question of the genesis, is that OK with Anaconda? Yes, it's exactly this. If you want to reproduce a build of Anaconda for a previous release, you will not find the translation inside the Git repository. So the content is basically lost. It's only joined in the RPM file. It's not in the Git repository. So if you have any side usage of this content, you can't because it's not in the source repository. So question here. Does the context match your knowledge of the current situation? Yes, very good. Question two, does the current process match your knowledge of the current situation? No remark. You can take your time to read it again. It's fine. Question three, do the strengths and the weaknesses of our current situation are OK for you? Do you validate it? Do you see anything else in the current situation that should be added as a new strengths, a new weakness, and a new risk, and new opportunity? Yes. So far, that's good. Sorry? So yes, there is a current risk with Zanata is as the project is not maintained anymore, the tools that the upstream team uses to push and pull content may not be available in the future of federal releases. And if there is any bug or issue, there is no one to fix it. This is a risk on the current situation. Very good. So as a requirement, it means as a project matter, I want to be able to pull and push contents in at least PO files. I want to have a direct connection between the translation platform and my project repository. I want to have a manual connection between the translation platform and my project repository. And eventually, I may want to be able to interact with the translation platform with an API. And at the end, as a project maintainer, I can set or unset some technical checks. So for me, these are the requirements for the web late to fulfill to handle our current situation. Do you have questions on the listed user stories that are here? If you're certain to read. So the question is, why would you like to make it manual? I pass I as a translator. I don't like the idea of making it manual, because it creates the possibility to be out of sync in one side and the other side. And I don't like it. But project maintenance, I use to that behavior. And we cannot force them to directly interact with their gate repository. So we will invite them to accept this new behavior. But if they don't want to do it, we cannot force them. So we want to let them an opportunity to do it. OK, so let's say that these are fine. Do you see other requirements? So I'm a project maintainer or I'm a coordinator. I want to add a new project in the translation platform. Do you have other use cases that you want to see here? OK, I just need a paper. Can I get a paper from over there, please? I have a pen already, because I don't want to edit the wiki directly. So the question was, as a project maintainer, I want to be notified when there are new translations. Do you want to be notified for any language and any new amount of translation? Or do you want a threshold? OK, more on the regular basis instead of event-based. I don't think so. OK, this notification will arrive by email, by a new issue, or by a commit on any repository, or pre-request. You think it will be email? OK. And so you want to be able to subscribe? OK. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's fine, because this feature exists in WebLate, so no worries. That's good. OK, I don't go into the system requirements. This is not very interesting, and it's not very up-to-date. Maybe I should remove it to make it show. So that was the first part. The quite technical part about the hosting project. Now we will speak about team collaboration, and it's way more user-focused. So context. The federal localization project handle an informal global team handling schedule, planning, project communication, and follow-up improvement regarding the localization in the federal project itself. And the federal product, there is a FAS group, administrative translation platform and resolving conflicts. There is only one person who have this role at the moment. I think it's Piotr, which is a Polish contributor. And we also have 86 formal translation team, as described in the Elton and Teams page. You have a huge list with all the teams. You have the list of project coordinators. So normally, these teams have at least one coordinator. We suggest to have many to be able to welcome new contributors. These teams may use review process inside Xanata. Nowadays, there is the Portugal spoken in Brazil, Hungarian, Russian, French. I ask you, I don't know what it is, Hungarian and Indonesian who use this review process. And every translator follow an onboarding process, which is described using this link, which basically is quite complicated. I will describe it beneath. So you want it bigger. And let's try. It's better. I try a little bit more. OK. So, current process. The user who is not member of the Fedora community, you go on Fedora.Xanata.org. They have a welcoming page with all the required information with some links to different pages and the Fedoriki and the documentation from the tool itself. And a newcomer trying to login will be redirecting to the Fedora account system fast. After fulfilling multiple steps, accept FPCA, then connect again to Xanata to create an account inside the application, validate the current creation. Then we'll ask a team, we'll ask to join a team. Then someone will manually accept the request. This request often requires to send an email to a mailing list. And then they will have to ask a fast group named CVSL10N to get CLA plus one, which means you are at least in one user group in addition of the FPCA. And so this brings you the normal rate of any Fedora contributor, like voting for the election, editing the Viki, and that's it. And once you are in the team, there is no process anymore. You can do whatever you like. Nobody will know. So this is, as it is being recorded, a not very optimized process, but it's our current process. So, strength. If you have a Fedora account, it goes very fast because you already suffered quite a lot in many other places, so it goes fast. Weakness, there is no communication between project managers and translator. We don't know when there is new project document or content to translate. There is no team management features. We don't know who is working and what was changed in Xanata. And there is no community management features. There is no activity information on the platform, new users, bigger contributors, best teams, et cetera. So I was a little bit bad. As an opportunity, I see any other tool will provide more visibility than the one we are using. So I was a little bit bad when writing this. So, as before, is the context matching our current situation, the organization of teams? I see people nodding and people reading. Don't want to, someone want to react. Good. Very good. So it means yes. Do the current process that I describe it match the reality that you see in the team behavior and in the way the team are today working? Do you see the same steps and the same difficulties? Very good. So the question is, do each team has a dedicated mailing list? I think most of them have it and the email that the new contributor have to send is to this new, this specific language focused mailing list. I think in the official process, we have also to send an email to the international mailing list, but it's pretty rare and nobody makes sure that it's the case. So, strength, weaknesses, do someone want to add something? Yes. Okay, so what you just said is in these 86 language groups, there are probably are many coordinators who are not active anymore and we have to make sure that we will identify them in the migration. But what is the weakness with the current situation? With the current rule? Okay. Okay, so the weakness is when there are new contributors, they can send a request but have no answer because we don't know that the coordinator is inactive, so he will be faced with a wall without knowing what to do. Okay, very good. Anything else about strengths and weaknesses? No, it's fine. Good. So, here are some user stories I've wrote. I'd say, as a translator, I want to easily access the translation activity of my language team so I know, so that knowing active contributors is easy. As a translator, I want to know the translation activity of my language team on a document so I can review changes. It sounds quite basic, but it's something we don't have. Okay, as a translator, I want to get notification if someone does a first contribution to my language team so I can easily welcome and review changes. As a translator, I want to get notification for events of the document so I can easily keep up the translation of a document that matters to me. This match your requirement as I'm a project metaner, I want to know what's going on in my translation so I want to get notification. And I added a few things about purity management. I said, as a global localization coordinator, I'm able to edit the welcome screen with text and images so newcomers have the basic information to join the community.  Here are the key information to know. As a localization coordinator, I'm able to highlight specific project groups on the welcome page so that contributors know what are the priorities. As a global localization coordinator, I'm able to create a list of components so contributors can easily find a group of related components. And as a global localization coordinator, I'm able to create a list of projects so that projects with different communities can be easily identified. So these are the key user stories that I identified regarding team management. Do you see other user stories? What do you want the tool to do regarding our team management? It's... Okay. Okay. Okay. Can be. So, thank you, I will repeat that. The question is, don't we have some kind of roles in the team because there are multiple activities that you can do in the translation team. The first one is you submit translation, then you can also review translation. And there is some use case when some teams or maybe globally in our community, we would like to prevent a newcomer to push directly new translation if he's not in a specific group. So we assure a quality process. Okay. I think it's very true and I will add it. But I don't think we can say this review and validation process will apply for every languages because if it works for languages with more than one contributor, it doesn't for very little languages. So I will say it's a per team configuration to do a validation before pushing content. Does it make sense? I already speak about review content. Content reviewing. So I'll just write this. Add roles and possibility for teams set. So the two requirements. The first one is to have different roles in a team. The second one is for a team to be able to set a review process that is mandatory before pushing content. And you also talked about quality checks. Can you be, because you talked about two kinds of