This page contains information and tools that can be used as a springboard for anyone engaged in exploratory testing of the MediaWiki Content Translation feature.
This Wikipedia article gives you a good overview of Exploratory Testing, including a smattering of history and many useful links for investigating the subject further.
Brett Pettichord compares Context-Driven Testing (which focuses on exploratory testing) to three other schools of testing: Analytical, Factory, and Quality Assurance.
Context-Driven or Exploratory testing starts with the acknowledgment that it is impossible to test everything about the software. If you don't believe that, read this article by Michael Hunter - it's an eye opener!
Just go watch this. It's James Bach, one of the founders of Context-Driven Software Testing, describing what it's all about in under 5 minutes. Spoiler alert: He recommends three books, none of which have anything to do with testing -- or do they?
In this short video, Ingo Philipp of Tricentis explains the importance of exploratory testing in ensuring complete test coverage. "We regard something as properly tested when it has been checked by efficient, formal test automation based on solid test case design AND when it is checked by the richness of the intellect of human beings."
This resource explains provides an overview of Exploratory and Session-Based Testing, and discusses the importance of using Exploratory Testing in order to gain better QA coverage.
You'll be speaking in 2-letter language codes before long! They're a great shortcut, whether you're using them as input in CX2 language search fields or in a Phabricator bug report to describe your testing.
You can download these tools to help guide your initial testing. (They are particularly helpful when you are first learning Content Translation and want an overview of its capabilities.)
A map of the different parts of CX2 to help guide your testing. More flexible than the regression testing spreadsheet; the sections are not interdependent, so you can pick and choose your area of focus.
These are good to keep in mind whether you're testing a known bug, documenting a new one, or verifying a fix.
Tips...
Details
Test against all machine translation engines
CX2 supports five different machine translation engines: Apertium, Yandex, Google Translate, LingoCloud, and Youdao. The subset you see in the Translate page depends on the language pair you're using. Test against all engines that are available. If you discover an issue, test against "Copy Source Material" as well (as a control).
Test the full spectrum of languages
For full coverage, test using the following language pairs:
en to Hebrew (or Farsi, Arabic - any of the right-to-left languages)
en to Chinese (or Korean, Japanese - the CJK language group)
en to Gujarati (or another scripted language)
Note the CX version you're using
When you're posting test results, it's helpful to include the CX version. To find the version, navigate to page Special:Version in the wiki test environment.
Test in different browsers
Remember to switch to different browsers from time to time. It's especially helpful to run through a complete regression suite or checklist using a browser that you and your coworkers tend to neglect! (IE, anybody? Firefox? Opera?)
The Content Translation test sites draw articles directly from Wikipedia and many other wikis, so there is always a wealth of source material for you to use in your testing. However, if you are focused on a particular scenario -- such as how Content Translation handles complex tables or particular templates -- it can be difficult to locate a page with the right elements. This list can help you find what you need. (And feel free to add any interesting examples you've come across yourself!)
Template:Flagicon (embedded in table). Flagicon should display flag thumbnail image that links to article about associated country or organization. Template documentation is here.
Missing link. In English-to-Espanol translation, rows 2, 3, 10 & 11 (Chenyu, Feng, KZ & Chong) are "missing links" -- i.e., the target page is missing in the es wiki. Double click to open "Missing Link" dialog.
Lots of block-level <math> elements. There are also some formulas embedded in tables, as well as a few inline math elements (although these are mainly individual symbols rather than formulas).
Single example of score element. (Note: though it looks like there are two scores titled "Legacy Jig," only the first is a <score> element. The second is just an image.
