Guide on release notes translation?

[Karsten Wade]

On Fri, 2006-07-07 at 01:55 +0100, Dimitris Glezos wrote:
> I'm bringing this up again (CC:ing -trans-list), since I received no 
> reply and FC6 is getting closer.
> 
> Dimitris Glezos wrote:
>  > I searched the wiki for a page explaining how the translation of the
>  > beats work (or should work), but didn't find any.
> 
> Is there any guide on how one should translate the release notes/beats? 
> If not, could someone please write the steps one should follow?

It is the same as translating any other document.

> I know the situation with Beats, moin-to-xml export and relevant stuff 
> are experimental, probably temporary and fragile, but there *should* be 
> a way for translators to have more than some days to translate the 
> 14.000-long release notes text.

Currently it is much shorter than that, I hope. :)

We are experimenting with new tools for Wiki -> XML, but there are no
plans to abandon the Wiki as the _source_ for untranslated content.
We'll continue working in XML for translation and publishing.

We are also several days behind schedule[1] to get PO files published
for translations to appear in the ISO this coming week.  For this, I am
responsible and again apologize for the delay.  We had high goals for
this release, and unfortunately are falling a little short.

If all goes well, I'll announce PO files tonight.  Anyone who is
available can translate them for this coming week.

[1] http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Schedule

> > Some other questions that come to my mind concerning the relnotes 
> > translation:
> > 
> >   * Does the "release notes freeze day" mean that a translator can't (or 
> > shouldn't) translate the .po file earlier?
> >  * Is the 'release-notes/devel' cvs module updated from the wiki before 
> > the freeze day so that we can star working on the translation before the 
> > freeze day?
> >  * If yes, how often?

Some of the wording in the schedule was confusing.  Can you look at the
schedule again and see if it makes more sense?

The key is the "Wiki snapshot".  We give ourselves 24 hours to convert
to XML.  This week it is taking longer to go from the Wiki to XML
(several days). :(

This means that there is not a chance to start translating before the
"Relnotes frozen for translators" on the schedule; that is when the XML
and PO files are first available.

> >  * What's the best way to retain the translated parts of the older beats 
> > without translating them again?

This are questions that are going to matter when going from test2 ->
test3.  None of the content from FC5 is relevant, although there may be
some exceptions if a beat writer retains something.

As we get closer to the release, some content is added, some is changed.
We do want to collect some how-tos/tips for translators for keeping
translated strings where there have been no changes.

> > If there is such a page (targeted for translators, not beat writers), 
> > someone please point it out to me (sorry for not finding it).
> > 
> > If not, then I believe such a page would be useful, because the 
> > translation of the release notes are somewhat different from the rest of 
> > the docs.

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/Translation is all that I know
of.  Perhaps you can help write such a page at
DocsProject/ReleaseNotes/Translation?

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE, 108 Editor    ^     Fedora Documentation Project 
 Sr. Developer Relations Mgr.     |  fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
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