Annoucement: New translation status page is installed

Josep Puigdemont josep at imatge-sintetica.com
Thu Jun 24 13:37:46 UTC 2004


On Thu, 2004-06-24 at 11:28, Bernd Groh wrote:
> Josep Puigdemont schrieb:
> >Anyway, I still disagree in not having translation teams instead, and I
> >would be a bad member of the community if I didn't at least mention it
> >(even if it is only for myself who I'm speaking for).
> >
> 
> Nobody keeps anyone from having translations teams, I think it is a good 
> idea, but not one we'll be enforcing. This is something that has to 
> evolve out of the community itself.
> 

Just to summarize my position: As long as this system allows
unconsistent translations, I'll think it is flawed, and thus I'll oppose
to it (in a nice way). That I oppose to it doesn't mean I will not
respect it.

And yes, I think the translation of Fedora has been flawed since day
one, it's up to us to get it right. I was really surprised when I got
the CVS account at Red Hat for translations, without questioning or
hesitation from your side, I appreciate the trust, but it can also bring
undesired lateral effects, fortunately I'm a nice guy :)

Finally, I believe that keeping the distribution consistent and coherent
is more important than getting a new translator started.

Colophon: Who can tell if a translation is "right" or not? Or if it is
"consistent" or not? that will be hard... maybe looking at "previous
art", merit, or experience... Tough question, really, that's the weak
part of my argument. Probably a team of translators for the same
language would be able to decide what's "right", like in a democracy, as
long as anyone can join a translation team, of course :)

> >  On the other hand, if a new translator had to join a team, s/he would
> >have to use the same style and terminology as the rest of the team,
> >which I find _very_ important. For example, the word "File" can be
> >translated into my language as "Fitxer" or "Arxiu". In order to keep
> >consistency we had to decide which one to use and stay with it always,
> >and _that's_ what a translation team can guarantee, and _that_ improves
> >quality and consistency among translations. That's just one example, but
> >there are many, specially those related to "new" terms like "buffer" or
> >"cache", for which many people use the English term when there already
> >is a translation.
> >
> 
> Believe me, this point is very well taken, but at the same time, you can 
> watch who is translating what, and if you recognize a new translator, 
> invite her/him to your team. Why does it always have to be the new 
> translator who gets in contact with the group? I personally believe in 
> making it as easy for people to get started as possible. Wouldn't it be 
> easier for the group to send an invite?
> 

Right, if there's the case I (or someone else) will ask a new translator
to join us, of course. It is just that s/he might not want to do it, or
might not want to use the same terminology we've used for the rest of
the translations... then what? One application says "Quit" the other
says  "Exit"... This is the only concern I have, and as a solution I
only see enforcing (doh!) translation teams. But maybe that's not the
goal of Fedora Translation Project (FTP?, ouch), maybe the goal is just
to have the distro translated not consistent as well.

> >I still think that it would be good to force translators to work and
> >join translation teams.
> >
> 
> I believe it would be good to encourage them, I disagree with forcing them.
> 

  At least forcing the translator to commit himself to make a
translation that will be consistent with the rest of the translations
for a particular language.
  Just another example to illustrate what I mean: "log viewer" (the
application) appears in three or four different files: menus, dist,
anaconda and redhat-logviewer (iirc). All translations should use the
same translation of "log viewer" or we'll confuse the user, but four
different translators could use four different translations (yes it
could be possible!).

  I don't know if Red Hat has a policy on how the interface to the user
should be, and in what way should it address the user, for instance if
the policy (if any) encourage to ask the user: "Please, press the
button", or to order: "Press the button", or at developer's will (which
I think would be inconsistent)... Thinks like this make a difference.
Our policy, to give yet another example, tells us to address the user as
"you" [polite you] ("ni" in Swedish), and orders from the user to the
computer are in imperative form. Now, being consistent with this is key.
If there's an application that doesn't follow the same style (or policy)
it will disturb the user, and will harm the distro (imo). I'm not saying
that ours is the best policy, I'm saying that it has to be consistent,
and I know you agree, but the new method doesn't guarantee that (or does
it?).

>
> Why won't you be the maintainer then? ;) And being a current translator 
>

I'll apply for maintainer of ca (Catalan), if no one objects. The web
page doesn't really tell what the role of a maintainer is, though, I
think it should be stated somewhere. So I wait until I know what I'm
messing with :)
Policy on how to become maintainer and how to depose one should be
stated too, probably.

> is not about credit, it's so that people know who is currently 
> translating the file, or who intends a commit, so that other people know 
> what to and what not to translate.

I just took dist, and it looks kind of unfair to have my name as a
Translator, as we're, so far, 4 people working [slowly] on that file,
and I am probably the one that has contributed the less. But well, it's
something we can live with, I suppose :)

Now, I know I seem to take this a bit religiously, and maybe I do, I
just want you to see the light and become a convert, then I shall give
you a place in the heaven of translationland :)

Best regards,

Josep

P.S.: I promised myself it would not be a long mail, but... here it
is...





More information about the Fedora-trans-list mailing list