checks. One which was language check and the other one which was technical checks. What do you? Okay. This is the translation platform who will handle this. Okay. Okay. Very good. Do someone else see something to add here? So let's go to third part, translation process. Translation process. So this one is fairly short on purpose. So today, so the federal localization project contributors translate using a web user interface and can periodically use command line interface or file export imports. But most of the time the contributors use the user interface from the translation platform. User will connect to Zen at times such for a project or group, select his or her grade, select the document to translate and then actually translate. User can search and replace even single characters. User can use a translation memory and a glossary. User can translate a group of messages without changing the page. Meaning they enter and they have a list of 10 messages to translate and they go from one to another. So the strengths of the current translation platform is the user interface is very efficient for the translator. Second, the search and replace is very efficient for quality reasons. It's very useful. In French language, it's especially for typography but there are many other use cases. Translation memory is very efficient on Zenata which is a huge help for little teams even for big teams just to know how a term is translated. Weaknesses, there are multiple steps required to reach an actual translation and there is no overview of activities. So I see people nodding which is quite positive. I see no risk and opportunity on that subject. The risk maybe I could add is Zenata is very strong for the translator. Very, very efficient for the translator. The future translation platform, Weblate, will probably be less efficient. So we will have to find a way to make sure that the translator still feel comfortable with the new Weblate and really well explaining how to use it the best with the new, so they don't come to us saying we had a good translation platform for us and now we have a bad one, we have some indicators but we are way less efficient. So if we want Weblate to be an efficient tool as efficient as we have for Zenata, we have to make sure that the user interface is efficient, the search and replace is efficient and that the translation memory is efficient which means if we have some issues with these features, we will have to invest money or contributor time to improve this feature on the Weblate and if we don't do it, we will have some translator who will argue against the translation platform. Gents, compared to Weblate, so the question is what kind of problem do we have with Weblate? I will make a demonstration of Weblate with the documentation system in a few minutes and you will see that there is more waiting time from one translation to another. The translation memory is less accessible, it works but it's less integrated than what we have in Zenata and so it can be pain points for translators. And I don't know if the amount of new features and new integration of the new translation platform will balance this or they will not see the value where I personally see. I personally prefer to have a good translation platform from team management, even if I am a little bit less efficient using it. So, user stories. As a translator, I want to be able to create a translation memory containing a wide range of content so that knowledge beyond federal community is accessible. This means, include in our translation memory, translation, sorry. This means, include in our translation memory, translation from projects out of the scope of the translation, the federal translation community. For example, you take the translation memory of GNOME project and you put it in our translation memory so our users, the federal community can make advantage of this. As a localization coordinator, I can automate, complete, I can automatically complete existing translation using a translation memory, using a manual threshold that, so that user's operation for translators are limited. Maybe the sentence is a little bit weird, but it means automatically complete an existing translation. And as a localization coordinator, I have a tool to handle non-federal translation content so that translation memory is continuously up to date. This part is maybe a little bit advanced, but the idea was, do we want to try to have some kind of automated translation? So I see yes and no in the room. So the idea is, if we can access a large amount of translated content, we should be able to feed some kind of engine to do automated translations. And it will not work for every languages. It will require some tuning for each language. And of course, a big amount of translation for each language who want to use that feature. But do we want to try to do that kind of things? Or do we say it's not mandatory for now and we will see later? What do you think? So that was a yes phase. Okay. So the comment is, I am a translator for the Mozilla community and in Ponton, I already have some suggestions of translation in Hungarian. It doesn't work very well. It's an automated translation. It doesn't work very well, but it saves me a lot of time in my work to translate. So that user will say it's an interesting features, maybe not mandatory for a first step, but it's something that brings value to a translator. Any other comments? I saw no at the end of the room. Exactly. So the comment is, the feature is very useful, but it has to make sure that it's a suggestion for the translator and not an automatic translation. So the string should be identified as fuzzy and not be able to reach. Okay, very good. Thank you very much. Any other comments on automated translation? No? So last point, asynchronous translation. As a translator, I'm able to upload my translation file. So contributing with limited internet access is possible. As a translator, so first line is, you don't have a day-to-day access to internet for any kind of reasons, or you just don't like the translation platform and you have your own tool, whatever it is, on your desktop or laptop or whatever, and you want to use it and then you extract your work and you push it to the translation platform. This is the use case. Second line is, as a translator, I'm able to interact with comments made inside the translation platform with an email client so that contributing with limited internet access is possible. That means like a GitHub or page or comments, you get an email notification, you can respond to it, and it will be displayed in GitHub or page or. So the idea behind this is to lower the distance between the contributors who are used to the mailing list compared to the one who prefer the user interface. So someone who is not a registered on a mailing list or don't like emails will still be able to communicate with the rest of his group and the rest of the community without having to register to any kind of mailing list. And last point is, as a translator, I'm able to interact with the mailing list from the translation platform so that interaction issues with limited access access, contributors are limited with limited access. Okay, so this was the requirements for the translator. Do you see other prints or other requirements that were not discussed here? Yes? Yes, yes. It's the same idea. So the question is, does this ability to upload documents works also for project maintenance so they can do the first initialization of the translation platform? So it's the same idea, but it's absolutely not the same for sure. In Weblate, you will tell to Weblate where is your git repository. He will detect the translation, every translation file, and it will automatically take the existing translations. So you don't have to do anything, but the AD is the same. Any other comments? Yes. So the question is, here we are talking about interaction between users using the translation platform and its name comments. But there is also in the PO files, in the text format, there are some comments that the developer writes for the translators so they can know a little bit more about the context and maybe the words not translate because there are keywords in the software. So this is a totally valid requirements that I will add and I confirm this in Weblate is quite well handled. And more than a comment, you can also join a print screen of where the string is displayed, which is very costly to upload and to make the print screen, but it's doable. I was talking about the context. I didn't know there were two different type of comments that a developer can add, both a developer comment and a specific context comment, message ctxt. Okay, very good. Good point, thank you. So the question was a remark and more context about the different kind of comments that you can have in the get text file. So that was it. Thank you very much for this long time of validating everything in the migration plan because it's very important to do it open so the people knows what are the current situation and the things that are very important for us. Yes, what is the use case for this? So the question is, have we already thought about integrating the translation platform directly with Pedro? So you can easily inside Pedro having a button to go to the translation platform or integrate with the integration platform to make the translation of content easier. I never thought of this. I have no idea how difficult it is technically. And yeah, I don't think we can add this as a requirement if we don't know how it could work. Any other comments? Yeah, it's Pingu. Pingu is the maintainer of Pedro and he's here. But okay, but I don't see the requirement here would be to what would be the goal to make sure that the developers think about translating documentation, the document or source code. The issue is, so the comment was, I imagine that the source code platform could automatically handle some quality checks and the transformation of files. But the issue is the internalization of a software is very related to the technologies that are used and there is no magical way to do it. The most difficult is not to handle POT file for translator, it's to extract it from the source code and to introduce it back to the source code once we've translated content. And this part is very specific to each project. So I cannot see an easy way to bring automation. So do we have someone from infrastructure team or CPE? Okay, easy, okay, sorry. So this migration plan is based on the future of federal 32 release. 