About

Ziwén (子文) is a Reddit bot that handles real-time commands for r/translator, the largest translation community on the website.

It posts comments and sends messages under the username u/translator-BOT. Ziwen moderates and keeps r/translator organized, provides community members with useful reference information, and crossposts translation requests from elsewhere on Reddit.

Documentation

Documentation for Ziwen's various commands can be found here.

Modules

• _config.py - a file containing connections to the bot's databases and credentials.
• _languages.py - a file containing basic language data and functions.
• _responses.py - a file containing all the long-form message and comment templates used by the bot.
• Ziwen.py - the main runtime of the bot.
• Ziwen_Streamer.py - the live "streaming" component of the bot. Run independently, it allows users to crosspost from anywhere on Reddit.

Bot Data Files

The bulk of Ziwen's data is stored in three SQLite3 files:

• _cache_main.db contains the temporary caches of the bot, including the cache for comment edits and language multipliers for points.
• _database_ajo stores the Ajos of the bot (see below) indexed by their post ID.
• _database_main.db stores everything else, including the database of user notifications, points, and items that have already been processed.

Technical Info

Ziwen is written in Python 3 and utilizes PRAW to connect to Reddit. The bot also uses SQLite3 and Markdown to store data in its Data folder.

Ajo Objects

Each r/translator post that Ziwen processes is stored locally as an Ajo object (from Esperanto aĵo, meaning "thing"). This allows the bot to keep track of information that would otherwise be lost as the post changes. Below are some examples.

Single-Language Ajo

{
    'output_oflair_text': 'Needs Review [JA]',
    'language_code_1': 'ja',
    'created_utc': 1534953367,
    'is_long': False,
    'output_oflair_css': 'doublecheck',
    'author': 'right8',
    'country_code': None,
    'status': 'doublecheck',
    'type': 'single',
    'language_history': ['Chinese', 'Japanese'],
    'language_code_3': 'jpn',
    'title_original': '[Chinese > English] Found under a bronze statue of the Buddha. Meaning?',
    'time_delta': {'doublecheck': 1534960329},
    'recorded_translators': ['kungming2'],
    'is_supported': True,
    'title': 'Found under a bronze statue of the Buddha. Meaning?',
    'is_identified': True,
    'original_source_language_name': 'Chinese',
    'is_bot_crosspost': False,
    'language_name': 'Japanese',
    'direction': 'english_to',
    'original_target_language_name': 'English',
    'id': '99eint'
}

Multiple-Language Ajo

{
    'original_source_language_name': 'English',
    'language_code_3': ['fin', 'fra', 'hrv', 'jpn', 'nld', 'nor'],
    'title': 'Great Lion',
    'recorded_translators': ['Cyntex-', 'T-a-r-a-x', 'tobiasvl', 'Rootriver'],
    'created_utc': 1534478920,
    'original_target_language_name': ['Finnish', 'French', 'Norwegian', 'Croatian', 'Dutch', 'Japanese'],
    'title_original': '[English > French, Japanese, Croatian, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian] Great Lion',
    'output_oflair_text': 'Multiple Languages [FI✔, FR✔, HR, JA✔, NL✔, NO✔]',
    'language_history': ['Multiple Languages'],
    'output_oflair_css': 'multiple',
    'language_name': ['Finnish', 'French', 'Croatian', 'Japanese', 'Dutch', 'Norwegian'],
    'country_code': None,
    'is_long': False,
    'direction': 'english_from',
    'status': {'fi': 'translated', 
               'ja': 'translated',
               'fr': 'translated',
               'no': 'translated',
               'hr': 'untranslated',
               'nl': 'translated'},
    'type': 'multiple',
    'is_supported': True,
    'is_bot_crosspost': False,
    'author': 'PrinceTanglemane',
    'language_code_1': ['fi', 'fr', 'hr', 'ja', 'nl', 'no'],
    'is_identified': False,
    'id': '97z6rg'
}

Reference Databases

Ziwen uses various databases to provide language reference and lookup information, including but not limited to:

• 5156edu
• Babelcarp
• Baxter-Sagart Reconstruction of Old Chinese
• Chinese Character Web API
• CC-CANTO
• CC-CEDICT
• Chinese Text Project
• Ethnologue
• Jinmei Kanji Jisho 人名漢字辞典
• Jisho
• Jitenon
• MultiTree
• NAVER
• SFX Translations
• Shufazidian 书法字典
• Soothill-Lewis
• Unihan
• Wikipedia
• Wiktionary

Feedback

Feedback for Ziwen should be posted as a text post over at r/translatorBOT. Users are more than welcome to file a pull request if they would like to add a new feature or fix a bug.