Understand translation status

Every locale-specific string can carry one of four workflow labels:

These labels describe provenance or review state. They do not publish content and do not guarantee correctness.

How statuses are assigned

In Translations → Translate contents:

• saving a changed non-empty textarea manually assigns Human;
• clearing a changed textarea and saving assigns Pending;
• POM AI stores successful generated text as Machine;
• Mark as Reviewed changes the selected rows to Reviewed.

Bulk actions can also assign any of the four labels without changing the translation text. Therefore, a Pending row can technically contain text, and a Reviewed label reflects an editor’s decision rather than automated validation.

Status and frontend output are separate

POM Translate renders a valid non-empty translation regardless of whether it is Machine, Human, or Reviewed. A missing value falls back to the source.

Changing Human to Reviewed does not alter the visitor-facing words. Changing a non-empty row to Pending also does not clear its words. Use Delete selected translations or clear and save the textarea when the target value itself must be removed.

Use filters for editorial queues

The All statuses selector can isolate:

• Pending for outstanding work;
• Machine for mandatory human review;
• Human for second-editor review;
• Reviewed for approved rows.

Combine the status with Post, Object ID, and search filters to keep a review batch focused.

Interpret the translator column

The Translator column identifies the WordPress user associated with the stored translation or most recent status update. A dash means no usable user is recorded.

This is a lightweight accountability aid, not a version history. POM Translate’s public workflow does not expose per-string revision comparisons in this table.

Use Reviewed consistently

A practical policy is:

1. Pending — no approved target value;
2. Machine — generated draft;
3. Human — translated or materially edited by a person;
4. Reviewed — checked in context by the assigned reviewer.

Mark rows reviewed only after checking placeholders, wording, links, layout, and the localized route. For regulated text, retain any external approval records required by the organization.

Understand source-change resets

When an extracted source row changes, POM Translate deletes its locale translations before attempting exact-match reuse. The new row can therefore return to missing work instead of retaining a misleading Reviewed label.

Unchanged rows keep their stored values and statuses.

Avoid status-only mistakes

• Do not mark an empty row Reviewed to raise confidence; the frontend still falls back.
• Do not mark machine output Human without actually reviewing it.
• Do not use Pending as a way to hide non-empty text.
• Do not confuse 100% translated with 100% reviewed.
• Do not bulk-delete outside the intended locale and filtered object set.

Read Review translated content before publication for the approval sequence.