31, sorry, release. No, 32, sorry, I'm confused by my own presentation. So I will list the key activities that I see required. The first one, communicate why we migrate. I think it's obvious for the little ecosystem of the people in this room but not for the whole world. Develop the mandatory feature required for the federal community. Explain to project manager what are the impact on source management. Zanata uses command line interface to push pool while we wait, interact with the Git repository. Roll out the federal website and make sure that the continuous deployment that is here still also work with the new behavior. For example, federal website don't store translation so that we have to store it somewhere. Roll out the federal documentation, deploying, pre-production, the current staging, continuous deployment scripts which are running in staging. Voila. And roll out the federal packages. Basically what we need is, we need a confirmation for each package where is the Git repository and then we will do the configuration inside web late to directly take the translation and push it. Normally this doesn't require much upstream contribution. I need the most important things to know the which branches to push and pull contribution from because depending on each project you don't contribute on every bunches. The amount of projects to migrate are 114. The amount of projects in Zanat are 114. I think there is 106 to migrate. Some are not concerned by the translation migration because they are not active or they are like old documentation projects as we have a new documentation project. It's useless to migrate the content from the old migration project or maybe just add it in the translation platform. And here you have the full list of projects and we will need to make sure for each of them that indeed it requires migration or no. Like AppStream, Glib, Anaconda, ABRT, ASNUT, et cetera. There is quite a lot. Are you clear on what are the key activities to do for the migration or do you think there are a few that are missing? I see people reading, very good. So here you have the schedule, the schedule hypothesis that Ben gave me. It can change, but if I understand correctly, no more than one or two weeks. Okay, Ben is nodding. The key milestones I see is one, to be ready for software translation deadline, which means we need to make sure that before January 28th, we have all conserved packages on the new translation platform. So the translator can translate and before March 3rd, they can push that translation. And the second thing, milestone I see is to be ready for system-wide change proposal deadline because as changing the translation platform is quite a big change, it will be probably a good thing to have a change proposal so everyone knows what are the actions, what are the contacts, what is the schedule and we don't do it without telling the rest of the community. So this deadline is January 7th. So before January 7th, we have to have this change submitted and approved. Do someone see a reason to do or not to do a system-wide change? Does it, I see Ben. So what is the impact on people out of the localization community? It will impact the project maintenance. It will impact the federal documentation group and the federal website groups. It will mostly change nothing from RPM maintainers, it's changed nothing and it's changed almost, no, it changed nothing for the end user. So it's mostly internal change. That requires coordination, just we are sure that the existing pipeline indeed works and that everyone thought about the organization of repositories and that they checked it worked fine. We can do it way earlier than that. It's just to match the future process, the future release. Yes, yes, these are impacted. The upstream project maintenance are impacted, like the DNF team, the Anaconda team, the ABRT, is it a team, people. That's it. But not the end user. And for the packaging, it doesn't change anything, the RPM packages. So how do we agree on system-wide change proposal? My idea was to do a test phase with pilot projects and translators. So we can experiment it together and make sure that it's worth the migration, that the translation platform works okay. And I assume that a go-no-go should be probably handled in December. But to be honest, if we say no go, I have no plan B. I don't know any other plan B for there's not much of the translation platform. So I think it's just to formally say that we go. But you can express another point of view. We can wait for any amount of time until the challenges will still be the same. Yeah. So this was about the schedule. So we discussed about the objectives and the different subpart of the requirements. We validated the current situation and the requirements for the future translation platform. Now the thing that we did not speak about is where will we host this translation platform and related translation memory server that we will require with Weblight. So as we have someone from the infrastructure team, do you have answers about this? Because as far as I know, the infrastructure team would like to focus on very core tools for the federal community. And I don't know if the translation platform is considered as core tool for the federal community. Important maybe, but core tool. So can someone ping pingoo and ask him to come here? Ben, can you please do it? Thank you very much. Oh, let's wait to see what's, what if Ben can have a feedback if there's no quick answer, maybe. My hypothesis is as follow that the federal infrastructure team will not host it and that we will have to make it host by the Weblight Enterprise Company. This is my most likely answer because Weblight communicating with upstream source repositories, you have some Git manipulation to do to solve conflicts because it's Git. There's some conflicts sometimes sometimes and it requires to some configuration steps that can consume quite a lot of time if you do it badly. So I would not recommend our community to try to be experts in hosting Weblight. So while pingoo is answering the ping, we can go on this. So this is Weblight, which is very, very little. You can go on translate.holcraft, H-O-L-C-R-O-F-T dot F-R. It's live. It's hosted in my bedroom, not my bedroom, but my, yeah, the main room of the apartment. On my own server and I know how to administrate and how to host a Weblight server. So what you can see here, maybe I will zoom a little bit, what do you think? Good idea. Okay. So I will log in, I will log in using federal account. I automatically, I said open to open source people can connect to with open ID. Can you connect with your fast account? Because I will never be successful using my, because of the keyboard, right? So I did something very bad. I could be pasted my password very well. So I am connected. This is me over there. I have access to settings and stuff. And in the translation platform, there are a list of languages for the documentation system we did with Adam. We focused on a very limited set of languages, French and Czech because of our natural language and Japanese just because Japanese, we don't have specific reason for that. So you have a huge list of components because the documentation system is very, very huge. And you inside a project, you have a list of components. This is entora.yml which contains the description of the website, the list of pages. And then here you have the index. So it's fitra.elten and slash docs. It means this is the homepage. You see the number of strings. So there is two, three strings to translate containing 313 words, next pronunciation test to requiring an action. So we can go directly there. You see this is ugly because the documentation team is embedding directly at the translation, the HTML directly inside the content. And you can see here the changes. Before it was 29, it changed to 30. So you see what changed. Previously this was F28, now it's F29. So you can see some information. So let's go through another project. What do I do? Like this. So as we have been with us, we will have a look at the console. So we have service people. So you can see all pages of the federal documentation system, the console parts. These are exactly the same as the URL docs. So you go to console. You have a page that is named contact, console contact. And you will see here, it's console contact. And it's the content from the master branch. And you will see the six strings to translate contacting the federal console, which are exactly what you see here contacting the federal console. So you will have the different, here the translation to put. Here you will have close strings, mean close inside the file. The commands from other users, the machine translation. I'm not sure there's any activated in my own server. You can see the translation in other languages. There is none on this. And here you can see the history of a string. If I go there, I have so my profile. I used unpurposed English for the presentation, but the user interface is translated in many languages. I did 333 translations. There is my last login registration date. Oops, sorry. Here are the list of project I contributed to. The activity in the last 30 days, zero, sorry. And the activity in the last year, showing when I did translate some content. Looks like slightly buggy. And you can see that my last translation was the translation of the letter D, which is very difficult in the federal release notes, federal 26 in the sub-part developers. And it was in French language. So you can see here the history of everything I did and I can go way further seeing every change that a user did in the past. If I go, I don't remember where it was. I think for a specific project, I think there's also an activity tool. Mm-hmm, raise it, tool. So this is for the federal budget projects. You can see when there were some activities. And you can also have the full histories. When there were an upstream change and your string to translate, you have different kind of events. And you can even go and see all translated strings for that particular project. So of course, I took one with no translation, bravo. So this tool is online. Anyone can connect and translate. It's just not very, very fast because here we can see there were a translation for Czech language. And so here we can see documentation, the federal, which is written in Czech, which I will not read. So this is kind of a field that the maintainers will use to see if there were some new translation in the project. Do someone have any question about weblet in SAFE? No, okay. Do we have some news from Bingo? No reply. So I think we're done. Do someone have questions or requirements? You can connect with your fast account to this. You can do whatever you like.  