Help improving translation

Fri Nov 24 10:21:22 UTC 2006

Hi,

2006/11/23, Thomas Canniot <thomas.canniot at laposte.net>:
> Le jeudi 23 novembre 2006 à 11:03 +0100, Xavier Conde Rueda a écrit :
> > Hi Thomas,
> >
> > >
> > > I have been translating fedora in French for few months only and i'm
> > > facing problems with contributors' translations.
> > >
> > > I used to translate po files, and, as we were very few French
> > > translators (2 *only*), it was quite easy to ask for the mate to read
> > > over the translation and to know what he is actually doing.
> > >
> > > However, now that I have less free time and now that we are more than 2
> > > translating Fedora into French, when I take the initiative to translate
> > > 2 or 3 missing or recently added strings, I met bad translation and
> > > mistakes.
> > >
> > > There are few problems in our translation process :
> > >
> > > - People are not communicating by mailing list. The fact is that
> > > translation is often seen as a lonely activity and that you don't need
> > > any response from someone to take a po file and translate it. There is
> > > no way to know who is working on what.
> >
> > -- This is bad management. You should fix that by yourself. As the
> > project leader, you should query the status of translations. On
> > voluntary projects it's important to track the status of other's work,
> > since they don't have an economical commitment, also people is very
> > selective on what they spend their free time.
> >
>
> I am not a project leader. I am just someone who learned English at university and who just see mistakes more than others tranlsators do.
>

> >
> >
> > > - The status page [1] are useful to know what has been translated, but
> > > useless to know what has been read over.
> > > - People do not use the reservation system "take" button and if they do,
> > > they don't update they reservation.
> >
> > -- You should assign translations to translators. Only one person
> > should have commit access for a given project. When people wants to
> > translate something, send them the PO file. You should manage by
> > yourself who is doing what. A simple spreadsheet will do.
> >
>
> How to step back with people who already have all the rights ? I can't *obviously* take them this right back, nor I want to.
> I don't want to be the one who decide, because I believe people are able enough to decide for themselves. If people want to translate something, then they do it, it's their choice.

-- There is nothing bad with telling people what should translate,
it's the leader responsability to assign the work rightly.

> Nobody should have a word about what they would want to do, as long as it is good for the Project.

-- But you are saying it's not good for your project, aren't you? You
say people goes their way and it is affecting negatively French
Fedora. I don't see project management as a dictatorship, unless
contributors are unhappy with the dictator. It is called benevolent
dictatorship. So you are unhappy with the project leader. He/she is
commiting work that hasn't enough quality. I'm right?

I don't see how are you gonna fix it by taking a look at what has been
commited. The usual way of working is
translating->reviewing->fixing->commit. If people is commiting without
good reviewing, then you must tell them. If you consider you should
have a word on translation quality, then you should ask for getting
that role assigned to you.

>
> >
> > Anyway, I find the take button completely useless, not to mention the
> > bunch of mails saying it's going to expire soon. I suppose people
> > doesn't want to get 5 mails each time they take a module, so they do
> > it once, but not twice :). It's not good for synchronization.
> >
>
> So do I.
>
> >
> > > What I'm planning to do : take every po file, and read over them until
> > > FC7 comes out. This is the only way I found to avoid bad translation in
> > > Fedora.
> > >
> > > Any advice to help out ?
> > >
> > > As we are changing lots of things on Fedora, wouldn't be the time to
> > > improve the translation process :
> > > - we shouldn't give anymore rights to upload CVS translation. CVS should
> > > only be accessible in read only and only people that read translation
> > > over should be allowed to update po to the CVS.
> >
> > -- As I said, only project leaders should have commit access, not everybody.
> >
> > > - as there is mailing list for modifications on CVS docs, we need a
> > > mailing list as well for each language po modification. Mailing list are
> > > easy to set up and do not consume any ressources.
> >
> > -- There is a commits list you can subscribe, it will do for you. But
> > it's the same thing, only you should be committing. Personally, for
> > Catalan we don't need it. Not sure we need it for every language.
>
> The problem of *leader* is that one day, I may not be as available as other people would like me to.
> We are facing this problem in France, and the leader of the GNOME translation Project is not very well seen by people.
> The French GNOME community is divided and does not work to its full capabilities.
>
> >
> > > - we could also use a system allowing to add a status of what has to be
> > > done with a po file : "waiting for translation", "waiting for being read
> > > over", "translation in progress" for example, are status that could be
> > > used.
> >
> > -- If Fedora provides a full web translation management environment it
> > would be great. However, a wiki page could be used, where each
> > contributor writes down the status of their current translation.
>
> If they do so, they could actually mail the list, that they don't do. Why would they write it on a wiki page ?

-- Why they would change the status on the status page, then :)?

As I see from what you are saying, the main problem is people isn't
using the mail list. This should be adressed as the main problem
inside your project.

> I think we are more at a state where people should be obliged to tell the status of their translation to commit it.
>

Good luck! I hope your translation team improves Fedora.

> >
> > Regards!
> >
> > > just my 2 cents.
> > >
> > > [1] http://i18n.redhat.com/cgi-bin/i18n-status
> > > --
> > > Thomas Canniot
> > > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasCanniot
> > >
> >
> --
> Thomas Canniot
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ThomasCanniot
>
> --
> Fedora-trans-list mailing list
> Fedora-trans-list at redhat.com
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-trans-list
>

-- 
Google talk: xavi.conde a gmail.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Pink Floyd | Brain Damage | Dark side of the moon
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------