How translation packs are reviewed

A translation pack is a set of language files for one plugin or theme version. Packs come from Interpres Pro sites that chose to share what they translated, and from our own seed translations. Nothing goes out to other sites until it has passed the steps below.

1. What a pack contains

• The .po file (source strings and their translations), the compiled .mo, and, when the plugin has admin JavaScript text, a small JSON map for those strings.
• A manifest: plugin slug, version, locale, string counts, and where each translation came from (AI, an existing translation that shipped with the plugin, a manual edit on the sharing site, an imported file, or a reviewer's correction).
• Nothing else. No site content, no user data, no API keys. The sharing site is identified by a hash of its address, never the address itself (see the privacy policy).

2. Automatic checks

Every incoming pack is unpacked on the server and checked line by line. The checks run again each time a reviewer opens the pack, so they always use the latest checker.

Check	What it catches
Placeholders	Every %s, %1$s, %d in the source must appear in the translation, in a form the plugin can fill in. Numbered and unnumbered forms of the same placeholder count as equal; a reordered or missing one is an error. Plural entries are checked against the plural source.
HTML	Tags in the source (<a>, <strong>, <br> …) must come back with the same tag set, so links and formatting survive.
Untranslated	Translations identical to the source are listed, except URLs, e-mail addresses and brand names that should stay as they are.
JavaScript strings	Fragments that are not real sentences (half of a code string, unbalanced quotes) are excluded from the pack and from the counts.
Sender	The pack must come from a site with an active Interpres Pro license. One site can have one pending pack per plugin version; sharing again replaces the earlier one.

3. Human review

A reviewer opens each pack and sees:

• every line the automatic checks flagged, with the source, the translation and the reason;
• a random sample of 30 translated strings, and a button to draw another sample;
• a diff against the pack that is already public for the same version, when there is one (added, changed, removed strings);
• the origin of every string, so a hand-edited translation is not mistaken for a machine one.

The reviewer then approves, holds (to test the pack on a site first) or rejects. A wrong line can be corrected on the spot; the correction is delivered to every site that installs the pack, without touching the pack file itself. Approvals can be reverted: the previous public pack is restored, or the pack is hidden if it was the first for that version.

4. After approval

• The pack becomes available to every site that asks for that plugin, version and language. Sites get the exact version when there is one, otherwise the nearest version, and the plugin shows which it got.
• Sites can correct strings locally. Those corrections are kept through pack updates and, if the site allows it, sent back as suggestions. Suggestions are reviewed the same way and, once accepted, reach every site using that pack within a day.
• Every public pack is backed up before it is replaced, and the whole database is exported weekly.

5. What we do not do

• We do not read or store anything from a site except the language files it chose to share.
• We do not change a plugin's own files. Packs are installed into WordPress's wp-content/languages folder and can be removed with one click.
• We do not publish a pack that failed the placeholder or HTML checks without a reviewer fixing or rejecting the affected lines.

Questions or a translation that looks wrong? Write to hello@interpres.ing with the plugin name, version and the string.