I think so. Let's try this. So I go on languages, I go on Czech. I go on tools, no, I go on activity. I have the statistics about the translation in Czech language and I go on history. I see there were some updated content, which are the same for all languages. This is just one, the Czech community, there are some new content to translate and there is a look which say that two French guys or two Czech guys or two translators of the same language cannot edit the same component. A component in that context is one file for the further documentation system, but there can be multiple teams contributing the same component. It will not be an issue. So there will be a lock. So I'm still searching for, yes, yes there is, but I don't know why there is a huge list of non-related, normally you can see it, but I don't know why there is a huge list of events. I think that probably is a way to filter to have only translated strings. Hello, let's hope I will be, oh no, it doesn't work. So let's try with the French language, I don't know why with the Czech I have no results. Page one. So, okay. So I think it's just that in the Czech language I did many, many technical updates, so we only see the technical updates and not the new translation. And here when you go to French language I did some translation last month, so you can see also the translation coming from me. And maybe I can filter, I'm not sure. No, this is bringing me. This probably is a way to filter this. This is an export in CSV and this is an RSS feed, so you can register using a tool or one application. So there is something, it's not perfect because we have a lot of technical updates, but it's answered that. Any other questions? So, yes, but no. Yes, but no. Yes, we can add new languages, but I'm connected as a French speaker, so I will be able to add French language. And if I want to add Japanese language, I can try, but. You know the Muffelow? It tells me it will not work. I did a new language in a project, requires a few steps in the background. And my server not being very, so I want to be able to translate in Japanese too. I save, we will try. Let's try to be optimistic. But normally it doesn't work when you show that kind of things. Okay, I will take projects. So the question was, is it possible to add a new language? So you see here we are in a project only, only translated in French language. I think I have a tool, where is the button to that? Where is the tool translate? I don't remember where exactly I have to add the language. Okay. When you are on a component, this is the entire component, which is a default component for localization system. You say, start a new translation. You select the language you want to translate in, or we search for Romanian. At least I can write it. But I will not be able to write it with this camera. So you select the language you want to make the translation in. You validate, you wait for 30 seconds and you have your new language. That 30 seconds wait is related to my own server. Because it's a slow machine. There's some kind of suspense now. Will it work or will it crash? So the documentation system is a little bit complex because we decided that for every single page, HTML page that the user can see, there is one translation component. So it's very easy from the HTML structure to go in the right place in the translation platform to translate. Which means also that there's thousands of components on the translation platform because there are thousands of pages which is a use case, a web late, don't handle so often. It's a rare use case. Normally you have one project, one huge file with everything inside it. Here you have one project and thousands of components. So it added the Romanian component and then you can translate. Anyone can add a new translation, a new language in that particular settings of web late. So I will not translate in Romanian right now, but I could do it. Thank you everyone for coming, for contributing this validation of the translation platform, migration plan. So next steps are to effectively have have web late hosted somewhere, either on our own infrastructure or paying the web late company to do it. And once we have this, we will put the documentation system. We will put the documentation system live, like, I think it's like this. Sdhj. You see here, there's an ENES. You can switch to Czech, to French, and to other languages. So we just have to find a page that is actually translated. So I think, okay. Here you see it's written in French. And you can switch to English again. And your experience is still good. When you go from one page to another, you will still keep the same language and you can switch from one language to another. And if it's not fully translated, it will display what is translated. You see, here I only translated the two... Here I only translated the titles. And the part on the right. But the rest is untranslated. So the English content is displayed. So even if there is an upstream edit of the documentation, the user will still access the content. Unfortunately, not in his language, but that's life. That's it. Thank you very much.


It's live everything. It's on the podcast y'all it's gonna be legit So are we good on thing cast? We're recording the podcast currently are we live? Okay All right, it's a little while ago. Welcome to the first Vanessa and Shay live episode We are here in person at the Mina Theater Makers Alliance convening 2023 at Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco, California Yeah, oh my goodness. You're gonna hear a lot of reading today, which is not normal for our podcast Although Marina and I are woo girls. I think yeah, we are we I don't know But we try to keep it in during the podcast, but welcome all the wooing from our live audience here Meena is the National Coalition of Mina and Suana Theater Makers and this is a joint session of the Mina Meena convening and the Mizna plus Ravi Fest that also happened this weekend And Mizna is a grassroots organization serving as a platform for contemporary literature film art and cultural production Centering the work of Arab and Suana artists and Rory or the radius of Arab American writers is a national organization that provides mentoring community and Support for Arab American writers and those with with roots in the Arabic speaking world in diaspora Today's session will explore Affinity spaces and these three organizations Organizations exemplify intersectional national affinity spaces in theater and the arts Affinity spaces have really been an undercurrent of discussion across all three seasons of the Kunafa and Shay theater podcast And in season three we especially focus on queer Mina and Suana affinity spaces their benefits and their complications In this live session at the may not my convening at Golden Thread Productions We are going to be sitting down with leaders and artists to discuss the nuances of Mina and Suana from these spaces today and Minatma Mizna and Robby's roles in facilitating national cultural affinity among artists of intersectional identities In the room where change is being made. We are having these conversations and we're very excited to engage with you all in that discussion This is a very exciting and unique trifecta Collaboration and Marina and I are truly Thrilled to be able to host this joint session of these two conferences both live live streamed on howl round and will be available As as part of the Kunafa and Shay theater podcast, maybe a little bit, you know edited for maximum Excellency and with a written transcript as well for folks Take it away Marina. Amazing. So thank you all for indulging this really fun experiment Our initial description included what these affinity groups are doing in a post-pandemic theater landscape and for us actually brought up There's great point of while we're acknowledging genocide and death. That's happening We've actually just quite normalized the death that has happened from COVID in our world And the statistics still point very much to the fact that this pandemic is ongoing And so we just wanted to amend verbally that language of post-pandemic or use it in quotes because while we are acting and like the last panel said We've sort of acted like things need to go back to normal in the same way We're actually not able to return to life as it was before nor do we really want to I think in many instances I do want to take a moment here to acknowledge the people of the land on which we live and work today the multiple Elone tribes despite the atrocities of colonial colonization and genocide Native communities persist today and are active in efforts to preserve and revive their culture at golden thread We are driven by a desire to expand this land acknowledgement statement to recognize our community's experience of occupation in the Middle East The refugee crisis and the displaced population Whether we are immigrants displaced by political or economic events or us born for one or more generations We are all appreciates the human connection to the land and something we've been acknowledging a lot Which I deeply appreciate because I feel like I've been mourning so much on my own and so I'm grateful to be in community We deeply mourn the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost in the recent eruption of violence and Khaza between Israel and Hamas We grieve the loss of all those who have been killed in search of protection of home and condemn violence and terrorism in all its forms We also recognize that any condemnation of violence that has erupted this past weeks without recognizing the root cause of the situation Israelis Israel's illegal military occupation since 67 and also since before the Nakhba and 48 is unacceptable as a U.S. Alliance of Middle Eastern and North African artists We support the Palestinian people's right to sovereignty freedom and a life with dignity We condemn Israel's apartheid system and creation of the world's largest open-air prison Gaza imprisoning 2.3 million Palestinians 274% of whom are refugees we denounce the mainstream media and the u.s. government for granting Israel impunity as it continues to deny the human rights of Palestinians and commit war crimes To humanizing Palestinians and spreading anti-Palestinian sentiment puts all communities in danger We call for an immediate end to Israel's settler colonialism and violence to Palestine So as we sit with that together, I think we acknowledge that and part of our community agreement this week I has to been to sit in grief and rage together. I Appreciate being in a space of artists who are willing to do that as we have this important conversation too So I'll ask the guest to introduce themselves next and we're gonna be oddly passing these black microphones that are recording the podcast around And we will send it first to Andrea Hey everyone any instructions on introductions if you want to do name pronouns if you want to share them and then your role as an artist people That are listening might not know although people in the present company certainly.  I'm the founding artistic and executive director of art to action Which is based in Tampa, Florida. I welcome she or they pronouns Or anything said in love in the south. We like to say things like sugar And I Just need to say I'm here I feel like I'm always wearing a lot of hats But I want to give a shout out to my Rawee and Mizna Friends and colleagues who I've been missing terribly this weekend that you know these two events Very important and amazing events are happening at the same time in different parts of the country which also I think is a Significant win like that. We're in multiple places at once having these conversations, right? But I do give a shout out to my beloved literary community, which was I have to say the first Space where I felt I was welcomed to be Arab and queer at the same time Everybody I'm a Turkish American I guess director writer and arts leader I am on the board of Mina theater makers alliance very proudly and An affiliated artists with Golden Thread with which is a company. I like to say that I grew up in I was raised artistically and as a human By Golden Thread and Taraji Ghizarian who's sitting across from me and I want to say that It feels important to name I said Turkish American, but I'm also very proudly queer Very proudly immigrant and I also identify as Muslim Which feels as much as a political action as it is Certainly a way that I look at the world and morality is through that lens and my upbringing in a very secular And I'm so excited to be here. I It's always Exciting to not feel like I have to divide myself in parts to be able to talk and And I will say this that Golden Thread specifically Before intersectionality was a sexy word that everybody used the whole organization was founded like that So I have I have had the great luxury of not having to cut myself in parts In our community is actually in a really joyous way and I only have to start doing that when I Work in not in our community spaces is where I actually feel like I have to leave one side of myself at the door Because they're asking me to come into the room for one reason and one reason only So but any chance I have to be queer and Middle Eastern and Muslim and then talk to these bad-ass humans that I'm sitting with I Feel real good about that Hello, my name is Sara Rizavi and she her and When I identify as an artist it says an actor and director and I'm always profoundly humbled when I'm invited to events like this because It's been such a long time where I've been able to engage my artistic self My day job has taken over more and more of my life and my day job Intersects well as as many of our lives do I mean finance and social finance specifically I do lending for entrepreneurs who've been left out of the mainstream So women people of color and immigrants and I joke that like many immigrants I have that side and interestingly enough it's often math or finance or or science Torrance herself was a scientist before all of this But but that also as immigrants we just wear so many different hats but probably the most important hat right now and What constantly brings me to these tables is that I'm a parent of two tiny beings with my wife and For them and for the future I now live very comfortably in the intersections of all my identities where previously was very segmented So grateful to be here. Thank you I Mean Thank you so much We started this season talking about queer Amina Suana artists with Adam outside Who is not in the room right now, but when we talked to Adam, he said really a season unclear Okay, is this really the framing you want to do and he asked some really important curatorial questions that we appreciate it I'm acknowledging that now so we don't we don't necessarily need to dig into that in this episode It exists and I I hope that you'll look at that framing because it was a great question that number and I had already been talking about Because it can be tokenized tokenizing and essentializing But it can also be really affirming and productive to be in a state space dedicated to addressing the lived experience of these intersectional identities I also wanted to mention that this morning I was reflecting on what we were doing today and The podcast started whenever I called number one day and I started my PhD And I thought now I'm gonna be in a space with people where I can talk about all day long and they're gonna care And we do talk a lot about performance But the people that want to talk about me the theater is actually quite limited in that space And I was like what if we started a podcast where people we would just talk about this and anyone who cared could tune in and that was before I Realized anything about manama really and I found that there's an affinity space that exists where we can do all of that So it feels so luxurious this weekend to be in this space, but also recording this episode together Um Yeah, she started her PhD and she was like I'm gonna have so much free time we should start a podcast She didn't say that she was I think smarter than that, but it's a ridiculous request at that time I realized but I'm glad I'm glad it's still happening and we're in season three. It's very exciting So we're we're diving deeper into these spaces and I'm actually also really honored to have been a performer at Yesterday morning at 7 a.m. I was I was performing virtually and then came over to Minotma at 9 a.m. So what a lovely Morning that was yesterday So we would love to just start with how each of you define an affinity space in our Minotma programming committee meetings and conversations about this session What an affinity space is and how it should function Wasn't was not a trivial for all of us to define and so we wanted to know how you define that and How they have played your role in your life as an artist if you haven't already spoken about that Anyone can take this away We're gonna edit out all the giant pop In the in the final episode For me An affinity space in my life career has been really directly Connected to advocacy And strengthen numbers. So it's always been actually with an eye towards changemaking. I Don't know if that's just because of the way I'm built. Thank you parents or Just how it works within the specific identities that I hold Queer organizing is messy and beautiful and difficult and in a lot of ways that definition of Making trouble through not necessarily agreement but in a line goal is something that I feel like Within the theater space has been gifted to me from my elders and I like go all the way back to I don't know Tennessee Williams and beyond Oscar Wilde and beyond for this And in the Mina space, it's really In my own journey as an immigrant where an immigrant that is quite white passing Where assimilation was the goal for the first, I don't know five to seven years of my life in the US and losing trying to lose my accent and trying to figure out how to be Pass as white American and feeling like I was just really truly bad at it it took a space like Golden Thread, which is of course an affinity theater company and Realizing not even realizing at the time what a luxury that was to be able to be in a space Where I could say I don't know if I'm this I don't know if I'm that I don't know how this works for me I don't know if I'm Muslim I have a lot of feelings as a queer man of defining as Muslim and then being allowed to make plays about that and have conversations about that and say Possibly terrible things about that in safe spaces and being corrected or guided or just allowed to Hit all of the walls and figure out where I stand and build my spine And the thing I will say for me for affinity space is it is a My experience affinity spaces, especially within the Middle Eastern North African context is a really American idea Yesterday, we were having lunch and we were at a table with a Turkish American artist and Iranian Armenian American artists a Azeri Armenian artists and an Armenian artist and we had to sort of laugh that in this given moment that This lunch wouldn't happen anywhere else and that and we were really having a deep wonderful Conversation about representation and translation and the impossibility of finding words from one language to another This like really deep lovely artistic conversation about check off and beyond and that was the context was an affinity space that really felt In a certain way American in a certain way San Francisco in a certain way Golden Thread and Monopma only possible space And I grew up there as an artist so it feels so second nature to me and It's been a real learning Working in more mainstream theaters larger theaters and meeting so many Middle Eastern North African Artists of Middle Eastern North African descent who haven't had that luxury of growing up and having their salt spines built solid around political and representation issues and the like true Emotional and mental which is sometimes physical suffering. They have to go through or have had to go through in theater specifically I Feel lucky to have grown up in an affinity space like this And an affinity space that is Intersectional that is allows me to be all the things I am and not have to explain myself all the time And I in a way like wish that on every young artist You know because it is It is nice to be seen it is nice to be heard and it is nice to not have to translate yourself all the time um, I was born in the United States and Didn't grow up in a location where I had access to an Arab or Middle Eastern community for most of my childhood And I want to acknowledge that I grew up in what feels like now a very very different time in terms of Queer identity in the United States I'm a dyke of a certain age. I made a big deal of turning 50 on social media this year so I'm not afraid to say it and and And I and I'm gonna say something and then I mean and then I'm gonna qualify it I was it was In my process of coming out I was very afraid that Arab and Middle Eastern Community spaces would not accept me because of my queerness Now I need to say I grew up in a predominantly Christian rural, Pennsylvania environment that was so deeply homophobic in the 80s that I literally thought someone would kill me Literally kill me If I came out So I think we often get stuck in this like narrative that you know somehow Arab and Middle Eastern communities are more homophobic than anyone else. I'm saying rural Christian America Right um And so those affinity spaces queer affinity spaces were key to feeling safe as a queer person in as a young artist and Shit has changed like I am amazed by young folks talking about Transgender identity questioning gender questioning the relationship between sexuality and gender which wasn't even a conversation We had been at all or language for like there has been extraordinary progress and I think now that I look back on it with this question What was truly transformative for me? was that when Arab spaces welcomed me as a queer person and I didn't need an affinity space because The whole space was welcoming and I have to name because I think it's important that we remember our history and we name people Barbara name Riaziz Was the first person to ever give me a radio interview the first person to invite me to Raleigh to be on a panel About the intersection of queer and Arab identity And it's really important that here Here at Golden Thread in this convening there has been 50% or more on the regular daily and pretty much everything Queer representation Yes beautiful and amazing and powerful and just not questioned and so that makes me go Wouldn't it be nice if we just didn't need affinity spaces anymore and every space was like this Yeah, I was thinking about this and Moving to the Bay Area in the early aughts I remember being very clear that I had three distinct identities as an Iranian as a woman and then as a lesbian and That I would play different cards depending on which room I was in And then I also thought that I never quite felt enough of any one of those And and so I remember with a ever and I share a group of very close friends and It was in their company one drunk at night. I was sorry. I was outside and I used to call myself Sarah. Everybody called me Sarah and I was drunk and there was some Middle Eastern guy. He was drunk and his name was Mamad and he called himself Moe and I'm like, no Moe, you can go by Mamad And my friends overheard it and they're like, well, what about you? Why are you going by Sarah? You can be Sarah And it changed then I started going by Sarah and It's a very easy way of telling, you know, who knows me who doesn't if they call me Sarah or Sarah but that in that moment it felt like oh my Iranian self and my American self maybe can live live closely together But it kept having these moments and I remember I did a show with a wonderful theater company in the Bay And I took my then girlfriend to it This is a room full of very queer artists And I told her I said we can't be queer here because they're Middle Eastern and We went through this whole party and I remember being so amazed at how wonderful how drunk how great they all were But I was like we can't be queer around them So up until a very very long period these worlds were completely separate and now I think the only reason I'm probably here is because I live it so loudly and so comfortably and That shift happened though over time and I take your point because even Deciding as a queer woman whether I wear mascara or not because when I moved to the Bay you had to be very butch or you had to be very femme and Even that identity of like how I present myself as a queer woman Has taken time and now I recognize Just this living is Radical in and of itself and and it's an example for so many folks that I've only realized it because I suddenly Recognize I hadn't seen it as much. So anyway, when I was thinking about affinity I was really thinking for me the longest time it had been so separate Care I think also About I don't know if I'm picturing your name, but like pushing the humblest kind of thing forward. And I would like to invite us all, I think this is a good example of that, because you know, I was sharing with you that there's many now, prior to the call, and so glad that you brought those two back in here to raise them, so we'll quickly into the program. Like, I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that the occupation of Palestine has been since 1948, but I want to invite us all to seem clear in this, definitely a busy sexual identity, but beyond the sexual and gender as well, beyond the sexual and beyond gender, he has something sort of a political decision as well. Today I see like, nobody in the world is more clear than those in Bethlehem, you know, the way that there's, there are these civilized, the way they are humanized, the way they are intentionally silent, the way they're legitimized, and then there's anyway, there was a genocide here against pure people in the form of AIDS, HIV pandemic. So this is the call of an epidemic, but it affects more than just pure people, it affects patients as well. It affects, you know, working class, black folks. So I would add to this conversation a little bit, this is my also fellow colleague on the Valley Ward, and I'm going to end here later and organize here just about like how we push those boundaries of queerness beyond, I mean, how do you see, and also the way that Bethlehem is about like how policy in this is a form of queerness in a way, just the way it's constantly marked margin and it's the way it's constantly pushed to the side. And I want to, we're not necessarily right now, but kind of like, we're not going to end that question in theory of it as we make our way back home together.  It feels like none of your business. And also for me queer is a political term and a very specific political term because I'm so glad you brought up the HIV AIDS epidemic, talking about the failure to our government to take care of people as we look at what they're doing right now. We have a long history of this and that's just one example among so many. What I find very moving is the AIDS funerals, the funerals of the people who were killed by neglect as well as this virus were celebrations, drag parties, dance parties. And I feel like I look at our theater, just I'll speak about my art form and I feel like joy has been gentrified, that there is this idea that there's a white woman, cis white woman version of joy that has, and if I actually claim joy as my resistance, which I say all the time, like I am negating the pain and the grief and the rage that we're all feeling and having grown up over there, I have a sort of lived understanding of people who are under the worst conditions that they are the funniest, they are the campiest, they are the most satirical in certain places. And for me, I am queering theater, actually feels very similar to the political actions of Middle Eastern theater, which is really about living in comedy as political action, as community joy and claiming that despite the fact that we're all being killed to a certain extent. And this is something that is really difficult for me to let go of, especially as I work in mainstream spaces where the card I have to play is pain to get a job. And I feel like affinity, yeah, they want my trauma, some of which I don't actually have, by the way, I had a lovely upbringing as a queer boy. My family was wonderful. Don't tell anyone. You know, but like the second, if I'm doing this panel, not led by Middle Eastern or our conscious folks, the first question is like, how was growing up queer? Ask with that soft white tone of care that is actually not care. That's an invitation to perform my pain that I do not have. So it is, and this is not to negate all of the really terrible experiences queer folks have had in Turkey. So then as I say this, I feel like I'm sort of not representing something, et cetera, et cetera. I don't have to talk about it on this podcast because everyone here understands. But the thing for me is as we talk about queerness, as we talk about affinity space, for me, affinity space is also where I get to be unabashedly joyful and celebratory and unapologetic, not just politically, but as friends, as colleagues, as co-conspirators, and that we hold each other accountable to that as we make space for our rage and grief, which is like my, I am adding that to every community agreement from now on, by the way, it is like the most brilliant addition. Can't remember who proposed it, but my God. So I just wanna say that that idea of joy and political, joy as political action lives in my body, both in my queerness and my Middle Eastern-ness. And I wanna claim that for the space. Yes, Everett, that was so beautiful. And it takes me back to something that Hamid Sino said earlier, which was, like you can't, don't use me talking about queerness. I'm paraphrasing them wildly, but don't use my queerness to pinquash and don't use my queerness for part of your political or colonial or imperial agenda. And that's where joy gets in the way of people who try to use these stories for that purpose. And I want to add to what you're saying, my favorite Bell Hooks quote, if you'll indulge, anytime we can throw a amazing black feminist into the space, I feel like we should.  So I love that. It's very much what Evernon and Padas were just saying, but wanted to throw hooks and Hamid Sino into the mix. Yeah. Thank you for that, my girl. I love you, my son. You've already touched on a lot of what we were gonna talk about. So we should just end the podcast here. I'm just kidding. We're not going to, we're here for 20 more minutes. Um, one of the things that I wanted to go a little deeper into, you've each talked about how, kind of how and a little bit of the journey of how the affinity spaces have become intersectional for you or have presented themselves as being open to intersectional identities.  Some of you have had experience with spaces that have been one or the other. You've had to turn on and off certain identities, but in those spaces where you have, you were able to bring your full self, are you able to articulate what are the elements of that kind of affinity space that has allowed for you to bring your full self with all of your intersecting identities? And those listening can learn from that, hopefully, and curate better affinity spaces moving forward. As to everyone was talking, I was remembering one of the best spaces was the annual Golden Thread Party, where we would bring lots of food and dancing, and one of the moments I probably felt the most seen, you and I were on the dance floor, and there was great drumming going on, just it was all very out of the blue, suddenly drums showed up, suddenly someone was singing, and I feel like he probably had more, you know, what do you call it? Hip action that I could muster, and I probably had more shoulder action than he could muster, and between the two of us, we were doing this extremely queer, completely role reversal dance in the living room of one of our founding board members. That to me speaks to everything that's been said, the joy of it, the fluidity of it, the queerness of it, and yet the complete Middle Easternness of it, gave me, constantly gives me joy and great memories. Just so it is said, I did dance her off the dance floor. Not that it was a competition, but I did win. We have had many rematches, I think I've won some of them, but yeah. I disagree. I would say really, people matter more than words for me, actions matter more than words for me, I think we're in a place right now in the American theater where we have to say like all of the right words for some, we feel like the words are the welcoming thing, and I would rather people show up in their imperfect language, but with open hearts, and I understand that I sit in a very privileged body to be able to say this, I also wanna own that, but for me, what makes an affinity space welcoming is that people look me in the eye and say welcome. And when I correct them, they say I'm so sorry, and then just try to use the right pronoun, or call me queer rather than something else, or apologize for an assumption they made. I am a little over perfection before arrival as a requirement of an affinity space, because I think that's as activists, as organizers, and I think everyone on here probably identifies with those words at different levels, but we all are having, knowing everybody's word to a certain extent. We keep leaving behind people who are actually really important by doing that, and as someone who lives in very liberal spaces, and then is supposed to represent not necessarily people in theater who might actually have those words, or believe those things, or they are welcoming, but they actually don't know that that's the word you use for that thing. I'm always sort of negotiating that for myself as I try to create space and represent this impossibly large umbrella of folks called Middle Eastern North African or Muslim. I try to figure out how to make space for people who are coming from different spaces and make sure they feel welcome, and they have an understanding of the rules of engagement, rather than correcting people's verbiage. Evering, can we model what you just said? Yes. Because I'm sitting here and I appreciate, I appreciate the feminist impulse that you started the panel with, to acknowledge and say I'm so happy to be up here with, but I don't identify as femme. That's fantastic.  I've tried and I fail miserably. It's like queer failure all over, I can't do it. I am very sorry to have used that term to define you. Oh no, but you're correct that I do identify as a cisgender woman and that that is a space of privilege that I inhabit. And so these are the kinds of, we're doing the conversation. We're like, that was the thing we want y'all to do. And we want spaces to do, right? Just like have that conversation. But actually I wanted to, I really want to dig a little deeper into the joy and trauma conversation. Is that okay? Yeah, of course. Because I'm thinking about everything you said and how that resonates with me about joy and queer space. And also I'm thinking about my own work, which dives deep into trauma often, right? And I was very much as an activist. And I also embrace the word queer because I do think of it as a much larger political framework than only my sexuality. And that is resisting the normativity or the seduction of capitalism, right? And pushing back on all levels political analysis. But I was formed as a young queer person coming out and as a young activist in the 90s during the AIDS crisis. Where the slogan was, don't mourn, organize. And we did that and we never mourned. And we carried that grief for more than a decade, right? And then, and that, it still hurts us. It still hurts us. And so I think that a lot of my work around trauma is about creating safe spaces to mourn collectively, publicly, to cry, to be witnessed mourning. And also there might be a queer Elvis impersonator in the middle of the Durham Project. Because that's also important to me, right?  And also be queer and joyous in the same process, right? So that's what I'm, I feel sometimes that there's this either or thing happening that I also wanna disrupt. Absolutely, absolutely, Andrea. I love that you mentioned that because that's what I wanna thank you for mentioning that about what I'm gonna be doing in here as the Raleigh founder, we all are invited to her. And actually, that's exactly what you mentioned. Like, we had moments of mourning, of collective mourning and we had moments of collective joy. We had moments of practicing collective care and of support and moments of creation as well. And as the owner of the place where we create from or where we write stories too. And I think that's what everyone was saying as well, like about the mind of trauma. You know, when you take the finger of the victim and of how the victim is, that's your displacement story. That's what the media is always interested in. But never in like, okay, what brought us to this moment. So we appreciate the root causes of the violence that we just encountered and mainly the way the plant is structured that upholds pollutants as a violent structure in itself and therefore an active resistance becomes really an active love, right? And the resistance is the resistance. Even if you say, if it means that it's in violence, I believe that it's a lesser evil. To use liberal thought. But to answer the question that was asked, I think like when it comes to a familiar space with it, I think it's all about really removing the barriers to entry. And that's something that again, that we've been trying how to do while we are living now. Like for example, how we make it more accessible to the table folk. And that's why we chose to do a hybrid festival and required math and, you know, asking people to vaccinate before or at least, you know, take their test, even though those tests are, you know, not as effective with certain strains.  Again, challenging and resisting anti-colonial and anti-interiorist structures, removing barriers to entry. We're working class people in terms of economics as well because class is a very important dynamic that we should all, you know, make space for and always look below on the future and what we, you know, what the unhoused folks mean. How do we bring them into the room? And always like thinking about who's not in the room and how do we bring them into the room. And that was a lovely chapter that I witnessed on this past weekend. And it was something that, you know, because it helps us multiply, right? Like every time we bring somebody that is not in the room, we bring them into the room, then I know who we choose, right? And that is how we build power, and that is how we build care. I believe that is the way the future, I live with a livable future and I may say, you know, how do we push back against what to kind of see? How do we confront our own advocacy blackness within certain areas of the community as well? There's so much to learn, and so much to learn as well. Yeah, I really appreciate this conversation and where it's going. Thank you all. Thank you so much for bringing up the other intersections that we have to be considering when expanding and transforming and growing or if in these spaces, because a, you know, clear end of Nina and Suana friendly space is not necessarily disability friendly. It's not necessarily anti-black, you know? So I love, thank you for bringing in especially those very specific examples as to how this and all we are doing that. I know Golden Thread is also doing that. I know Minatma is also working on that. And that's working for all of us, you know? It's work for all of us and is a constant growth process. And it's interesting to start thinking about, you know, as we become more inclusive, and this is something we've also been exploring in this season, as we become more and more inclusive of intersection, what does an affinity space mean? And I love the ways that each of you all have defined affinity space because it's a definition that is hard to put on paper. You know, you've kind of just find it through the vibe or the way in which your joy can be present in that space. The way in which your grief, your rage, your emotion, what's inside of you can be present in a space which is very different from saying it's a room in which everyone is Nina and Suana and queer, which is an interesting way to think about that and to think about how we grow and expand and create more intersectional affinity spaces. I also wanted to touch on something else you brought up, Fodos, which is this hybrid model. So today we're in person, we're live streaming, we're sharing this asynchronously on Konefa and Shea, and living in a more hybrid world, considerations of the merits and drawbacks of in person versus live versus hybrid gatherings have become very ubiquitous. And while art making has been multimedia since really the beginning of advancements in technology, virtuality has become an even more present consideration, especially for performing artists. So how do you consider physical space in your community building, in your affinity creation and in your art making? You have about five minutes left, so we'll do this sort of more rapid fire. Yes, yes. And I'll also throw in there, considerations of safety and affinity within virtual spaces that can be so much grander, can be international. How do you consider that when it comes to your community building and affinity curation, I guess? I'll jump in and say, I'm just gonna throw a wrench in here, which is gender. Because the spaces that I like to create, maybe because I miss them, because so many have disappeared, are women-only spaces. And that is trans-inclusive, right? And I do that a lot in my work, in my art making. I'm like my joy and pleasure is in women ensemble spaces. And there, again, there was a period of time when there were lots of, and this is so ironic, right? It's ironic because Middle Eastern and Muslim communities get criticized all the time for having gender segregation in public, right? And yet women-only spaces are like my favorite places to be. And so when I'm thinking about creating spaces of safety, it's often around gender identification that is inclusive of trans-non-binary and various sexualities rather than around sexual identity-defined space in my own work, in my own artistic practice. And so I don't know, I kind of wanted to lift up that when we're making our own ensembles, we're in a sense making our own affinity spaces, right? We gather people in a certain way to create together and to create the safety in which we can do our best work or ask the deepest questions or share the deepest stories, right? And so I don't know, maybe that's where I'm at is like making and remaking those spaces. I don't know if that answered the question, but that was just fine. I love it, yeah. I just wanna say, we've been using the word affinity space which tends to be, usually goes with an idea of limiting identity, limiting attendance by identity. However, that identity is defined. And I'm in a place, we just, in the conference just had this really beautiful conversation across different networks of color, representing all sorts of communities, all sorts of backgrounds and the intersectionality of our goals and resources that is needed. And I think I was using this term two days ago to a friend where I was like, I'm just looking for my people.   Meantio, Asian-American queer, femme human is my people. So, and I'm always trying to figure out as I build ensemble or as I build space, especially if the space is either around political action, change-making, or it's about difficult conversation or processing, whether that be through laughter or tears, as you said, Andrea. And I'm looking for my people and trying to make sure that the people in the room share some understanding. And I wish, as I said, I've just started using this term, so I don't know if I have the articulation of how that is defined for me, but the thing I can say is that I know when someone is and when someone isn't. And that is not necessarily across identity lines for me always. The thing I will say about the digital aspect of the question you asked, social media, the digital space that has really sprung out even more now due to the pandemic and the isolation we all felt through that has expanded my community, has done great things for my career, has done great things for my organizing and activism and advocacy. And then I attend a conference like this in person and remember that I'm an in-person person, right? So it's safe for me and as I haven't been back home for so long and my brother lives in a screen as far as I'm concerned, I feel like it's all of it and it has to be. And if you're an immigrant or children are immigrants or and it's really telling to me that in this moment of unbearable violence, the thing that Israel is doing is to shut down internet access, right? That is a violent act right now. And if that is the case, we have to accept that digital space and that access is community, is access to truth. And that does not negate the need for me to hug my brother, right? When I see him next, but it is both and it has to be. Does anyone else wanna comment on this before we wrap up? Yeah, I'll keep it short just cause I know that we're short on time, but I would like to agree completely, I'm not such an immigrant, I guess it's because, you know, we're all indigenous to somewhere. And I invite everybody to invite the folks in their lives, especially the folks that have not passed them yet. Where are you from basically? Where do you come from? We get asked that question a lot, I guess. Otherwise, where should I support other subjects? And I think that it's time to put that question back. And it's also important for each one of us to know where you come from. I believe they're involved in such that, you know, you'll never be able to move forward until you consent your own path, right? And you know where you come from. And from our journey, because there's a celebration there of your goals and how far you've come. Yeah, and just like asked, each other and I said, where do you come from? And to return to that place, a beautiful, wonderful writer and hopefully the performance of it, a writer very much, he came just five up a bar fee, said that you can share the path that you return to. And I truly believe that, yeah. I'll leave it there. Thank you all so much for this wonderful talk today. Thank you. We're going to end the way that number, and I end all of our episodes, our phone calls, the way that you might have ended the 20 minute goodbye at Hildo or Tooth House with a nice yellow bye. So can we do it all as a group? As loud as you can, so all the mics can pick them up, all right? Are you ready? Yellow bye, everyone. One, two, three. Yellow bye! Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for us. Yellow bye! I see your hand. We're done with the episode, but we can continue to chat.


Kaj je to pričočne? Je to počkaj, da se zelo izvah na vseboje in urbanta formučne in je to je poslutno nekaj sega, da je zelo v compelling 11. svi. Na predseboj, bilo, da je zelo vseboj vseboj vseboj in vseboj vseboj vseboj vseboj sve bo večo tukaj na preziru medivalim rome.    Kaj ni ga po všem slavu, kar 11 sem, je biljamo lepo informacijo. V seboj se data starta od nekakv delegu 11 in vseboj, kako je vseboj delegu vseboj, ki je vseboj delegu vseboj 12. Tukaj informacij je nekaj vsak, sa nekaj in obmačenih z vrštih vrštih. If we think about the reconstruction of the urbanistic development of room that, for example, you bear, give twice, we can add these three important points. A first phase of growth in the first 20 years of the 11th century has slowed down until the first 20 years of the 12th century and a new growth between the second half of the 12th century and the end of the 13th century. And although this last point is really known as the famous room and urban renaissance and we have a lot of study about there and a huge part of the building that we have in Rome are about this moment, we don't know nothing about the contests that produce this completely new evolution in the building in Rome. But if we look at all the data that it could be possible together for the end of the 11th century and the beginning of the 12th century what we can notice is the presence of a large increase of building activity about church, first of all. In connection with this huge activity that was in connection with the presence of the pope, Pascal II in Rome, it is possible also to notice the presence of other important element. In this moment, in fact, we have a series of elevation and levelling also up to 5, 4 and 6 meters in certain case and all conduct during one single phase. To give the example of these are the church of San Crisogono in Rome and the church of San, sorry, the church of San Clemente in Rome and the church of San Crisogono that are characterized in both by two overlapping buildings. So we have the ancient one, for example, in this case the blue one and at the end of the 11th century we have the new one built on the other but they are in use contemporary because we have trays of great user in both of them. This information is really interesting if we think at the organization of the city. All these information and all these series of elevation and levelling that we can notice also in some point in which we have a automotive house that is connected by Federico Vido Baldi at an important urban plan that involve especially road networking. But according to me these series of elevation and levelling is to connected to something that is more bigger than renovation of road and involve also water infrastructure seriography and in general the idea that we have of the city in this moment. Together in fact with all these transformation we can speak about another really important element the building of this river that you can see here. This is an artificial channel that we know was finished in 1122 under the Pope Callistus II. The stream that is the Marana stream in the reality is the deviation of another river that at the beginning move in the north of the city grow up in this point move then in the Indiana that is the first tributary of the Tiber and from this point move inside the city of Rome just a little before the Vatican so we are in the north of the city. With the deviation that from this point that you can see here move water in the south the water of the ancient river was connected with another river with this loose and then move close to the city of Rome in front of Porta Sinara. Here we are close to the ladder. By this point the water brings water to a lot of males. And then by this point we arrive into the city moving from Porta Metrona so the door, another door of the Aurelian wall was used by this river to move inside the city. By this point the river start to be a urban stream cross the Circus Massimon and then move into the Tiber, a little bit after the Tiber Island. So if we put all together all these elements here we put for you some evidence from excavation about the riverbed loose and the embankment that was found in the Circo Massimon. This is the nickname of the embankment that is really important and on which I speak to you later. If we put all together all this data about the stream what we can say is that the water moved from the north that point is the point in which before the deviation the water moved in the Tiber so just a little before the Vatican but after the deviation the water moved in the Tiber here. In one way we can say that with the organization of this deviation all this area of the city that is the place in which Roa, the real medieval city in the second half of the 12th century and then the 13th century was preserved. This is really important because this area is an area at risk of flows. So if we think these together with all the reveling it's not true that we have a lack of information about the building activity of Rome but what we can notice that is that we have in a certain way a kind of background a moment in which Rome looks like a building site in which everything was changed to transform the city. By this moment the city start to be something different from the early medieval city that we know composed by a kind of scattered settlement. After all this transformation the city became a cohesive town all inside this area. Then if we look at the position of all the point in which it could be possible to find all this change of arography what we can notice is that they happens all around these two roads that put in connection the ladder run with the vadigan. So by that moment vadigan and ladder run start to be the focal point of this new city that start to be concentrated in the middle. These two roads that I show to you are together the roads that compose the famous Via Papalis that is the road used by the pope for all the ceremony that from the ladder move in the vadigan and then come back. On this matter a comparison with other cities seems useful. In Newtonian period in the 12th century a series of intervention and urban renovation were made that connect the religious contests to the urban landscape allowing its vision from a certain distance and enhancing however its impact. In a large variety of solution adopted all implying however a willingness of intervention the example of Woodsburg Spira in Augusta seems appealing. If in the case of Woodsburg the sequence formed by the bridge the Don Straß and the Religious Building is interesting. In the case of Spira and Augusta here we see a monumental unity of the project. With no doubt the Via Papalis is far away from the Maximilian Straß of Augusta that were 40 meters wide but I believe however that the example is suitable for the intention of connecting permanently the city with the church defining in this way a main road for the control and use of city power within a cohesive urban space. Then one final consideration should be made on the economical importance of this intervention at least on the work of the Marana stream. The deviation of a river is not something irrelevant even more if one considers it within the large contests of transformation described that certainly implied a significant economical commitment. We are currently not able to quantify the cost of such a work but what we can say is for example, look at the Mansory Technique here we have the technique used in the embankment of the river that is the same that we can find in a lot of other buildings that are built at the same period that we have in Rome not inside the city but all around the city we don't have the use of this Mansory in Rome in this moment in religious building and this technique is the same that we can find in some of the restore into the uranium wall that are all concentrated in the south of the city that is the same point in which we have the passage of the Marana stream so what we can say is that all these elements recall in a certain way the civic context and allowing to suggest what looks like a possible secular collaboration in all this work in this moment of great transformation of course it's just an hypothesis and it's a new way of research that we start nowadays and so we need to have more data to confirm this but it's a really interesting element because from the original idea that we have at the city for all this study and from what Redenshurst told us what we can say that the end of the 11th century and the beginning of the 12th is really a background, really important for knows the medieval Rome. Thank you.